'Can we stop? Please!' Cassandra begged Ellen for what must have been the tenth time in nearly as many minutes.

'You can stop. We will keep going; we don't need you,' Ellen snapped from the front of the group.

'Ellen, seriously, if we're going to make it to the tower alive, then we need to stop,' Lewis said, finally deciding to break his silence.

They had stopped overnight in Springcaster so that Ellen could pick up some supplies. It had also given Cassandra a chance to get some new clothes in the hope that they would enable her to keep up better. As it turned out, the weather had other ideas. Instead of being hampered by Cassandra's dress, they were now all being held back by the torrential rain, their clothes soaking through and weighing them down.

When he had been woken by Ellen before the sun had even risen, the sky had been completely clear. They had barely set foot in the mountains when the clouds appeared, descending rapidly around them. Then the storm broke. In mere minutes, they had been soaked to the bone. Unfortunately for them, that had been, from Lewis' best guess, about ten hours ago.

The soaked clothes wrapped around them offered no warmth whatsoever as the four of them traipsed down the mountain path. With no hope of lighting a fire, Ellen insisted they carry on walking, trying to convince them there might be somewhere up ahead. Surely she must be starving as well by now.

'There,' Olivia said suddenly, her arms unfolding as she pointed ahead of them. To the right of the path was an opening in the sheer rock face that towered over them. No matter which direction they turned, the rain always seemed to drive in at them from the opposite direction.

'It isn't much further to the tower,' she insisted, as there was a rumble of thunder overhead.

'I don't give a damn about the tower!' Lewis shouted, making for the opening Olivia had pointed out. 'We're stopping here until the storm passes.'

'No, we aren't!'

'You might have some superhuman ability to stop you from freezing to death, but we don't,' he snapped. 'None of us have eaten all day. If we don't stop, then one of us could slip off that edge and fall to our deaths. Personally, I couldn't care less if you do, but I won't let you risk the lives of the rest of us. Or Emily's.'

When she hesitated, Lewis took that as his opportunity, dragging her into the opening. In all the weeks they had spent travelling together, he had never disobeyed her. She had always maintained that the price for that would be Emily's life, but something told him that this time he was right.

'Fine,' she hissed, pulling her arm out of his grasp as Olivia and Cassandra entered the small cave. 'We leave as soon as the storm passes.' Without another word, Ellen dropped her backpack on the floor, stomping back outside.

'Where's she going?' Olivia asked, looking between Lewis and the entrance to the cave.

'She'll be back,' he said, opening the rucksack and pulling some of the supplies out. Everything inside was at least a little damp, and he didn't think for a second that any of their bags would be any different. 'Get changed into something a bit drier; I'll try and get a fire started.'

As Olivia and Cassandra disappeared into the shadows to get changed, he sorted through Ellen's backpack as well as his own. When they stopped for supplies, he insisted on picking up a small stack of firewood. From Springcaster, the mountains looked devoid of anything burnable. Other than a handful of small dead pine trees about a five-minute walk back in the direction of the town, there had been nothing.

'Did either of you get any paper?' He called back to the other two when he couldn't find anything other than Ellen's black leather-bound book.

'I thought you were getting it,' Olivia replied, appearing at his side. 'Everything is soaked,' she added, looking down at what had been a blue button-up shirt. Now it looked almost black.

'I was getting clothes,' Cassandra called, as if she was trying to clear her name of any wrongdoing.

Lewis shook his head. 'There's nothing apart from this book,' he said, holding it up to Olivia.

'Where did you get this?' she asked, snatching it out of his hand.

'It was in Ellen's bag. Don't you remember, I found it in there the day Nirra found us in the forest?' he said, recalling what Ellen had done when she had seen it. 'We should put it back.'

'No, I've never seen it before,' she said.

'Yes, you have. Remember when Ellen almost killed me in the forest? Right before the Cimant hunters killed Wilson,' Lewis said. How could she have forgotten?

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Slowly, she shook her head. 'I don't.'

'I don't like it,' Cassandra whispered from behind them. 'It feels wrong.'

'I was just looking for something to start the fire with,' Lewis said defensively. 'I wasn't going through her things.'

'Not you, the book,' she said, eyeing it warily. 'It just feels wrong.'

'She shouldn't have something like this,' Olivia said quietly. 'Put it away before she comes back. No one mentions this book, ever,' she said, handing it back to Lewis.

Lewis and Cassandra both nodded as he took the book, shoving it back in Ellen's bag. 'Do you know what it is?'

Before she could answer his question, the sound of wet footsteps filled the cave. A moment later, there was a scraping sound as Ellen reappeared, her hair plastered to her face and a large branch trailing behind her. 'What's going on?' she demanded when she saw the three of them huddled together.

'We were just trying to sort some dry stuff out to get a fire going,' Lewis said quickly. 'You don't have anything we can use to light it, do you?'

Dropping the branch on the ground with a thud, she strode over to her rucksack, rummaging in one of the back pockets for a moment before producing a box of matches and some paper. Without a word, she threw them at Lewis, picking up her rucksack and moving into one of the dark corners. It seemed as though the move hadn't gone unnoticed by Olivia and Cassandra either. Did she suspect something already?

'Can you start the fire while I get changed?' Lewis asked, passing the paper and matches to Olivia. Seeing Ellen soaked to the bone suddenly reminded him that he was still in a similar state. As soon as he thought about it, his teeth began to chatter, sending shivers raking through his body instantly.

'Sure,' she muttered, gathering up the wood with the help of Cassandra and moving it to the driest spot they could find by the door so that the cave wouldn't fill up with smoke too much.

With the thought of what might happen if Ellen found out he had had the book out again firmly on his mind, Lewis grabbed his own rucksack. Retreating to a dark corner of the cave, he got changed into the driest clothes he could find. Like everything else in his bag, they were damp. As he changed, he listened to the soft voices of Olivia and Cassandra echoing back to him. While they had been travelling, they seemed to have grown quite close. If not for Ellen, he expected they would have spent more time talking between themselves. Apparently, they felt he offered them some protection from Ellen, especially for Cassandra. It also seemed as though Olivia enjoyed her company. After spending so long with Ellen, it must have been a nice change to spend some time with someone who wasn't permanently hostile.

'How's it going?' he asked, tossing his rucksack full of wet clothes aside as he approached them. He would sort through them later.

In response to his question, he saw a small puff of smoke. 'Getting there slowly,' Olivia sighed tiredly.

'Did you see where Ellen went?' he said.

'She went out again. She's either looking for more firewood or hypothermia,' Olivia said as the fire finally began to catch on the damp wood.

'I'm going to go and find her,' he said. 'I won't be long.'

With a sigh, Olivia acknowledged him. Hopefully, by the time he returned with Ellen, they would have managed to get the fire going properly.

As he exited the cave through the narrow entrance, he felt the cold rain sting his face once more. Turning back in the direction of Springcaster, he followed the muddy footprints back down the path in the direction they had come. Maybe Ellen hadn't gotten too far, he thought hopefully. Though the rain had eased off slightly, it was still far from good conditions to be traversing the mountains in. He didn't know if he was glad that the rain had come, forcing them to stop, or not. If it hadn't, Olivia wouldn't have known about the book. It was still a mystery to him that she hadn't seen it on the day that Nirra had found them. What if she had, though? Could she have been lying to him?

No, he insisted. If she was against him as well, then what hope did he have? He still needed to figure out a way to get himself and Cassandra out of this mess. Suddenly, he found himself regretting the fact that he had brought her with him. Surely it would have been so much easier for him to save himself? Now he had to think about her as well. Should he try to convince her that she should leave them, head back to Springcaster, and find herself a new life?

Lewis was so engrossed in his thoughts that he almost missed Ellen completely. Off the side of the path, she was hanging from a low, dead branch on one of the pine trees. They saw each other at exactly the same moment. As he stepped off of the path, she let go of the branch, dropping to the ground, her boots squelching in the mud.

'I was just trying to get us some more firewood,' she said. For the first time since he had met her in Fir Forest, it felt like she was trying to defend her actions.

'Here, let me,' he said, resisting the urge to question why she was out here in the rain still. Reaching up, Lewis pulled down on the dead branch. With a crack, it broke, the length of wood coming away in his hands.

'That will probably do for now,' she said, tilting her head to one side as she looked at the branch he was holding.

'We should get back,' he said. 'You need to get changed before you get hypothermia.'

'Could that be compassion that you're showing for your fellow traveller?' she asked, leading the way back to the cave.

No, he thought; all he wanted was to make sure nothing happened to Emily. 'You're the one leading us; where would we go without you?' he said as sweetly as he could manage. He wished she wasn't the one leading them. As for where they would go, he knew one place, and it was a long way from where they were now.

'You shouldn't lie. It will get you in trouble at the tower,' she said, entering the cave ahead of him. As he ducked inside, he saw Olivia and Cassandra glance in his direction questioningly.

'I'll be sure to make a note of that when we get there,' he said, dropping the branch beside the one Ellen had retrieved earlier. To his relief, the fire was now burning merrily. For the first time since they had entered the mountains, he felt warmth, even if it was only in his fingers as he held them close to the flames. 'Like I said, you should get changed.'

At his words, he saw Olivia relax visibly. She had probably feared that Ellen had already found out that they had seen the book. Without replying, Ellen left the three of them by the fire, the squelching of her wet shoes echoing quietly to break the silence. Pulling his rucksack over to his side, Lewis began emptying the contents onto the floor. Perhaps he would be able to get some of his new clothes dried out by the morning.