The tools bit into Gleb's hands with the heat of the summer as he secured the thatch in place. He'd done this many times before. Thatching was the same all over. Just as people were the same all over.

He was renting a room from the master thatcher, the fees for which were deducted immediately from his earnings. He ate with the family, and he was growing increasingly familiar with the members of the town.

Girls barely women stared at him constantly. Most of them had never seen anyone with skin so black it was nearly blue. Small children were fascinated by him. He was only interested in work, which made the master thatcher, Vincent, quite pleased. Gleb said little, and he listened much. It was his way.

He clipped the thatch uniformly and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his wrist. It was hard work, but it was honest, and it made his body ache with fatigue. He missed days like this, with every muscle screaming in exhaustion, everything being hard, a trial, something challenging. It worked muscles he forgot he had, muscles that didn't need to be exercised when scuttling over roofs and down crevices, slitting throats and purses, or beating a hasty retreat.

In a few months, he'd be tired of this again. For now, though, such was life.

He tenderly tucked his haul of thatch into place, laying it straight, weaving it as necessary for a firm hold. One little spark, and all this hard work would be gone. Gleb was quite thankful he was not a smoker.

He tucked the kindling atop the stack of hefty logs and chunks of wood. Then, he ducked away, slinking off to perform some other, equally horrific task. The fire was being made ready. Marley and her girls were gathered around the base of the pyre.

"Blood or passion," Lina said quietly. "That's what you said they wanted, isn't it?"

"Sometimes both," Marley whispered back.

"What do you mean?"

"You can't be a midwife and not know the change in a woman when she's pregnant." She stared impassively at the stake in the centre of the pyre, the hole bored through the middle where the garote would be strung.

"You mean--"

"He's married. You think either of them want a bastard running around, besmirching their name? The only thing he felt for her was lust, and that's sated. Best dispose of the evidence before something comes of it."

"But she said nothing happened," Agnes breathed, also unable to stop staring at the stake.

"So would you, if you thought it might save you."

Kendra listened while Feivel talked and Jancie waited by the inn. There was a slight dust in the wind, and Janice's mind was open and allowing her to explore it, if she so chose. She'd pressed her luck on more than one occasion, poking things she knew were probably none of her business, out of sheer curiosity. Janice let her. Her mind was riddled with little crevices and passages, and none of them were locked up tight. Every time Kendra poked, she was allowed in. Though Janice rarely poked her brain back. Kendra knew that was just Janice's way, though. She was a much more capable receiver than giver of empathy and memories and thoughts. Janice still loved her.

But right now, Kendra wasn't really listening to the memories of the dust that filtered through Janice. Instead, she was listening to Feivel, who was across the street talking to some men at the inn. From what she could hear, he was trying to get horses from the innkeep. Neither the innkeep nor the groom would be persuaded.

As the two men left, Feivel rolled his eyes and crossed the street back to them. "Don't say I didn't offer you th enice way," he muttered. He wet his lips and took a whilstle to them. There was a mark on it, but Kendra couldn't see it before an ear-splitting note rang out.

She heard a strange thunder, which Janice recognized as the horses' hooves striking earth. Many hooves. Many horses.

It was a knowledge so completely sudden and instant, that it startled Kendra. She very rarely got signals from Janice, and never as strongly as this.

Kendra was curious. She had never seen horses before. While Janice's thoughts retreated, Kendra chased them down, following the links of their very open bond to find Janice startled enough to give up more information quite willingly. Kendra sorted passed the memories of the dust and found beneath them what Janice knew of horses.

They looked... frightening. And fearless. And sometimes the exact opposite.

Kendra glanced at Feivel.

Horses looked like Feivel. Not literally, of course, but they acted like him.

Physically they were hooves and shining muscles under very thin coats of coarse fur. They were manes dancing in the air as they ran. They were thunder on a clear day, a herd hundreds strong.

Kendra got the picture. She broke off the link with Janice as much as she dared. She never fully broke the link with Janice. She was afraid she wouldn't be able to reestablish it if she wanted to. So she kept a part of her brain there with Janice, and then she cocked her head to the side, listening to the real sound of hoofbeats.

The thunder shook her ears, and she floated up and up and up, looking for the source. In the distance, behind the stable, there was a fence in a circle. There, five horses of glorious browns and greys and whites ran thundering circles, tearing the sod beneath their hooves into flying divots.

Feivel whistled again, and one by one, the horses jumped the fence., tucking their tapering legs beneath them.

The groom came hurrying out of the stable to see what the commotion was as Feivel tossed Janice onto the back fo one of the horses, a black and white horse that looked covered in paint of ... one of the colors. The beast took her speeding away at the prompting of Feivel's whistle.

The groom came shouting, running, and Feivel grabbed a horse by the mane as it shot by. He swung himself aboard, heaving himself onto its bare back. He charged towards the groom, his whistle screaming through the thunder, and the groom jumped back in surprise or self-preservation. As he swung around the groom, Feivel snatched Kendra out of the air.

"Let's go, rat," he said, the whistle still in his teeth as the inn was rapidly swallowed by the horizon.

They soon caught up with Janice, and Feivel slowed to help Janice. Then, he whistled again, the other three horses shooting off in random directions. Kendra had no idea how they followed Feivel. It fascinated her, but not enough to drown out her indignation. As their two horses sped along down the road, Kendra put her indignation into solid thoughts.

She'd long since discovered what a rat was, and she knew quite well that she wasn't one. Plus, Feivel was not her bondmate. She wanted Janice, but the oracle was too busy trying to hold on for dear life to be open to more poking in the brain. It was one of the few times she had closed herself off in any capacity.

Kendra decided, for Janice's sake, she would suffer this injustice of travelling with Feivel nobly and silently until the horses slowed down enough for her to keep pace.

Then they'd see who'd be the one suffering.

Tem felt the road beneath his shoes and beneath his staff. He heard nothing on the wind, and he smelled nothing, either. Or so he thought.

As the winds shifted, he did catch a whiff of something, here, then gone.

It sounded like a small child in pain, and he could have sworn he'd heard words in that shout. It couldn't have possibly been an animal.

Straining his ears to listen, Tem hurried as fast as he dared towards the sound.

And he prayed he wasn't getting in over his head.