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fires, and Norris Emmett, drawing on his skills as the cook for the lodge back in Sylum, was overseeing the feeding of a hundred people. He glanced up as Gaia approached, and his gaze swept over Jack and the girl before he called something over his shoulder. Farther behind him, Josephine was feeding two toddlers: her daughter Junie and Gaia’s sister Maya.
    Gaia stopped to give the little girls hugs and kisses. Maya tried to feed Gaia some bannock by pressing it against her lips, but Gaia laughed. “No, that’s for you. Eat up, squirt.” Gaia looked up at Josephine. “Has she been good?”
    â€œGood enough,” Josephine said with her normal good humor. “I’ve got her. Looks like you’re busy.” Josephine had cut her dark curls shorter for convenience on trail, and they were held back from her face by a jaunty red headband. Gaia’s little sister had a bit of the same red in her hair.
    With a pang of guilt, Gaia couldn’t help thinking Josephine was in some ways a better mother figure to Maya than she was herself. “I’ll try to come back to tuck her in,” Gaia said, and gave her sister another kiss on top of her soft curls before she continued on.
    A smaller, fourth campfire was burning to one side where Dinah, the former libby, had a tarp and supplies laid out in readiness for medical emergencies. She’d turned to healing in the past year, assisting Gaia and proving to have a steady hand with everything from childbirth to single sutures. Dinah’s white, pleated shirt had remained spotless during the entire exodus, defying all logic and now, as they approached, she straightened, swinging her braid over her slender shoulder.
    â€œOnly you could wander off into the wasteland and come back with two more mouths to feed,” Dinah said. She nodded toward the men carrying Jack. “Do you want help with him?”
    â€œLet me get started,” Gaia said. “See what you can do for Angie’s hand.”
    The scouts lowered Jack to the tarp, where he lay still. Gaia was already reaching for the soap.
    Peter lit two extra torches and arranged them nearby. “I’ll get back to the ridge,” he said.
    â€œRight. Good.” Gaia heard the perfunctory note in her voice and made a point of looking up to meet his eyes. The faintest irony tinged his expression. “I mean, thanks, Peter.”
    â€œYou’re welcome, Mlass,” he said evenly, and with a brief smile at Angie, he was gone.
    Dinah’s gaze followed Peter and turned back to Gaia. “What was that?” she said.
    â€œWhat?”
    Dinah pointed her thumb after the retreating scout, then stopped. “Okay. Never mind.”
    Gaia sank down beside her brother and reached for his shirt. “I need an update. Have the scouts who went ahead to the Enclave returned? Munsch and Bonner?”
    â€œNo. Not yet.”
    â€œIt’s getting to be too long. What else do you have for me?”
    Dinah filled her in about some bickering between the miners and the fishermen, a woman’s persistent fever, a shortage of corn meal, and a broken travois. “Chardo Will is mending the travois. Otherwise, nothing major.”
    â€œHas Leon come in with the crims?”
    â€œNot yet. He sent word they’d be in around sundown.”
    Then he’s late , Gaia thought.
    Gaia would not relax until all the clans were settled in for the night, including and especially the crims. Leon was in charge of a dozen prisoners who accompanied the exodus, working to earn their freedom by the time they reached Wharfton. In a concession to safety, the crims were chained by the ankle in pairs, which meant they were always the last ones into camp each night, along with Leon.
    Dinah was working over Angie’s hand, and Gaia could see from the child’s glassy gaze that Dinah had given her a lily-poppy draught for the pain. Gaia started on Jack’s wound. With scissors, she