"What?" Tavi quirked his head and looked up at her.

"If you could choose anything to do with your life. Anywhere to go," Amara said. "What would you do? Where would you go?"

"The Academy," he said, at once. "I'd go there. You don't have to be a crafter, there. You just have to be smart, and I am. I can read, and write, and do figures. My aunt taught me."

She lifted her brows. "The Academy?"

"It isn't just for Knights you know," Tavi said. "They train legates there, and architects, and engineers. Counselors, musicians, artists. You don't have to be a skilled crafter to design buildings or argue law."

Amara nodded. "Or you could be a Cursor."

Tavi wrinkled up his nose and snorted. "And spend my life delivering mail? How exciting could that be?"

The slave nodded, her expression sober. "Good point."

Tavi swallowed against a sudden tightness in his throat. "Out here, on the steadholt, crafting keeps you alive. Literally. Back in the cities, it isn't as important. You can still be someone other than a freak. You can make your own life for yourself. The Academy is the only place in Alera where you can do that."

"Sounds like you've thought about this a lot," Amara said quietly.

"My uncle saw it once, when his Legion was on review for the First Lord. He told me about it. And I've talked to soldiers on their way up to Garrison. Traders. Last spring, Uncle promised me that if I showed him enough responsibility, he'd give me a few sheep of my own. I figured out that if I took care of them and sold them next year, and saved up all of my pay from the Legions, that I could put together enough money for a semester at the Academy."

"One semester?" Amara asked. "What then?"

Tavi shrugged. "I don't know. Try to find some way to stay. I might be able to get someone to be a patron or… I don't know. Something."

She turned to look at him for a moment and said, "You're very brave, Tavi."

"My uncle will never give me the sheep, after this. If he's not dead." The tightness in his throat choked him, and he bowed his head. He could feel tears filling his closed eyes.

"I'm sure he's all right," the slave said.

Tavi nodded, but he couldn't speak. The anguish he'd been trying to keep stuffed down inside rose up in him, and the tears fell onto his cheeks. Uncle Bernard couldn't be dead. He just couldn't. How would Tavi ever be able to live with that?

How would he ever face his aunt?

Tavi lifted his fist and shoved angrily at the tears staining his cheeks.

"At least you're alive," Amara pointed out, her voice quiet. She put a hand on his shoulder. "That's nothing to take lightly, given what you went through yesterday. You survived."

"I get the feeling that when I get back home, I'm going to wish I hadn't," Tavi said, his voice choking, wry. He blinked away the tears and summoned up a smile for the young woman.

She returned it. "Can I ask you something?"

He shrugged. "Sure."

"Why endanger what you'd been working toward? Why did you agree to help this Beritte if you knew it could cause problems for you?"

"I didn't think it would," Tavi said, his voice plaintive. "I mean, I thought I could have done it all. It wasn't until nearly the end of the day that I realized I was going to have to pick between getting all the sheep in and those hollybells, and I'd promised her."

"Ah," said the slave, but her expression remained dubious.

Tavi felt his cheeks color again, and he looked down. "All right," he

sighed. "She kissed me, and my brains melted and dribbled out my ears."

"Now that I can believe," Amara said. She stretched her foot toward the water, flicking idly at its surface with her toes.

"What about you?" Tavi asked.

She tilted her head to one side. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged and looked up at her again, uncertain. "I've been doing all the talking. You haven't said a thing about yourself. Slaves don't usually wander around this far from the road. Or a steadholt. All alone. I figured that, uh, you must have run away."

"No," the young woman said, firmly. "But I did get lost in the storm. I was on my way to Garrison, to deliver a message for my master."

Tavi squinted up at her. "He just sent you out like that? A woman? Alone?"

"I don't question his orders, Tavi. I just obey them."

Tavi frowned, but nodded. "Well, okay, I guess. But, do you think you could come along with me? Maybe talk to my uncle? He could make sure you got to Garrison safely. Get you a hot meal, some warmer clothes."

The slave's eyes wrinkled at the corners. "That's a very polite way to take someone prisoner, Tavi."

He flushed. "I'm sorry. Especially since you probably saved my life and all. But if you are a runaway, and I don't do something about it, the law could come back to hurt my uncle." He pushed his hair back from his eyes. "And I've done enough to mess things up already."

"I understand," she said. "I'll come with you."

"Thank you." He glanced up at the doorway. "Sounds like the rain's stopped. Do you think it's safe to go?"

The slave frowned and looked outside for a moment. "I doubt it's going to get any safer if we wait. We should get back to your steadholt, before the storm gets bad again."

"You think it will?"

Amara nodded, the motion confident. "It has that feel to it."

"All right. Are you going to be all right, walking?" He glanced at her and down at her foot. Her ankle was swollen around a purpling bruise.

Amara grimaced. "It's just my ankle, not the rest of the foot. It hurts, but if I'm careful I should be all right."

Tavi blew out a breath and pushed himself to his feet. All the cuts and injuries twinged and ached, muscle protesting. He had to brace his hand on

the wall for a moment, until he got his balance back. "Okay, then. I guess it isn't going to get any easier."

"I guess not.' Amara let out a small, pained sound as she got to her feet as well. "Well. We make a fine pair of traveling companions. Lead the way."

Tavi headed out of the Memorium and into the chill of the northern wind blowing down from the mountains in the north and the Sea of Ice beyond. Though Tavi had kept the scarlet cloak from the Memorium, the wind was still almost enough to make him turn back inside and seek shelter. Frozen blades of grass crunched beneath his feet, and his breath came out in a steamy haze before his mouth, swiftly torn apart by the winds. There could be no more argument on the subject: Winter had arrived in full force upon the Calderon Valley, and the first snow could not be far behind.

He glanced at the slave behind him. Amara's expression seemed remote, distracted, and she walked with a definite limp, bare feet pale against the icy grass. Tavi winced and said, "We should stop before long, to get your feet warmed up. We could strip one of the cloaks, at least try to wrap them."

"The wrappings would freeze," she said, after a moment's silence. ''The air will keep them warm better than cloth. Just keep going. Once we get to your steadholt, we can warm them up."

Tavi frowned, more at the way her attention seemed fixed on things elsewhere than at what she had to say. He resolved to keep a close eye on her: Frozen feet were nothing to scoff at, and if she was used to life in the city, she might not realize how dangerous it could be on the frontier, or how quickly frostbite could claim her limbs or her life. He stepped up the pace a little, and Amara kept up with him.

They reached the causeway and started down it, but had walked for no more,than an hour when Tavi felt the ground begin to rumble, a tremor so faint that he had to stop and place his spread fingers against the flagstones in order to detect it. "Hold on," he said. "I think someone's coming."

Amara's expression sharpened almost at once, and Tavi saw her draw the cloak a little more closely against her, her hands beneath it and out of sight. Her eyes flickered around them. "Can you tell who?"