Morning had broken. Marley knew that the girls were going to need provisions, and she was sorely tempted to insist they go find a town somewhere, but Feivel seemed quite confident that he could provide for the ten of them. Well, nine, really, since Kendra refused to even contemplate eating meat, so she dug roots out of the earth and ate those, instead. ~Bitter,~ she had admitted when pressed on this, ~but better than someone else's hide.~

So the nine of them and Kendra ate the deer and the elk and the birds that Feivel rounded up and thrushed out into the open. Lina showed a skill with the bow that Marley would not have imagined, and between her and the five girls - Agnes among them - they tried to keep camp in some semblance of order while Marley tended the wounds of their heroic horseman.

Feivel had inadvertantly won himself quite a few adoring fans in the young girls by relation of their adventures, and being the only man as far as the eye could see, it was somewhat understandable. Added to this was the fact that he was foreign, wild, completely untamed and untamable, and the girls were gone, completely ready to swear themselves members of the Tribes just to be with them.

Marley thought this was all utterly absurd, but it kept them quiet, if a bit giddy, so who was she to complain?

Besides, she was glad the girls had chosen to stay. Thedis, Carla, and Perry were always some of the best girls Marley could have ever asked for, and while Sierra was still too young to tell, under Lina's tutelage, she could grow into a fine midwife and healer.

For the first three days, trouble was hard to find. The plains stretched on in an unending sea of dry, brown grasses, interrupted only here and there with lush green grasses on the edges of dying streams. Feivel was a different man out here. His was the only unsaddled horse, and he sat atop it proud, like a carving of some fearless explorer.

There was no sign of the animalistic thing he had harbored when the trial had begun. There was barely any sign of the caning he had endured, and when Marley asked him on this, if anything had been broken, he simply shrugged with a smile and answered: "What my Lady wills, my Lady shall have."

Fate nothing. It was extraordinary good luck that he had not broken a rib or a shin or anything more fatal.

On the fourth day, however, Feivel announced that they were going nowhere, that there was to be no fire, and that they were to remove the saddles from their horses. Oh yes, and that he would be back. Just where he planned on going, just what he planned on doing, Marley didn't know.

But she knew that Janice knew. She knew by the way the Oracle refused to meet her eyes. She knew by the way the woman avoided anyone in the group. She knew by the way Kendra looked worriedly between the girls and Janice and Marley and the horizon. She knew that they knew that something was happening.

"Explain," she said upon cornering Janice.

The oracle flustered, blinking and stammering and shifting uncomfortably. She had broken down hard in the last three days, crying when she thought no one else was looking, staring blankly into the distance, being difficult to catch in the middle of an actual thought. Marley didn't like the look of it.

"I-I-I-I can't," she managed, both sets of lips moving in eerie conjunction, even beneath the veil she wore.

"You can," Marley pressed. "And you will."

"They'll kill me," Janice whispered, absolutely certain. "They'll know."

"Who will know? Who will kill you? There's no one here!"

Janice shied back several paces, hugging her coat tightly to her body. This was not the same woman she had known in the town. But Kendra wasn't acting as if anything was wrong with Janice, just that there was something wrong on the horizon, somewhere none of them couldn't see.

The horses didn't sense it, though. They grazed merrily. The girls wove grasses together, and Lina had gone out hunting for birds with Carla. Hopefully between the two of them they'd bring back supper, even if Feivel didn't return by night.

Then again, it was probably too much to hope for.

Faline and Camphor warmed themselves by the fire as their hostess saw to it that their needs were met. Then, she started in on the introductions, followed swiftly by the questioning.

Faline supposed it was only fair to answer her questions, even though Camphor held himself utterly aloof from the conversation, so she avoided answering questions about him. But she could easily answer for herself and for Quetz.

She explained that she and Quetz were from a city far on the Western coast, and that she'd never seen mountains, not like this, let alone cities in the mountains or snow before this. She did her best to explain Quetz and dismiss his beastly ways, though she did admit that most of the burn scars she bore were his fault, she continued to profess his good intentions, or at least, the little glimmer in him that she hoped contained good intentions.

Velma, for her part, admitted that she was among the wealthiest in the town, and that she had recently buried her husband. She was a musician before she had married him, and to support her lifestyle, she supposed she would have to take up working again. There was a certain eerie detachment to her that shook Faline deep down, and try as she might, she couldn't excuse herself from their conversation.

She deeply envied Camphor at just that moment, when she realized that he was continuing to stare blankly at the wall. He was probably completely consumed with the urge to continue in their journey, and it was only he who would get them out of this mess.

She hoped, she prayed that he would help them escape this absurd conversation about how much it snowed, why they said their mountain always snowed, what was going on here.

Instead, he simply cut her off in the middle of a sentance by standing up and walking towards the window.

"How long do you intend to keep us?" he asked with a quiet authority that sent shivvers up Faline's spine. He was still gone. Even here, in this perpetual respite.

"I'm not keeping you at all," Velma said. "I'll be more than happy to let you go, if you so choose."

Camphor turned back towards them and crossed his arms over his chest. He glared heavily at her in a way that Faline read as seeing deep inside her soul. "How long."

Velma blinked. "Come have some tea, dear. You'll feel better about things. Clearly the cold's muddled your head."

Camphor closed his eyes and acquiesced by returning to his seat and taking the cup of tea from her. "In the morning," he said quietly, "you'll tell me where Vera is."

Velma nearly dropped her teacup at that and stared hard at him. But Camphor said no other words for the rest of the evening.