“How about you?” Angela asked. “What have you been doing?” Lilou wiped a sheen of perspiration from her face, and Angela sighed. “Come and sit down.” Her voice was softer, and Lilou’s gratitude was obvious.

“Thank you.”

They sat together on the wooden bench outside the front of the cabin, and moments later Sammi emerged and gave Lilou a friendly hug. It made Angela feel awkward, wondering whether she should have done the same. Sammi’s good nature and kindness often put her to shame. Sometimes in a kid of her age such behaviour was born of innocence and naivety, but Sammi was neither. She’d seen and done more things before her mid teens than most people do in a lifetime.

“You smell,” Sammi said.

“Thanks.”

“Like you’ve been living wild.”

Lilou shrugged and glanced at Angela.

“Coffee?” Sammi asked.

“I would fight and kill a grizzly bear for coffee,” Lilou said.

“I’d watch that!” Sammi said, darting back inside. “Though my money wouldn’t be on the bear.”

“Great kid,” Lilou said quietly as Sammi continued singing.

“She is.”

“She can’t stay here forever.”

“She won’t!”

“Neither can you.”

“What do you expect me to do, Lilou? If I get arrested, what happens to Sammi? And is this really why you came here? Couldn’t we just pass the time of day first?”

“No, no,” Lilou said. “I came here to see you both, and to ask...” She trailed off. It wasn’t like her to be uncertain, even vulnerable. Angela had seen that more in Lilou since the Fold, and especially since Frederick Meloy had sacrificed himself to help them escape. It had been obvious to anyone that Meloy was in love with Lilou. What hadn’t been so clear was that perhaps she was also fond of him. He’d been big and brash, a brutal man who’d found his calling in the Kin, but he’d also possessed an almost childlike quality, an innocence that might have drawn Lilou to him.

Angela observed, but didn’t care enough to ask. Vince had worked for Meloy as a relic hunter, and saving Lilou from brutal thugs and murderers had been the catalyst for everything that had happened since. It was unreasonable to blame them, but she had to direct her blame somewhere. Grief and anger were not a good combination to carry around.

“Ask what?” Angela said. Sammi emerged then with coffee and a bowl of scrambled eggs and some toast on a tray. She dashed back in to grab forks and plates, and the hot sauce she knew Angela liked.

“I’m asking something of you both,” Lilou said, and they waited until Sammi pulled up a folding chair and joined them. “It’s a favour. I want you to come to Massachusetts with me.”

“Why would we do that?” Angela asked. “We’re safe here, unknown and—”

“Are you?”

“Yes.”