He was also learning where some of the Kin lived. Many of them were elusive, and whether shy or simply secretive they kept away from him, ensuring that he knew as little about them as possible. Others were quite open about their movements through the irregular days and nights, and a couple were happy to converse with him, telling him their names and the names of the others.

Fer lived in a small shack it had built high up on one valley side, close to the ridge but not so close that it could look over the ridge and beyond. Perhaps that meant it had accepted its lot living in the Fold. The shack was a beautiful affair, built from fallen logs and twigs, mud and leaves, flowers that still bloomed and shrubs that formed hanging curtains over the doorway and glassless windows. There were heavy blocks as cornerstones, silt from the riverbed formed into strange, haunting gargoyles around the walls’ upper reaches, and a slab of slate was used as the main door, hung on heavy bone hinges that came from no animal Vince recognised. It was a fascinating building, reflecting Fer’s wide and varying range of appearances in its diverse materials and construction. It seemed to grow up out of the ground, and Vince was certain some of the walls were still expanding, the roof still sprouting ferns.

Shashahanna was a mermaid, her name almost as musical as the songs she sang as she bathed in the river, and the pools and ponds that it fed close to where it entered the Fold. She seemed unafraid of Vince, and unconcerned when he sat at a distance and watched her swimming. She was distinctly alien and entirely beautiful, and she lived in a clump of fallen trees washed up on one shore of the river. He sometimes saw her climbing in and swimming out of the pile, like some exotic otter, but he never ventured close, and neither did she invite him in. Theirs was a comfortable relationship, silent and maintained at a distance.

High up on the opposite side of the valley from Fer’s home, Dastion the dwarf had his mines. He had only spoken with Vince once, soon after the Fold was closed and Vince took to wandering day and night looking for a way out. Dastion had already started digging then, using his big strong hands to haul at rock and soil, and fashioning levers and props from tree branches he tore down. Vince found him sitting on a rock one day, a powerful short soul who seemed to bear a heavy weight on his shoulders and in his sad, deep eyes. Back then he still looked like a swarthy, strong human, not the hairy tunnel dweller he had become. For a second Vince had convinced himself that another human soul had become trapped with him.