"Is this going to take long?" Lina asked.

Kendra was glaring at the ground. She'd dropped from the sky, knowing she was going to need everything she had to do what she planned. She wasn't strong enough to do this flying, but protecting the girls might help Janice in the long run, and that was what she wanted more than anything.

The little stones dug into her feet as she sat there, surrounded on all sides by grass that stretched high into the sky above her ears. They were heavy with grains, swelling and swaying in the breeze.

"Kendra?" Lina ventured again.

~Shh,~ Kendra whispered, listening, feeling. She closed her eyes, feeling the lines of the magic. It was easier than it used to be, far easier, but it was still very difficult, a strain to the very core to feel the extent of the possibilities in the earth and the extent of her capabilities. She was afraid she might overextend herself, but... but they couldn't just leave the girls undefended. They couldn't. If someone came across them, or if something... She hated to think of the possibilities of snakes, wolves, or anything else.

Wild horses, for instance, she thought with a shudder.

~Alright,~ she managed quietly, fearfully. ~Give me some space.~

The girls cleared out of the way, and Kendra took a deep breath. She felt the earth beneath her feet, felt the vibrations of the potential magic in her wings.

She glared at the ground around her, willing it to rise up. She felt the wind at her back, sweeping the dust out of the area. She heard the girls behind her yelping and shrieking as the wind kicked through their skirts. She could feel that on the wind as it swept over her, and then she hit the earth.

She felt the ground cracking beneath her claws, her elevation dropping and dropping and dropping as the earth rearranged itself beneath her, shooting outwards behind her, jetting up as mounds in the field, which swiftly reuinted themselves into a circle, a short rounded wall, one which would hopefully look like a hillock this far from the city, if it was even visible at all. The last thing they wanted was for the girls to be discovered.

She was winded, though, when she was finished, pulling the last bit of earth out of the center. She sat for a long moment, gathering her strength again. She was too young to push so hard, and she knew she wouldn't be feeling the strength return to her for hours. That was all she had. It would have to be enough.

Thedis approached carefully, all brown plaits and gingham skirts covered in aprons. "Kendra?" she asked quietly.

~You have to stay here,~ she answered. ~Keep them safe. Lina and I are going back.~

"We'll go, too! We can help!"

"No," Lina said quietly. "If we're not back by dusk, you have to get away from here. Take care of each other. Two is easier to miss than sixteen. We'll do what we can."

Kendra looked up brightly with a sparkle in her eye and a smirk on her face. ~Or die trying.~

Thedis looked at the depression made by spreading the earth in a shallow wall that stretched broadly into the plains. "It should be deep enough to hide," she said quietly, motioning to the other girls to join her in the center. "We'll stay low, though. Don't lose us."

Kendra wiped the mud made from sweat and dust from her brow. ~Wish us luck,~ she said quietly and scampered up the side of the hill, too tired to even try flying.

Lina picked her up as they crested the top of the mound, and hidden as they were by the high grasses and the hill, the girls soon disappeared from sight. Kendra rested while Lina walked, perching on her shoulders.

The door clanged open, and the soldiers filtered in, even as Janice leaned with a sultry pout against the bars of the cage. Feivel was not in a good way. She couldn't decide whether it was training or fever or poison or what that had elicited the change in him, but he was somehow far more feral than she'd ever seen him, still, even hours later.

He managed to ennunciate responses when they were prompted from him, but he offered nothing of his own save the black-eyed glare, the change in his demeanor, the change in his posture that screamed of something not quite right with him.

It would subside, now and again, but it was definitely there when the guards opened his cell and he pounced them like a huge cat, clawing and scratching his way towards their clubs.

They beat him, and Janice forced herself to keep character, to watch with cold detatchment, as she had felt in the channels the snake had opened to her. She still held their memories, but she wasn't about to go slipping out under into their ghosts again. That had stopped when Lina had shaken her free of it in Marley's hallway, which was, unfortunately, what had started all of this.

Still, as the packing sounds of flesh and wood subsided, she let herself heave against the bars, twining her fingers around the cold metal. She caught the eye of one of the escort, brushed her tongue against her teeth, and let her smile dissolve into a coy, dangerous smirk.

"Don't worry," a second guard told her. "You're next."