Not having access to a post office while holding that bit of information was driving my friends crazy, that was obvious.

  All the wild specutive ideas about how they could get it to Terenei’s grandfather more quickly foundered on one rock: we needed morning star crystals to send with it.

  “Is that going to take long to go away?” Terenei asked, nodding towards the gss wall while we ate another of Zanshe’d delicious meals.

  Zanshe shook her head. “Once the storm breaks and the sun comes out, and that should happen soon, it will melt in a cycle or so. We’ll have to be careful moving, though. There will be a lot of meltwater running downhill and loosening rocks and making the ground slippery in pces. We’ll be able to visit the cave and we have tools to chip at least a few loose to send with the formu, but we’ll have to go slow getting there and back. It’s either speed or safety, not both.”

  Serru nodded. “It’s going to take us at least a cycle to reach the nearest road. Possibly more, especially with bad footing. The road will be safer, but by the time we get there, everything will have mostly dried.”

  “We’re in the middle of nowhere, then,” I said.

  My friends all paused.

  “Odd expression,” Zanshe said. “But the intention is obvious. And yes. We’re going to have to choose which direction will be best. The shortest route might not be the safest. We’ll consider it when it clears and we can assess the area. Try not to worry about it. It’s frustrating to be deyed but as deys go, it’s one we can spend comfortably, at least.”

  “Even with potions and healing magic,” I said ruefully, “I am seriously not sure I could handle a long cross-country hike yet anyway. Although they really are amazing, how fast they’re working, considering the condition I was in.”

  “Potions and healing magic are wonderful,” Aryennos said. “I’m in no hurry to move, if staying still longer reduces the chances I’ll fall off a cliff or something. Rescuing me would slow travelling down, too.”

  “Depending on the cliff,” Serru said, “we might not be able to reach you, or might not have time. And we might not be able to retrieve your journal. Avoid cliffs, please.”

  “I’m trying,” he said fervently, one hand dropping to rest on the journal in his p. “Really hard.”

  By the time the storm finally broke and the snow melted enough for us to open the doors safely—they did swing in as well, but no one wanted a snowdrift on the floor—we were all getting restless. We’d had time to catch up on sleep, eat well, and generally recover from physical and emotional strain. Even me. It boggled the mind that I could be feeling entirely back to normal after what I’d been through. Watching healing magic and potions work on someone else wasn’t the same as experiencing it personally.

  When the sun came up again, Serru and Zanshe went out to collect more of the morning star crystals, promising to take no risks and to stay alert and to keep the communication chokers on. Serru used my waist-bag again, instead of either her brown-and-green original satchel or the grey-and-violet one she’d arrived with, but Zanshe preferred to keep her single-strap backpack. Expecting this to take time, they brought food and drink along with rope, tools, and emergency supplies.

  The rest of us were twitchy, waiting for them. Terenei meticulously copied my formu notes and diagram and had me check it against my dispy. Then, with Aryennos doing the text and Terenei the diagram, they sat at the kitchen isnd to make more copies so Terenei’s grandfather could start distributing it to other alchemists immediately. I helped Heket make a hot meal, stew that would be ready to eat whenever we needed it, and then curled up on the couch with her and Myu while she showed me her story cards and told me about them, common story variants, how she’d acquired them, how she’d loved stories when she was small and had been encouraged by her teachers to pursue that right along with the farming she also loved.

  Serru and Zanshe did check in with us irregurly to let us know they were safe, and we overheard some conversation between them.

  When they returned, they were tired, but between them, they triumphantly set a full dozen glowing copper-coloured crystals on the kitchen isnd, near the copying efforts.

  “We can send your grandfather the map too,” Serru said. “We should be able to mark on it where this cave is. Nathan’s Identify magic suggests that these are going to turn up in other caves too, but this is a known location to start from. I’m sure he can contact someone who can start doing more serious mining.”

  “For this?” Terenei said. “He absolutely will, both here and the cave on the coast with the aleksite.”

  “The faster we can get that started, the better. It’s important, obviously, but so is getting back to getting Nathan to the next Quincunx site. You were so close!”

  “Probably part of his reasoning,” I said. “It’s all right. A dey is worth it if it means you’ll be safer forever.”

  “Rest up and eat and get everything sorted out tonight,” Zanshe said. “We can start towards the road in the morning. We took a look at the ground and we should be able to do the more direct route.”

  “We must be close to Ironcrest,” Aryennos said.

  “Not exactly close,” Serru said. “It would still take three or four days to get there. Do we need another school? Even one that’s known for specializing in the esoteric and abstract and magic as such?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I doubt we’re going to get much more out of books at this point. Everything suggests that the only possible way home is through the Quincunx via the usual five-point journey, and that those two both did it and that gave them their ridiculous magic, and they really don’t want Nathan to go to the Axis and have cimed it isn’t actually a way home. I think we’re past theory and into just... just finish it. But I might try talking to someone at Ironcrest when I’m putting my book together, just to see what they say, as long as I can find a way to get there alive.”

  “You may be able to just invite someone from there to a pce that’s safer,” Zanshe said. “It might surprise you, how many people are extremely open to a trip for a good reason, especially if they know someone has arranged accommodations for them already. Crystal Pass, perhaps.”

  “That might be better.”

  We did spend some time going through bags, not to the same extent that we had at Zanshe’s house but just enough to make sure that everyone had basics. We weren’t going to be able to set the house up again for a couple of days, so anything left inside was out of reach. Much had been left with the wagon and the ornithians, simplifying the search, but we had more than enough to make it back.

  The next morning, Zanshe folded up her cot and tucked it into her bag, and we colpsed the house and set off. Zanshe took the portable house, the rest of us took turns with Heket’s mecha, and Myu walked when she felt like it and got carried by any of us when she didn’t. She quite liked perching on Zanshe’s shoulder like a bck-and-white furry parrot, but that was frequently unsafe, to her disgust.

  Zanshe and Serru alternated, one leading to pick the path and one bringing up the rear to watch for signs of anyone having trouble. It was a more difficult trek than I’d grown used to in this world, and no one really had the breath for talking during most stretches.

  At a number of points, the route was near-vertical. When we had to go down, Zanshe’s steady hand on a rope let the rest of us rappel, Serru demonstrating how with the confidence and grace of an expert, after which Zanshe free-climbed down to join us. I could understand in theory how she found hand- and foot-holds, although sometimes they looked armingly small and I felt my heart skip a beat when a small knob of rock turned out to be a stone that had anchored itself too loosely to hold her weight. What was really breathtaking was the complete nonchance, like scrambling around on a surface that was almost completely vertical was the most natural thing in the world.

  When we needed to go up, Zanshe gave us each a boost up short distances, again demonstrating that strength; on a couple of rger ones, she free-climbed to the top so that she could drop us a rope. Even then, she kept steady pressure on it, always attentive and sometimes offering advice.

  Jotuns being strong became much less of an abstract and much more of a simple fact, one that made it possible for us to travel at all. It wasn’t just raw strength, though. It was also stamina, and coordination, and skill. Her unshakable calm and good nature took a lot of the apprehension out of it for the rest of us.

  We stopped for lunch in an unbearably-beautiful little grotto, sheltered on three and a half sides; water ran down into it from above, and somehow, lush greenery thrived within it, surrounding a crystal-clear pond and stream. The sun even cast a small prism in the mist of the little waterfall. Tired as we were, Terenei ate fast and pulled out his sketchbook.

  We camped that night on a retively ft area where we could fit three tents and a small fire for hot food, and went on when the sun came up.

  And, with the sun high above, we finally spotted the road. It took a little longer to reach it, but morale jumped significantly just from knowing it was there.

  “It’ll be easier from here on,” Serru said, when we were standing on it and stopped for a quick break and a drink. “If we’re where I think we are, there’s a pair of farms that we’ll reach... maybe a little after dark, but they’ll let us stay there. They’ll have an unstaffed post office only, but we should be able to spend tomorrow night in an actual vilge just off the ring road. We need to go back in the direction of the Shallows to reach the site, and there’s a road off the ring road to Blue Goat Ridge where Cheer and Peace and the wagon are, but within a very few cycles, we’ll be back in the wagon and on our way down to the Midnds and the Bridge of Flowers and the Axis.”

  “As long as you have a pn,” Terenei said cheerfully.