The moment to make her exit would be just before Morning Bell, at the changing of the shift. That would afford both the cover she needed and a full day’s light to make it on foot down the mountain; from there she could figure out where to go. The best place to exit would be over the cutout, with its limited angles of sight. Once Sandy and the others had gone to sleep, she would slip away to the Storehouse and equip herself for the journey: a strong rope to ride down the Wall, food and water, a cross and blade, a pair of good sturdy boots and a change of clothes and a pack to carry everything in.

With the curfew, no one would be about. She would make her way to the cutout, keeping to the shadows, and wait for dawn to come.

As the plan blossomed in her mind, assuming shape and detail, Mausami came to see what she was doing: that she was staging her own death. She’d actually been doing it for days. Since the resupply party had returned, she had given every indication of a mind in distress: breaking curfew, moping like a crazy person, making everyone scramble around, worried for her safety. She couldn’t have built a more convincing case if she’d tried. Even that tearful scene at Main Gate, when Lish had made her stand down, would play its part in the backtracking narrative people would assemble to explain her fate. How did we fail to see this coming? they would all say, mournfully shaking their heads. She gave us all the signs. Because in the morning, when Other Sandy awoke to discover that Mausami’s cot was empty, perhaps waiting a few hours before noting the oddness of this fact but eventually reporting it, and others in due course went to search for her, the rope over the cutout would be discovered. A rope with only one possible meaning: a rope to nowhere and nothing. There would be no other conclusion people could draw. She, the Watcher Mausami Patal Strauss, wife of Galen Strauss, daughter of Sanjay and Gloria Patal, First Family, pregnant and afraid, had chosen to let it go.