“Thanks!” said Ark, blurred memories of being cradled by this thin giant flooding back into his brain. “We owe you our lives.”

Joe sat back, an innocent smile crossing his face as he fiddled sheepishly with his hands. “Naw! Don’t say that! Not every day we get visitors! Moind yow, yow war a bit scratched up loike. But our Flo sorted yow out with some salve. Them scratches on them hands were pretty nasty and yow eye was loike a slug!”

“It’s been a rough couple of days,” said Ark, making the understatement of the year. His legs ached from the long climb, his fingers felt sandpapered, and his butt was tenderized by the fall through the kirk roof. He looked around for his clothes. There they were, hung on a chair, clean and dry. His bag hung over the back along with his belt. He hoped the feather was safe inside.

“Toime to get some grub on,” Joe announced. He stood and Ark’s neck craned up in awe as he worked out that Joe was well over eight feet tall.

Joe closed the door, leaving Ark alone to get changed. A minute later, a second door that Ark hadn’t noticed slammed open, and a tousle-haired Mucum stood in front of him, scratching his armpit, half asleep. “All right?”

“I think so. They saved us, you know.”

Mucum nodded.

“Did you know about them?” Ark pointed his finger at the door as if Joe might come back in at any second.

“A bunch of bald stick insects! They give me the treebie-heebies!” Mucum shuddered, remembering the tales his dad had told him about tribes of root miners burrowing deep underground. “Still, I guess the gas and iron gotta come from somewhere. But as long as there’s a good fire when I get home at night, and somefing in the pot, it don’t bother me.”

Ark looked around. “Home …” Even the word seemed foreign. He felt a sudden ache in his guts. “I miss Mom….”

Mucum suddenly looked away.

Ark could have almost hit himself. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

Mucum barely nodded. “History,” he muttered. Then his lips sealed tight.

There was an awkward silence while Ark tried to remember what Little Squirt had told him in confidence one day at work. There had been one last, small outbreak of the plague eleven years ago. Mucum’s mother had been one of the unlucky ones, though rumors had said she was getting better before she was taken away by the Holly Woodsmen.

Ark tried to change the subject. “The guards will still be looking for us.”

“They ain’t gonna come down ’ere, are they?” Mucum snapped.

And we’re farther than ever from the King, thought Ark as he unwrapped the bandages around his hands. He expected scabs at least, but there were only red marks.