They had sat in jail for a whole week before Lina was able to give them more than a passing idea at a plan. They were to be transported via horses to a new, much more intimidating prison in a nearby town, so as to ascertain that they would not escape before the town knew what to do with them. There they were intended to await their fates.

The way it really was intended was this: The judge had arranged for the lightest possible guard to accompany them. Feivel's whistle and earrings were in the lead horse's saddlebags, and from there it was a matter of one man causing as much chaos and carnage as necessary to escape pursuit.

The girls who had wanted to return had returned to their families, but Lina still reported there were five who wished to accompany them as far from the town as possible. She had done her best to convince them that they wanted to stay with their families, but the girls were strong, and they stood together. They insisted that nothing was going to change for the better overnight, and that they would rather give up on the town than try to work with it.

Marley argued that she hadn't tried hard enough to convince them, but Feivel and Janice were very accepting of the possibilities of new additions.

Kendra, conversely, spent hours contemplating the stone walls that held them. That window at the top of their cells taunted her immensely. Beyond that lay freedom and open spaces and something that was not nearly so oppressive in its protection. Because this was not protection. This was imprisonment. It was quite a different thing.

Every time she watched the walls, she came to understand them a little more. She understood where the mortar was stressed, where the blocks could be worked loose, where the blocks would need to be forced loose to cause the building to shift on its foundations and come crashing down.

Not that she would do that, considering that they were all trapped inside, but if she could maybe loosen one little block enough to cause it to fall sometime in the future, well that would be nice, wouldn't it? Not that she wished immediate peril on anyone here in the town, just that she wanted the jail gone.

She had been dutifully working on one singular block she had chosen to loosen for her purposes when the door opened and the guards came to unlock the lot of them. They were tied in cords - Kendra was caged, of all the indignity - and escorted out of the prison. Like she couldn't have escaped if she had wanted to! Really!

And the cage they put her in was even smaller than the one from which she'd just been relieved. That. That more than anything annoyed her. That more than anything annoyed her greatly. She spent the first half hour of their "ride" glaring at the knots that held the cane cage together. Not cool. Not funny. Not remotely entertaining in the slightest littlest bit.

But while they were riding, she was collecting the dust and stones and trailing them along behind them in a very small, very low to the ground little wall. She'd show them. She'd show them what they got for locking her up in a box.

And it was going to be lovely.

Faline could feel the snow as it soaked her thin shirt as they ascended the mountain. She huddled close to Quetz, his natural heat melting the snow even as it touched his green scales. Camphor continued on, completely unaware of the chill, or at least seemingly unaware.

Perks of being immortal, she supposed. Normal troubles were beneath you. Or something.

*I bet if we camped, we could make a nice bonfire with the cart,* Quetz muttered.

Faline couldn't help but laugh and swatted him lightly on the side. "You," she snickered.

At least he was good at keeping her spirits up when things started to look positively dismal.

*Speaking of,* Quetz continued. *Is that smoke?*

"You're the dragon," Faline snerked. "You tell us."

*You're out of your mind if you expect me to find thermals in the middle of a snowstorm,* he snarled back at her.

She laughed, and Camphor paid neither of them any nevermind. He just continued to trudge up the snowy mountain pass, following the tracks left by countless others before them. Faline hurried after him, but not so quickly as to leave the warmth of her bondmate behind. She sneezed, her nose running like a faucet, and wiped it with the back of her hand. When she'd left home, she'd never expected to be anywhere nearly so cold.

She could only be grateful that she'd thought enough to own a pair of heavy boots.

"Camphor," she said, and his eyes flicked towards her, but she knew he wasn't in there. Not really. He had some singularity of purpose, and it was at once fascinating and infuriating. "There might be a town up there, or at least someplace to warm up. Quetz thinks he sees smoke through the snow. I think we should try to find it."

Camphor stopped to stare at where she was pointing and nodded. "Very well," he acquiesced.

*Score,* Quetz rumbled, and he hurried on ahead of them without further instruction at all.

Faline watched him go a minute, then turned to Camphor. "I'm going to keep him out of trouble," she said, grabbing her bow and arrows, remembering what happened last time Quetz went charging on ahead.

Camphor just nodded, and Faline hurried after her bondmate, stringing her bow as she ran.