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“Tekeli-li!” the birds continued to scream as Isobel pulled her friend toward the opening.
“What is that?” asked Gwen, her hand strangling Isobel’s. “What are they saying?”
“It means ‘Beware the White One,’” answered a voice from behind, its unmistakable tone causing Isobel to halt a foot from Varen and the open portal.
Through the haze, she focused on the familiar figure now striding toward them from the line of trees.
Isobel almost smiled to see Reynolds clad once more in his wide-brimmed hat and black cloak, his two swords drawn point-down at either side. He lacked only his concealing white scarf.
But slung low around his waist like the sash of a military sergeant, Reynolds wore a new garment in its stead.
Isobel’s ribbon.
Despite its muted pink, the tattered and bloodstained satin lent him an added air of authority. But most important, her ribbon’s presence on his person squelched the last of Isobel’s lingering doubts about his allegiance.
For Reynolds must have saved the sash from the ragged waves and kept it safe all this time. Just as he’d saved her. Then, and now again. She knew he wouldn’t have bothered with the sash if she’d been expendable to him—if he’d only saved her to use her later. If he hadn’t cared.
The ribbon might not answer all of Isobel’s questions regarding Reynolds, but it did answer the most important one of all.
He was on their side.
Her side.
As he had been the entire time.
42
Unbinding
“Izzy, get back!” Dropping Isobel’s hand, Gwen leaped in front of her.
Isobel blinked in shock as Gwen delved into her purse and retrieved a small metal canister.
“One step,” Gwen growled at Reynolds, leveling the container right at him, “gets you an instant face improvement. I got a ten-foot stream on this thing and two million Scoville heat units that will make you wish you were dead . . . er.”
Isobel squinted at the canister. Was that . . . ?
“It’s called covering,” Gwen snapped at Isobel from over her shoulder. “Now would you go? Both of you. I’m right behind you.”
So Gwen hadn’t been joking about the pepper spray.
Isobel smirked, unable to help herself.
Unperturbed, Reynolds carefully sheathed his cutlasses one after the other.
“That’s right, Barbossa, pack ’em up,” barked Gwen as she shifted skittishly from foot to foot. “Now . . . just turn and walk away. Back to whatever sad, subterranean, pipe-organ-playing underworld existence you decided to take a vacation from.”
“Gwen . . .” Stepping forward, Isobel placed a hand on her friend’s trembling wrist. “It’s okay. He’s okay.”
Gwen frowned, eyes flitting from Reynolds to Isobel and back again.
“What do you mean ‘okay’?” she asked. “This is the guy you tackled linebacker style. The same freak who fractured my arm.”
“He’s a friend,” Isobel said, and though Gwen remained tense, she allowed Isobel to push her pepper-wielding arm down. “I promise.”
Slipping past Gwen, Isobel approached Reynolds.
His arms folded, his expression as impassive as ever—though perhaps a bit more acerbic than usual—he seemed to be waiting for her to stop and dutifully listen to whatever foreboding message he had come to impart.
