"Why do you even care about them?" Mab wants to know. "They left you! You were a baby! You were completely defenseless! You could have died! And, in all these years, they never tried to find you?"

"Maybe there was an accident. Maybe they tried." Even to my own ears, the words sound unconvinced, but it is easier to play their advocate than to feel the hollow ache of abandonment. Learning of my parents' continued existence has brought with it a flood of conflicting emotions: relief, resentment, curiosity, longing.

"They could have been attacked," Köv offers.

"Maybe they didn't know you were alive," Teak theorizes.

"I wouldn't have rested until I knew beyond a doubt," Mab counters, crossing her arms. Agan listens silently, offering neither condemnation nor support.

"There are a lot of towns. A lot of woods. Should they have spent the rest of their lives searching?" Köv argues. "What if there was nothing to find?"

"For their child? Of course, they should have spent the rest of their lives searching!"

Köv shakes his head, and Mab seems to take personal offense.

"Are you telling me you wouldn't?"

"I am just saying... if they thought he was gone, what was there to do about it? Either he was okay or he wasn't. After a certain point, nothing they could do would change that. It's best to move on with your life, isn't it?" Incredulous silence follows.

"I can't believe you just said that. Honestly."

For once, it is nice to see Mab arguing with someone else. Even if it is over my family, my decisions. Teak sits uncomfortably by my side, unwilling to get further involved as the argument escalates.

"You only say that because you don't have children," Mab accuses. "You don't understand."

"Neither do you, Mab."

"Yes, but-" A strangled sound escapes her. "It's called empathy. Try it sometime. This is why you would make an awful leader."

"Better than a hot-headed girl. Anyway, there is no risk of that now-"

"I am not hot-headed. I just care. And I care enough to say something about it, unlike some of you."

"You are a little hot-headed," I contribute against my better judgment.

"Well, it's better than doing nothing."

"Calm down," Köv tells her. It is precisely the wrong thing to say.

"How am I supposed to calm down? We are out here in the middle of nowhere! I am stuck with you and that silent bird girl. I left behind my home, everything I know. And Kalyn is about to- about to..."

"...About to what?" I prod after a while.

"I can't lose you, too."

"You're not going to lose me," I tell her, amused that she might even think so. Mab just shrugs.

"We should probably get some sleep," Teak interjects uncomfortably. Though he says we can finish the discussion in the morning, I can tell that he hopes we never do.

There is no denying it. The sun set hours ago. Loath as some of us are, we are each forced to admit it in time. Agan tosses dirt on the fire, and we rise to go to our separate shacks. Mab catches me in a hug, and I hold her in my best attempt at reassurance.

"I am not going anywhere."

"That's the problem, Kal."

The new moon is a mere fortnight hence. That my parents might have walked overhead as I navigated the mines is a possibility that is never far from my mind. I try to imagine everything: how they will look, how they will speak. What will they have to say for themselves? Will they even bother to try?

Consumed as I am with these thoughts, I don't notice the Intean's cooling welcome until Teak mentions it to me. My friends were rescued from the mountainside at my behest, but it is becoming more and more obvious that they were not intended to stay.

Most of our travelling companions have gotten what they came here to get. They have traded and left. Only those with no where else to go, remain. Still, our hosts' benevolence thins. We are living in their homes, eating their food. Contributing nothing.

The head of my host family offers to build me a lean-to while I await my parents' arrival, but I hate to accept. I can't commit to staying. Not when so much relies on what family I have to find.

My family's house is at the edge of town. I peek through the windows, hoping to glean what I can of their lives, but there is little in the way of clues. I ask around for what spare bits of information I can, but nothing will sate me like their presence.

All things considered, though, nothing seems to unsettle the Inteans like Grif. He is admittedly useful in the hunt, but that does not sway them enough to trust him. Their experience with wolves is pain and misfortune. His howls, answered by wild predators in the night, cast a chill over every house.

"It is time for them to go," the chief tells me one day. "My people have sheltered them long enough. They are rested. They are fed. Now it is time for them to continue their journey."

I don't know how to tell him that Inte is the destination. How will I tell my friends that they have to leave when there is no where else to go? When home isn't an option...

"It's going to be like this anywhere, isn't it?" Teak realizes. 

"We should go back," Köv asserts.

"What? No!" The horror of confronting her father is Mab's main deterrent. There is nothing there for her. Nothing but loss. No way to win.

"We can't keep on like this forever," Teak reasons.

"We can't let him get away with it," Köv insists.

When they look to me for opinions, I remain neutral. That I won't be going with them is a subject I've avoided. Mab feels this betrayal the deepest.

"What about Corsa? What about Enos and the twins?" For that, I have no answer. "They took you in when your parents were nowhere to be found. How can you forget about them now?"

"Dager said he would restore rations when the Incarnates were gone."

"Do you really believe that?" It is Köv this time.

"Why not? We don't know it's that bad!" I am making excuses, and everyone knows it. "What can we do, anyway?"

"We can try!"

"We are not so helpless," Köv agrees with Mab. "Not with Grif and Wart."

"Against a dozen wolves?" 

"I can talk to them. They don't like Dager any more than we do."

"Then... you should do that. I can't leave. Not after I've come this far."