No, not soft-souled at all. Not this one. “Suit yourself,” he said as calmly as possible. He patted the moss with his open palm and turned his back to her, as though she were already the furthest thing from his mind. He dropped to his side and closed his eyes without the slightest interest in sleep now.

The priest followed his example, whispering encouragement to the woman. For several minutes the cave remained quiet behind him. And then the woman lay down, but by her ragged breathing, he knew she was not acclimating well. In fact, she now seemed at her worst. Surely, at some point exhaustion would take her.

Casius ground his teeth and forced his mind to run through his options for the hundredth time.

SHERRY WOKE to the smell of burning wood. She started and pushed herself to her arms. Three feet away a small fire managed to burn through damp wood, filling the cave with smoke.

The vision had come again and raged with its intensity, soaking her with sweat. And now she had awakened. Which clearly meant that the rest of this was not a vision or a nightmare or any other such supernatural episode. The attack, the escape, and now this cave—they were all real. Sherry swallowed and sat all the way up.

Father Petrus slept on one side, head facing the wall away from her.

How Casius had managed a fire of all things, she didn’t know, but he bent over it now, blowing into the coals as rising white ash filtered through his hair. A single small flame flickered lazily over red embers. Smoke drifted past him, bent at the cave’s ceiling, and then wandered out the small opening through which they had crawled in the night. The tiny firelight flickered amber on the rough stone walls, highlighting a dozen plum-sized insects fixed to the cave’s interior. Sherry swallowed again and turned her eyes to a dead lizard lying limp next to the man.

“Good morning,” he said without looking up from the flame. “The fog is thick outside, so I lit a small fire. It will mask the smoke. You need some food, and I didn’t think you’d want to eat it raw. We’ll wait here until the search parties have come and gone.”

“What search parties?”

“They know we escaped. They will send out search parties.”

Made sense. “Where are we going?” she asked.

“I’m taking you to safety,” he replied.

“Yes, but to where?”

“The Caura River. We’ll find a boat that can take you to Soledad.”