Kara squirmed between us. “We have to hurry,” she told us. “We have to get Sem and Dia from that mean woman.”

“What mean woman?” I demanded, suddenly afraid.

“While the missus was there, she was nice. And she wasn’t mean until Dia started crying and wouldn’t stop and that made her baby wake up. She scolded Dia and Sem told her to leave our little sister alone. And then she called Sem a whore’s son and said about…said about Mummy deserving what she’d get, that she was going to hang tomorrow and was in jail tonight and we’d be orphans and that if the missus had half a thought in her brainless head, she’d turn us out into the streets.”

“That bitch,” Amzil said with great feeling.

“Yes,” agreed Kara. “So that was when I knew I had to come back for you. And I took Sem aside and told him to obey her, so I could creep out after dark. And I told him to get Dia and our things into the cart after I left. I told him to keep Dia quiet, and to move the cart farther from that woman’s house.”

“He’s too small,” I protested, but Kara calmly replied, “You’d be surprised what Sem can do when he wants to do it. He’s very determined. And he’s helped the missus harness the horse to the cart before.”

She was right. When we reached the cottage, all the lights were out. All seemed peaceful there. If the woman knew her charges had escaped, she did not care. Kara confidently led us past the cottage, and just beyond a shambles of a barn, Sem sat on the seat of the cart, holding the reins. Little Dia was sound asleep in the bed of the wagon. Kara and Amzil wearily climbed into the back of it and joined her. I mounted the seat and sat down behind Sem. “Let’s go,” I told the boy.

“You want to drive?” he asked me, offering up the reins.

“Only if you think you can’t handle it,” I told him.

He slapped the reins on the nag’s back and we rattled off into the night.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

RETROSPECTION

Sem drove until his head was nodding over the reins. When I took them from his hands, he started slightly. Then he clambered into the back of the cart and fell asleep next to his mother. Despite an uncertain road and our wobbly wheel, I drove on until dawn and beyond. As the light crept across the sky behind me, I glanced back often, fearing pursuit. By noon, when we had seen no one, I began to hope. I stopped only twice that day, to water the horse. We shared some bread as we rattled along but I insisted that we push on until it was too dark to negotiate the rutted road.

We spoke little, Amzil and I. There seemed too much to say, and most of it was not what we’d want to discuss before the children. I was pleased when she climbed up to sit on the cart seat beside me, and even more pleased when she timidly put her hand on my arm. I glanced over at her.

“I loved you the way you were,” she said quietly. She still had a smudge of smoke down the side of her cheek.

I had to grin. “Well, I hope the change hasn’t put you off.”

She laughed. “No. But—there’s so much I don’t understand. I know, from what the missus—Epiny—told me that this must be, well, the way you used to be. And she’s told me about the magic and all. But still—”

“I am going to tell you everything,” I promised her. “Every bit of it.”

Then we drove on in silence. I winced as I imagined explaining Olikea and Likari to her. Then, even though my heart sank with dread, I resolved that she would have the full truth. She’d either accept and forgive what I had done, with the understanding that Soldier’s Boy had motivated much of it, or she wouldn’t. But from now on, I wasn’t going to live with pretense of any kind.

As we drove, Kara told the other children a highly colored tale of her adventure and how she had rescued Amzil and me. Sem mocked her; they squabbled; Amzil scolded them and then gave them some cold biscuits to keep them occupied. After that, the children gabbled to one another, and then argued over who would sit where. Amzil matter-of-factly tore up her apron to bandage Kara’s leg and her own legs. Kara drove for a time when Amzil insisted on bandaging my feet as well. I’d been afraid to take the boots off to see how much damage there was. When I did, I felt queasy and it was all I could do to clench my teeth and only groan as Amzil loathingly drew the limp little pink roots out of my feet. Kara watched in horrified fascination, all the while telling Sem, “See, I told you so. You didn’t believe me about that string monster, did you, but see, it stuck strings right into Nevare’s feet.”