Two long whistles broke through the morning. Challis gave Rasalas a small shove with her foot and then buttoned up her tunic, a process that she took her time with. The fabric was sturdy and nicer than anything she had worn in over a decade. It was dyed a spotless ash gray color, crisscrossing in the front and flaring out into wide fabric strips that fell to mid-thigh over her trousers. Lightweight sleeves were loose under the armpits but tight just past her elbows, leaving room for black leather bracers that were standards for horseriders as well as thrike handlers. Challis tried to tie these on but couldn't figure out how to do it one-handed.

She fitted a pair of traction chains onto her boots, which scuffed on the rooftop tiles but would provide better grip on rainforest terrain. Then she clinked the base of a boot onto Rasalas' hair this time, and shoved harder. It worked.

"It's alive," she crowed as he rolled away with a moan. "We made it to another day. I need your help with these."

The streets of Mawsch shuddered under the tramping of hooves and claws and boots as more than fifty saddles were tightened and mounted. In no more than thirty minutes after wake-up call, the rainforest had opened its mouth to the company and swallowed it whole.

Challis gripped the reins as the pull of sensations nearly lifted her from her seat. The flux of the rainforest thickened the tangy smell of mud, which breezed over the heavier, richer underlying current of leaves expanding and unfurling in the morning mists. The very air clicked and whirred and chittered with an unseen chorus of millions of tiny movements. Under the horses' feet, which were fitted with ridged horseshoes, the path was a cracking layer of once-soggy wood chips that threatened to disappear into a mud trail the further they went.

Speck the Chunk hauled one of the two wagons of horse feed. Tough, narrow pipes were secured to the wheels, sticking out to the sides to form a ribbed casing that could crawl its way out of the slipperiest mud. The wagon load was piled almost to the height of the mule's head, but Speck endured it with hardly a snort for the first mile. Challis could feel the pulling power underneath her with every step, press, and lift of the hooves in the ground, and Speck was handling the new terrain much better than some of the horses. Rasalas' mount, Leatherback (or maybe it was Leprechaun), swished and snapped at flies and treated the smallest puddle as a disgraceful ordeal.

Lumberjack's attitude was nothing next to that of its rider, however. Rasalas had slept very little, unpacking and repacking the supplies as the sleepless routine of the last few months kept his flux energy moving until well after midnight. He had mended his trousers, trimmed his whiskers, read his slot screen homework, wished he hadn't left Lakko's tripwire in the saddlebag, repacked the food, and entertained the idea of finding a late-night tavern, maybe some out-of-town cuff wrestling fling. He thought about Onaya, too.

He had locked his hands tightly behind his neck and closed his eyes. He was twenty-six now, but his sister had his sight, and nothing was going to change that, probably ever. Challis needed him.

Challis' neck was bruised. So was her face. Rasalas couldn't help staring, the moonlight muting all colors and sharpening shadows. As he lay there next to her on the rooftop, the scene kept replaying itself, against his will, and the bruises seemed to darken and spread even as he watched. It jerked him out of half-sleep too many times to remember.

And for all that, she had been able to subdue a panicked thrike more effectively than he had ever seen anyone do before.

Now, as he pulled here and there to keep his horse on track, Rasalas tugged at the memory, trying to put all the pieces in place, but most of it turned up blank. Not unclear, or just out of reach like a dream after waking, but just… gone. Like it had erased itself and left him blind. Not again, he groaned. Not again. Damn that surgery. Damn the tripwire.

But I'm not addicted, he told himself furiously. I'm not.

The rest of himself laughed at that.

"So, do you want to talk about it?" Challis' voice jumped in. Rasalas turned to see her smiling at him. Had she been talking? He tried to read her expression in case he had missed something. Sweat dribbled out from underneath his hat and fell right into his eye. He wiped at it. In the mountains, shade had been a relief from heat, not just sunlight. But here, sunbeams dappled the treetop layers and rarely reached the forest floor, though the warmth still weighted down the air into a smothering blanket.

"What is there to talk about?" he asked grumpily. "Aside from, you know, everything."

She took a swallow of water and shrugged. Rasalas upturned his own canteen and emptied it, guzzling down their clean water supply like a dog.

"Did you ever get your slot screen on?" Challis asked conversationally. "I suppose we only need one between us, but it would be a good idea to make sure it works."

"Look, Chall," Rasalas interrupted. "Before I forget… I'm sorry I hit you."

She blinked and reached down inside her boot so she wouldn't have to look at him. "No, it ­­–" Her throat tightened before she could go on, and so did her stomach as she fought to finish without leaving it hanging like that. Finally, she managed, "I'm sorry that you had to. It was stupid. Forgive me?"

Her brother slowed down his pace until they were next to each other. He ducked under a draping cluster of moss and cracked a smile.

"Yeah. Forgiven. Next time, you'll just listen to me, won't you?"

She snorted. "Hell no. I don't learn that fast."

"You'd better. Or I'll sit on you."

A burbling chitter sounded, rustling through a dense wall of rotting tree trunk that lay on its side next to the path. The torn-up roots splayed out into the air to reveal a dark opening leading straight into the trunk's tunnel. Flashes of movement, then stillness as the horses paraded by. Challis strained to see what kind of animal was inside, but Rasalas was swiping at a fly and his whizzing vision didn't help.

Rasalas cleared his throat. "So, are you going to share those jerky sticks?"

Challis glanced in front and behind them at the other riders. "Shush, will you? These are from Eastwedgen. Ultra-spicy-special."

"And you've kept them in your boot?" he asked in disbelief.

"They're double-wrapped."

"Gross. Gimme one."

She tossed it over, badly, but he was prepared for a misfire and snatched it before it could disappear into the underbrush. No jerky for the animals.

The land had drawn up in a steady rise, lining the path with thick trees whose trunks were completely hidden by stacks and stacks of green leafery. The leaves were so compact they hid the ropes of the vines that held them, aside from the thin brown trailings of dead vines that hung like drool straight down from the branches. Sometimes these draped down far enough that hands would reach up to slap them as the convoy passed underneath.

They reached a summit of sorts, which opened the view enough to reveal the sprawl of rainforest disappearing into distant mist. Speck paused to tug the wagon, and Challis forced her eyes away from the overlook to examine the ground.

The vegetation was so bald here that rain had washed away several layers of soil. A maze of naked roots crisscrossed over the entire surface of the summit, lying like snakes on top of a caked red dirt surface. It formed two acres of hazardous footing for the horses, and in some places, muddy puddles still lay trapped by roots and splashed up at the legs tromping through them.

As soon as the group had safely descended the slope back into the thicker forest, the cooing of birds was broken by a short, shrilling whistle that drew all heads upward. A pair of thrikes appeared overhead and burst down into the tree level in a crackling rush. The riders wound the animals through trunks and vines toward the front of the long line of horses, landing in a commotion of leaves and flapping wings.

"Who is that?" Rasalas asked, suspicion clouding his face. "Those aren't ours."

He closed one eye for a few moments. It blotted out part of Challis' vision enough to get her attention. Challis hesitated, afraid to relax her hold on Speck's reins, then decided to trust the mule. She looked over at Rasalas and pushed her awareness into his head.

The detail of his eyesight momentarily stunned her. Unlike anything they had seen before near Polescos, this part of the rainforest exploded in every direction as a dance of light and shadow. It was a beautiful but deadly fight for survival: moss and algae crowded for space, and leaves reached out over each other in layers. Every tree trunk had meaty folds on its surface, and every fold was furrowed with smaller grooves running from the dirt to the sky. Every groove coated itself with colors that formed entire cityscapes for whole populations of ants, mobs of winged insects, and single moss frogs darting from branch to branch.

But his focus was on the activity up ahead. Two sleek grey uniforms had joined the company, flaps of fabric hanging off the backs of their hats like flared cobra hoods. Rasalas' eyes could see the badges on their shoulders as they talked earnestly to Chief Bosk and Director Haske. These were law enforcement officers. Three vertical slashes of color looked a lot like the bars of a prison.

They heard another whistle, this time from Officer Lars, a long blast that swept up into a high pitch at the end. The horses and thrikes trundled to a stop, all the way down the line. Flux momentum kept the animals shifting and whiffling restlessly.

Through Rasalas' eyes, Challis watched the two officers dismount, as did Bosk and Drunnel. The latter two left their horses with two Powder Ranch handlers. Every thrike in the party walked either in the front or the back of the convoy, enough of a distance away to not intimidate the horses, but these officers led their thrikes straight through the bunch. The resulting retreat of horses and riders was as smooth and synchronized as ants around a boulder. Drunnel led the way. His eyes met Rasalas' and, unmistakably, his mouth hardened into a firm line.

Challis felt her brother force a relaxed readiness into his posture, settling every muscle from the top down. His shoulders gave the tiniest roll to make sure they were loose, as did his neck. Only his heartbeat raced. Then the bizarre sensation of him swallowing unsettled her enough to pull back into her own mind. The reins slipped through her hands as Speck threw his head. She must have been pulling too hard on him.

"Nugget," she whispered.

Rasalas echoed her dismay. "Exactly."

The four men were close now. Drunnel motioned at Challis and Rasalas.

"Gannagens," he called briskly. "On the ground, please."

The twins obeyed slowly, and at a command from Bosk, two of their nearby companions dismounted as well and took the horse's and mule's reins. Challis felt a pang, as if Speck had been her last line of defense, the last thing to hold on to. Her hands trembled as she tried to lower herself into a state of calm like Rasalas had. It wasn't working.

The two constables stepped forward.

"Rasalas and Challis Gannagen?" one of them asked curtly. He crossed a hand nonchalantly over to a stiff gadget strapped to his other wrist. Like a miniature crossbow, a taut wire was cocked behind a barb, one in a chain of barbs circling up around the thick part of his forearm. They both wore one.

"We are Sergeants Pyalett and Lamash. We need you to come with us," the man went on. "We're here to bring you under the custody of the Polescos patrol force." His voice was slow and determined, as if he expected them to argue. Which they did.

"On what grounds, sir?" Challis asked. Then, looking at Drunnel, "We're out of Polescos jurisdiction, aren't we?" She had no idea, in truth, but something about the words seemed fair. Something about them also seemed incredibly naive. Drunnel raised a hand toward her, and her brother took a sideways step closer.

"Don't make a scene," Rasalas said quietly. Challis tensed, though she knew he was right.

"Don't make a scene?" she whispered. "There is a scene being made here but I'm not making it."

His voice dropped to an even quieter hush, though he still didn't look at her. "I'm serious. Chall, you've never been arrested before. Shut. Up."

The first sergeant adjusted his cobra flap as he eyed them, his gaze resting on Rasalas. Behind him, just over his shoulder, a pterosaur snorted and opened its toothy beak.

"The Polescos force has coordinated with the local Mawsch law enforcement to find you and bring you in," Pyalett said.

The other officer, Lamash, spoke up. "You may hold your silence." He frowned a brow. "As immediately claiming to be out of our jurisdiction seems highly incriminating."

"For the last time, what in the world for?" Chief Bosk broke in. His heavy jawline pressed forward as he spoke, flattening his tone into something dangerously close to a growl.

"The statement is for arrest on grounds of aggravated assault and battery." Sergeant Pyalett flicked up a holograph. "Primary plaintiff being," he consulted the holograph, "Corvin Teakle."

A sinking feeling lowered itself like a solid plank over Challis' mind, flattening her objections beneath it in despair. She looked at Rasalas again, who finally dragged his eyes over to hers. Maybe they should have run away.

Rasalas' voice came in a whisper that everyone could hear.

"Chall," he murmured. "What are they talking about?"