Basilglen seemed to be the intermediary town between the rolling farmland Orenda had learned about on the boat, and the forested coast she had just ridden through. It was nothing but shops as far as she could tell, not the tall stone buildings she was used to back home but small wooden structures that could not have more than two or three rooms, spread out farther than she would have expected. This was the sort of small town where everyone knew everyone- the worst possible place for newcomers to attempt to blend in, especially those who were not earth elves, as the town seemed to be entirely populated by them. Orenda found this to be particularly strange, because she knew that here, in the heart of the empire, it should be mostly humans. Everyone knew that humans outpopulated the elves by a pretty wide margin, but there were none on the streets at all.

They were driving toward a shop that had a sign on front proclaiming that it specialized in textiles- which it claimed it could produce in-house, but Orenda doubted that claim. There had been textile mills in the industrial district back home, workhouses that operated similarly to the ore extraction place she had worked- several children and lots of loud machines, clacking away spinning thread and weaving it into fabric. It couldn’t be produced in a shop that small, not in quantities worth buying.

Sarya pulled the fabric of the wagon’s cover closed, and Orenda felt it stop. She looked around at her traveling companions, and saw Barbra Allen put a finger to her lips to indicate that she should stay silent. Orenda nodded and clutched the staff tightly, as if she was half afraid she would drop it and make a clattering sound, though if she did drop it it would have fallen onto Anilla and False who still sat on the floor beside the empty boxes the others were using as chairs.

Sarya came back almost instantly, and Orenda knew it was too fast. She knew something had gone wrong. She saw this in Barbra Allen’s eyes as well, but it was daylight and they were not supposed to be there, and she could not make a sound to ask what had happened, what was wrong.

The wagon parked again, and Sarya spoke.

“Barbry, come on out here and watch the horses while I go in and run over our supply list.”

“Yes, mam,” Barbra Allen said, and stepped out the back of the wagon, pulling the covering closed tightly.

Bella sat across from Orenda, and she didn’t look nearly as concerned as Orenda did. Her eye was trained on the exit, the way Barbra Allen had gone out, and Orenda opened her mouth to get her attention.

“Bella,” She spoke as softly as she could, and Bella’s eye darted to her. She shook her head and put a finger to her lips.

They were gone much, much longer this time. As the seconds turned to minutes and became a quarter of an hour, Orenda could not stand how still everyone was being, how silent, how patient, as if nothing at all was wrong when something very obviously was.

“Gareth,” She whispered, and he laid his hand on her knee from his position beside her.

“Shss,” he said softly, “They’ll hear you.”

Orenda nodded, and they sat in silence as more time stretched on there, under that tarp, giving no clue to the world outside it.

Finally, the back of the burlap parted, and Barbra Allen climbed in carrying a crate that there was absolutely not room for. Falsie stood, and with some finangling they managed to wedge it between the empty boxes and the front of the wagon, and he climbed onto it and sat down. Barbra Allen tied the back closed and took her seat as the wagon began to move again.

She leaned in and whispered, “Well, now, there’s… we’ve had to change our plans.”

“Why?” Bella asked instantly, almost before she had the sentence out.

“Sakala ain’t here no more,” Barbra Allen said, “The feller in there said she met somebody and moved out to the Sage Lake province. I don’t like that. I reckon she sensed danger and had to pull out. The Brigaddons contact her directly all the time because they come in to sell their wares there.”

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“What’s the new plan?” Gareth asked.

“We ain’t got another contact in Basilglen,” Barbra Allen said, “We’ll have to take you ourselves.”

“Through the agricultural district?” Gareth hissed, “With no cover?”

“We can say we’re a group of traveling musicians,” She said.

“No you can’t!” He spat, “They know you here! We don’t have a cover and you know it!”

“Well now, it’s this or walk,” She said.

“Aren’t the farmlands spread out?” Orenda asked, “They’re personal estates, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Gareth said, “But they’re estates of-”

“We call them plantations,” Barbra Allen said, “Not all estates specialize in farming.”

“Thank you for the vocabulary lesson,” Gareth said in a tone that implied he didn’t mean it at all, “They’re the estates of wealthy slave-owners who are exactly the sort of people we don’t want to meet. They are the antithesis of the order. We’re heading into the lion’s den armed with a songsmith who has no cover story! The only place on the other side of that region is Capital Town. There’s no reason for us to be traveling there if we get stopped- and we will have to stop along the way. The horses can’t do it in one go! Normally a traveler would ask the estate owner for hospitality but we can’t do that so what the hell are we going to do?”

“We’ll get by,” Barbra Allen said.

“Get by?” Gareth asked, “Get by!? We’re traveling toward the castle of the empress! We’re traveling towards- oh god, god why are we doing this?? We’re traveling towards the Emerald Knight!”

“Gary,” Falsie snapped his fingers, “Gary look at me. This is a bad time for this. You can’t do this right now. Keep your shit together. Breath.”

“If we get caught, we head backwards, not forwards,” Gareth said, “We slaughter the soldiers and go back for the ship. We don’t lead them to Xac.”

“We know, honey,” Bella said and leaned forward to take both his hands in hers, “We know better.”

“They may not!” Gareth argued.

“Well now they do. Sarya can hear you through the tarp. Try to keep your voice down.” Bella said gently, and Orenda knew that she was trying to comfort him, but his hands were shaking, and Orenda had a feeling that he already thought he had been on land for too long.

Eventually, the sounds of the town faded and Orenda began to hear singing. She hadn’t expected it at all, and it grew in volume from all sides as they moved forward. It was a beautiful acapella hymn that she had heard before around the mask festival, a song of thanks to Thesis for the harvest- but the way it was sung was new to her. It was almost like the shanties the crew sang on the ship, not well organized and conducted in a choir, but as if each member only sang what they knew, but together they made a whole song.

“We thank Thee, God, for this fair earth,

The glittering sky, the silver sea;

For all their beauty, all their worth,

Their light and glory, come from Thee.”

“Is there a temple service?” Orenda whispered.

“No,” Bella said, as if she was not enjoying the song, did not see the beauty in it that Orenda did, “No, that’s the people clearing the fields. The harvest is over by the time the mask festival rolls around, but there’s still a lot to be done. They sing while they work.”

Orenda remembered being in a wagon like this with Ali, remember him telling her that the boys in the harem where he was going were thankful, were happy to have their position, because they could have been in the fields.

“Don’t look outside,” Barbra Allen said when Orenda moved to do so, “People get right close to the fences, right close to the road when they’re workin. And they get real curious. They might see you. They know what earth elves look like, and they know you ain’t it.”

“They would turn us in,” Orenda said. It wasn’t a question. She knew that not all humans were Knights of Order, knew that some people were just trying to get by and would do everything they could to secure a better position for themselves in the current system instead of trying to overthrow it. And she couldn’t blame them.

“Don’t look outside anyway,” Gareth said. “If you look outside you’ll burn it to the ground. They’ve been out here since sunrise. Some of them are children.”

“Xac worked the fields,” Bella said, “When he was very, very young. That’s how he learned… he… well. I suppose it’s a need to know thing. No offense.”

“None taken,” Barbra said, “We don’t need to know nothin we don’t need to know. It makes us targets.”

Bella nodded, and watched the color change around them as the sun began to set outside. It startled Orenda when she began to sing, so quietly that Orenda barely heard her.

“So while we gaze with thoughtful eye

On all the gifts Thy love has given,

Help us in Thee to live and die,

By Thee to rise to Heaven.”