“It always was a rather dull building, wasn’t it?”

  Euffie’s gaze up at the orphanage turned appraising. The humble three-story building certainly looked that way now, but it clashed with her perceptions of the place when she was younger. Then again, that younger version kept filling her with an urge to scrape and bow at everyone from Marthera to Derek. She almost wanted to bow to the husk of a building.

  “You’re right,” Euffie said firmly. “It always was a dull building.”

  Marthera raised an eyebrow at her. Euffie knew the dread voice was coming, so she nipped it in the bud by adding:

  “Which was exactly what I needed. I think the home I had before was ... too exciting. If that makes sense.”

  Marthera gave Euffie a critical red eye. Then, she held out one of the two sacks she was carrying. With her right arm, the one that wasn’t in a sling, Euffie took it.

  "This won’t be enough to get us all the way to Kumlaut," Marthera explained. “But it will get us far enough that we can leave Aleb this minute.”

  Marthera turned away from the orphanage and headed up the street, in the direction of the blood trail left by Fred. Euffie had to run for a bit to catch up to the woman’s long stride, trying not to step in the brown crust on the sandstone. Or notice Marthera’s nose twitching at it.

  "Kumlaut?" Euffie frowned. Marthera surveyed the deceptively quiet roads. By nighttime, Euffie was certain these backstreets saw a lot more activity.

  "Yeah," Marthera said, moving on. "Kumlaut. Oh, my bad, you probably don't remember."

  Geographic memory was one of the most important things to strip away from a slave. A slave that didn't know where they were from, didn't know how to travel anywhere, and most importantly, didn't know a better life, was orders of magnitude easier to control. Euffie had recovered fragmentary memories of the lay of the land around Aleb, and a few Adalaantian place names rang a bell, but that was it. Most of her ability to orient herself was gut instinct, and when she tried to intentionally visualize the world, she ran into fuzzy walls that stung her if she touched them.

  "Kumlaut's west," Marthera explained, turning the corner. With one last look at the best home Euffie had growing up, she followed.

  “Isn’t that a city in Akamstamsis?” she asked. After the earlier incident, Euffie was constantly scanning the desolate streets around them. She noticed that the buildings here seemed to have bits and pieces missing, like food with bites taken out of it. With a declining population, there was a lot of unused building material to go around. She wondered if there were any houses made entirely out of repurposed parts.

  “Yes,” Marthera said. “Kumlaut is the capitol. There’s definitely a scriptomancer we can trust there.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because I used to live there.”

  “You did? Did you ever tell me that?”

  Marthera shook her head. “I might have mentioned it, but I doubt it. I probably focused more on the part of my youth I spent in Vuartina where I was born.”

  Ahead of them, Euffie saw a few men dressed similar to the previous thugs, stepping out from behind the corner. They blocked the way. Marthera just kept walking toward them.

  “I’ll handle this,” Marthera said, loud enough that the two could hear. Euffie held Marthera’s hand tight.

  The thugs frowned as they drew near and still didn’t slow.

  “You see these?” Marthera hissed, pointing at her eyes. She bore her teeth and leaned forward. The men leaned back, and the fight was over before it began. They backed out of the way, and Marthera pulled Euffie along. Euffie tried not to exhale in relief until they were farther up another street, and the noises of a busy city grew louder. If the men had called Marthera’s bluff, if they knew her regeneration and strength had subsided, that would have gone very differently. They’d tell their mates what they’d seen, but by then Marthera would be long gone.

  I was so stupid to wander back here, the dread voice said. Euffie agreed for once. She would not be so careless again.

  “We need to hide my, uh, features,” Marthera said, stopping just before another corner that Euffie recognized. Occasionally, a person would step outside to retrieve a box or a crate, and then bring it back inside. These buildings were stores and shops.

  “One moment,” Marthera said. She set down her sack, and retrieved a pair of gloves and a blindfold. She kept talking while she put them on.

  “I’m your blind old master. Guide me to the south gate, then once we’re out of the city, I’ll take these off. Got it?”

  That explained Euffie’s engram, too. Euffie nodded, then remembered herself and took Marthera’s hand. “I’ve got it.”

  ***

  Navigating back out of the city was easy once there was a crowd to blend into. Marthera bumped into one or two things and people, but nobody bothered with the two of them. Once outside the gates, they were on the road, then they were off the road, heading through a gap in a few other farmhouses. It was late afternoon now, and Euffie's moon was in the sky, almost directly above.

  “You can take those off now, Mother Marthera,” she said, stopping. Marthera did so, revealing once again her unnatural fingernails and eyes. She put them back in her sack, and they carried on southwest, toward the rim of the Fade, the Fadereach.

  “Why are we heading so close to the Fade?” Euffie asked.

  “Because vampires and lunomancers are both safe from getting burned by it,” Marthera replied, ducking under a clothesline. “Besides, we’ll run into fewer people this way.”

  Euffie ducked as well, but she stood up just in time to get caught on the next one.

  "Careful," Marthera said, lifting her up. "We need to move. I can smell a party of unwashed Barridians comin' from the south. One of them stinks of nadderfruit.”

  "Derek," Euffie breathed. She hated nadderfruit. Mostly because it was Derek's favorite food, and he made her prepare it with according frequency. He joked that it might be her pregnancy craving someday, and that was enough to turn anyone off of anything.

  Euffie realized Marthera was giving directions.

  " … and then, it's past this scrubby forest on the western border of Akas- are you listening, girl?"

  "Nope," Euffie confessed, trudging through the dark. "Sorry, Mother Marthera."

  They were in the fields now, surrounded by caskerwol crops. Barley and wheat figured prominently between the irrigation ditches. The plants served to hide the pair, but it also meant Euffie was entirely dependant on Marthera's sense of direction. If they were separated, Euffie would be lost in the farm fields with Derek hot on her heels.

  "Stay close to me," Marthera ordered, pulling her along. "We’ll get as far as Akastamsis, and then we'll see. Are you listenin' now?"

  Euffie nodded. "Yes, Mother Marthera. How can you smell them from so far away?”

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Marthera grunted. “It’s a vampire thing. You’re lucky I can do it, or else I wouldn’t have been there in time to help. Other than needing it so I didn’t die, another reason I drank my wards’ blood was so I would always be able to sniff you out. That's how I was able to smell you out today, and why I left in the middle of my work shift. A vampire can track anyone whose blood they've sipped before from quite a distance. That's how I never lost a child in that bustling city without knowing about it.”

  “Oh,” Euffie said, trying not to put her hand on her neck again. “I suppose that makes sense. Wait, have you drunk Derek’s blood before?”

  “No,” Marthera shook her head. “I’ve never even met him. Vampires can also smell out nadderfruit, zukern, and other Fade-talents from some distance away. We’re a fade-talent too, you know, so it’s a lot like picking out faces you know in a crowd. I can’t smell something I haven’t bitten from nearly as far, though, which is why you need to keep up.”

  They left the crop fields and were jogging by now. They passed by farmland full of half-sun crops, plants that didn't need constant sunlight to survive. They didn't grow as large, but they were better than nothing. Bales and stacks of baskerwol crops, the two-sun needing kind that were white as rushing water, lined the silos out here. A slave here and there noticed them, but said nothing.

  Euffie kept glancing eastward over the sandy hills, searching for signs of Derek and his horse. The two entered another field of tall crops, obscuring Euffie’s view.

  Focus on Marthera, she told herself. You’re not alone anymore. Marthera knows what she’s doing. She’ll get you out of this. She’ll get your ... engram ... off. Proper off. Not this shuffling, unstable mess it’s turning my head into.

  “Thank you for everything, Marthera,” she said to take her mind off of things.

  Marthera gave her a smile over her broad shoulder. "Good girl. I'm gonna take care of you. I always have."

  "Mother Marthera?"

  "Yes?"

  "Are you sure you can’t … you know, fight Derek and the others?"

  Marthera sighed as they turned a corner in the towering crops. Her long hair caught plants in it from time to time, and Euffie experienced a rare moment of gratitude for her shaven head. She was starting to feel the faintest layer of fuzz, though.

  "I sure wish I could," Marthera explained, "but I told you, a vampire can only use strength and healing like that in short bursts. After that, I need to wait a week or two before I can do it again, and all that time, my eyes turn into dead giveaways. Right when my strength is missing, my body gives me away. It's why I don't like using it much. I didn't know you had people after you other than the thugs you were attracting like moths to a light, but I should’ve guessed."

  "Sorry," Euffie said, squeezing the woman's hand apologetically. "Sucks to be you, I guess."

  Marthera gave her a look. It wasn’t offended, just surprised, as if Euffie had used a long word Marthera thought she didn’t know.

  "Heh,” she said, “it doesn't matter. I needed to leave Aleb for good anyway. They long ago shipped away the last girl I knew from the orphanage. Off to the Crown Mountains, I fear."

  Euffie shuddered. The Crown Mountains were a threat for slaves an owner was thinking about selling. For male slaves, there was a brutal mining job that none of them survived for long. For female slaves, the male slaves would get them before the work or the exposure had a chance.

  Euffie still preferred that idea to going back to Halfway with Derek, though.

  "Anyway," Marthera said, "we're almost out of the fields. I've been through here once or twice. We're gonna skirt around the edge of the Fade, where the guards don't like patrolling and the slaves don't like sneaking."

  There's a reason for that, Euffie didn't say. She'd never been burned by the offshoots of purple mist, but she felt phantom pains along her arms at the thought.

  "Let me tell you what's in your sack," Marthera said. “And pick up your pace, girl. Derek sounds like a mean piece of work, following you all the way up here. Wouldn’t want him to catch up.”

  ***

  Derek shook his head. "I told you, I can't read."

  Larry continued writing in the sand between the two, as if Derek hadn't spoken. Hadley stood to one side, his eye in a spyglass scanning the city of Aleb for anyone coming and going in an unusual direction. The rest of the company sat about, waiting for orders. One leaned on his weapon, the other lay with his hats on his faces, catching a wink.

  Derek squinted at the characters on the ground. "Is that even Barridian?"

  Larry had drawn three shapes in the ground. Derek twisted his head so he could see them at a different angle.

  "Aha," he said. "Those aren't words. They're engrams."

  "For the last time," Hadley called over his shoulder, "please stop harassing my witchbinder. He's gearin' up to catch your runaway if we spy her this evening. I'll bet the peridots in my pocket we'll catch sight of her near town soon."

  Derek rolled his eyes. Hadley's pockets only ever had amethysts in them. Hadley talked too much like Kebbik did, with mazes and traps everywhere. If plausible deniability was a language, Hadley was a native speaker.

  "What if she just bolts for it again?" Derek asked.

  "Your little flower can't ‘bolt for it again’. Not so soon, anyway. Larry's caught mages much more frightening than she is; he knows how to tell when a witch is limpin'. This one has no idea what she’s doing. If she tries to bolt again, we’ll find her all busted up and begging for someone to help her stand up again."

  Derek turned back to Larry. The man was staring right at him. This had stopped startling Derek a week ago, but it never stopped unnerving him. Derek was glad Phoebe didn't have green eyes, or he'd never be able to look as deeply into them without a reminder of Larry's penetrating gaze.

  "Got one for ya," Hadley called. "Is that her? She's got someone with her, but best to check. They're a few miles out from town, heading to the Fade. Just emerged from all the crops."

  Derek hurried over and took the spyglass from Hadley's hand. "She came to Aleb specifically because she thinks she's got friends here somewhere," he said. "Of course that could be her."

  Derek looked into the spyglass, following Hadley's pointing finger.

  The bald head. The same tattered, baggy clothing he’d made. The stunning beauty of every inch of skin. The fragmented tattoo on her cheek.

  "It's her, isn't it?" Hadley's voice sounded at the edge of Derek's hearing. Derek realized the spyglass was trembling in his hand, and composed himself. He hadn’t seen her for weeks, and here she was, the woman of his soul, mere miles away in plain view.

  "Yeah," he said, pushing it back into the captain's hands. "It's her. She has someone with her, but we can just push her aside.”

  "Or kill her, if need be," Hadley said. Derek pursed his lips.

  "Let's not," he said. "She'll be a lot harder for me to deal with if you do."

  "I don't like leavin' enemies alive," Hadley said, optic to his eye again. "But she seems like an older woman, so we'll do our best. We might charge you a little extra if she gives us too much trouble, though."

  "If an older woman gives you trouble, I want a discount."

  Hadley laughed and slapped Derek on the back. Derek turned toward his horse.

  “Just don’t forget your end of our bargain,” Hadley called as Derek strode away. “Larry takes bargains very seriously. Don’t you, Larry?”

  Derek would worry about promises to slave catchers after he had his flower back. What kind of witchbinder was uncomfortable with slave engrams, anyway? And who was he to tell Derek what to do with it once he’d gotten the girl?

  "Let's go," he said, shrugging it off.

  "Hey, don't rush off!"

  Derek heard Hadley calling behind him, but the words went in one ear and out the other. Clopper raised his head from the sparse desert grass, waiting for Derek to hop up. Derek would catch her first. He didn't need to wa –

  Derek felt something like an invisible hand close around him. He stopped a few feet from Clopper, his hands outstretched for the reins. He felt the bones in his ankles creak under the pressure, but they didn't snap. He couldn't turn his head, could barely move his mouth enough to grunt.

  "I said," Hadley repeated from behind him, "hold your horse. You're payin' a professional team to catch her. Quit tryna fuck it up."

  Hadley laid a hand on Derek's shoulder. It felt like what Derek imagined a boulder did when someone laid a hand on it.

  "We've almost got your little flower back, mate," Hadley said, more calmly. "The boys are awake. They're mountin' their horses. Good breed, too, as I've bragged before. Now, you'll finally get to see a Jel-Hangan mare at full sprint. Follow Larry's horse. You'll cut them off on the east side with him, and me and the muscle will trap them from behind. Larry works his magic, we take care of the other woman, and then we’re off to Album. And don't grab her unless we've got her bound. She might dash away again, and this time, you won't be so lucky. She could take some of you with her. Got it? Good."

  Hadley waited a moment. Derek heard people and equipment moving around. It was a familiar set of noises after traveling with this company for weeks, but this time it seemed agonizingly slow. Derek's muscles were frozen in tension, and it was starting to hurt like a drawn-out plank exercise. Derek seethed. As if the surface he was touching had grown hot, Hadley withdrew his hand. Derek heard the man's footsteps away from him.

  "All right, Larry, everyone else is mounted. Let him go."

  Derek felt the pressure keeping him in place release like cold steam. He nearly collapsed on his face in the sudden return of control. He swiveled angrily to find that everyone else had already started down the hill toward Phoebe. With a snarl, he hoisted himself up onto Clopper.

  "Yah!"

  The horse took off. Clopper was no Jel-Hangan mare, but he knew when Derek meant business.