"We'll have to do the best we can without her," he says, looking down at his boots on the dirty floor. Old boots, scuffed and worn. Those are the same as on the Island, anyway. "We might run into her."

He looks up at Tom again, and there's a strength in him that he doesn't remember seeing before. It must have been there before now but he's only now noticing it, a kind of warm determination behind Tom's blue-green eyes. He'd always been so afraid of what the Realm would make him into. But the Island must have changed him too.

Changed all of them.

"We should find some food," he says. "We can't afford to weaken."