Hina pulled her head back behind the wall of the Pattersons' house. "I don't think he's seen us, but he's coming this way," she said to Kai. "Let's cut through the alley."

Kai nodded. Her eyes had adjusted enough to the dim early-morning light that she could see his worried frown.

She took off down the dark laneway behind the house. Hina stepped around the chairs the Pattersons kept behind their house, and the stools on the other side, and the empty bin.

Her foot landed on the edge of a glass bottle and she stumbled and fell. Hina yelped with the pain of all of her still-forming bruises. The bottle bounced off the ground further up the alley, then found something solid with a crash and the tinkle of broken glass.

Kai gave her a hand up.

The broken glass would be mostly against the side of the alley. Hina tested each footstep along the other side of the alley until they were clear, then increased her pace.

She couldn't jog for long, but they didn't have far to go.

Two turns on, Hina slowed, both to catch her breath and because they were getting close.

And there it was, the gate with the broken latch. She walked forward and pulled it open. She held a finger up towards Kai for quiet—not that he could see it—then stepped into the courtyard.

It was a familiar layout: three metres by four meters tiled, with a line for washing and space for sitting. All of the nicer homes in Grambe had a similar yard, but this one was special.

The owner was an older man whose wife and children had been killed by sapphire mites a few years back. Or at least that's what the gossips had been saying in the bakery a few months ago. The story went that the man had no other family and now lived alone in a home that had enough room for many others—a scandal, if only a minor one.

Hina had noticed the clutter from the street while walking past one afternoon. She'd thought of it immediately when they needed a place to hide their travel bags.

In the early stages of their preparations, Hina had been able to hide their things in the cupboard of her room, under the pile of spare blankets. But as the stash grew, she'd grown more and more nervous that either her mother or father would find it, and kill their fledgling journey before it began.

She'd hidden a handful of things at the bakery, but when she found this spot, it was too good to pass up, and she'd moved all of it across town.

Both Hina and Kai had been making regular trips out here to add to their preparations daily.

The old man in the house didn't seem to have noticed.

Around the shadowy mess of decaying furniture, empty crates and rubbish, Hina found the mostly intact shipping crate where she'd stashed their things.

She lifted up the lid and reached in. Her stomach lurched when her hand didn't immediately touch the familiar shape of her travel bag. What if someone had found it? What if they'd taken it?

Her fingers touched canvas, and she felt a surge of relief.

In the alley, she opened up her bag to feel for the essentials. Nothing seemed to be missing. Her fingers traced the outline in her pocket. Everything seemed to be there.

At least something was going to plan.

"Got everything?" she asked Kai quietly.

"Uh huh." He finished checking his own bag and slung it over his shoulder.

The flour sack with the bread went into Hina's bag. She hesitated for a moment before putting the other one with the bloodied clothes into her bag too. It could be bad if she was caught with those, but she didn't want to leave them here where they were likely to be found. She'd dump them when they were out of town.

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"Okay, let's get out of here," she said, slipping her bag over her shoulder.

Hina led Kai through the maze of narrow streets across town, to the break. It was a place where a part of the town wall had collapsed years ago, and the town council had never gotten around to fixing it. It was a good sign for the safety of the wilds outside of town.

The break was the best way out, if you didn't want to go via either of the main gates. Those would be locked and guarded, even at this early hour.

The wall was made from carved blocks of ancient stone, each one as long as Hina's arm. She didn't know when it was built, and there was nothing about it recorded in the town library.

It rose to around three times Hina's height—built to keep out monsters much larger than anything the town had seen recently. Nothing even half that size had made it to the walls in a hundred years.

But here, at the break, it was only two thirds of that height. Much easier to climb, though the jumbled stones near the top looked treacherous in the early-morning shadows.

A voice shouted from behind them, "Stay where you are! Don't move!"

Four of the town guards had rounded the corner at the end of the street, fifty or sixty metres away, and were walking up the street towards them, spears held upright. Lantern-light illuminated their blue uniforms.

Hina's heart raced. She'd thought that they would have more time. A lot more time.

Kai looked down at the ground. His hands shook. Hina couldn't let him down.

"Hey." She clasped him on the shoulder. "We're getting out of here. Follow me."

She ran towards the fallen stones at the base of the wall, scrambling up as fast as she could. The soft scraping sounds of Kai following came from behind her. And then the heavy, jangling footfalls of the guards running up the street in the distance, getting closer.

She reached as high as she could for the top of the wall, feeling for footholds with the points of her toes.

Her bag was heavy on her back, drawing her backward, down towards the town and the guards and the life that her father wanted for her. She fought it, hauled herself up with all of her might, pulled herself forward. Her muscles strained, blood rushed loud in Hina's ears.

And then she was up, standing on the jumbled stones near the top of the broken part of the wall. She gave Kai a hand up, breathing hard.

From the top of the wall the fields stretched off into the distance in the morning light, gold and green, evenly studded with the walls of the farms. Vegetation deep enough to get lost in.

Another guard ran towards them along the top of the wall from the north gate.

A shout came from below. A guard on the ground pointed them out to a broad dark figure—Hina knew that silhouette—her father.

She felt a sick stab of shame deep in her guts and was overcome with the urge to confess, to explain. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad—no. No. She was going to get out, she was going to get them both out.

Hina lowered herself down the outer face of the wall.

This side was much steeper, but the mortar had long-since worn away, if there had ever been any mortar. There were gaps between each stone, and the edges didn't quite line up, leaving hand and foot holds for the careful climber.

The Climber's Guide said to keep three points of contact with the surface at all times, but Hina ignored that. She scrambled down as fast as she dared.

One of the guards came into view at the top of the wall. A face she almost recognised under the helmet. She'd served him at the bakery only a day or two ago.

He was pointing down towards her. "Here!" he shouted over his shoulder. "Hey! Stop!" he called down to them. "Around here!"

Hina pushed off from the wall and dropped for the last metre, down into the ditch around the wall. She landed in a clear spot and took a few shaky steps before she caught her balance. Her legs and feet rung with the sudden shock of the landing.

"Drop down," she called up to Kai. "Quickly!"

He landed beside her with bent knees.

"You good?"

"I—I'm okay."

Hina grabbed his hand and pulled, leading the way across the ditch, running as fast as she could while prickles of fear on the back of her neck spurred her on. They would have to lose them in the fields.

"To the north west," yelled the guard on the wall. "In the crops!"

The tall leafy plants came to well over Hina's head, the air had a bitter smell. A spiderweb caught her full in the face and Hina winced, but she kept running. Spiders wouldn't kill her.

A stitch developed in her side and Hina slowed, sharp pain stabbing into her chest as she breathed. She angled their path off to the left, circling around the town. Running in a straight line would make them too easy to follow.

She'd lost track of where they were in relation to the farms she had seen on the wall, and she wasn't familiar enough with the farmland outside town to be sure. There was no way to know what was ahead of them until they came out of the fields.

So long as they didn't stumble into a group of farmers, she'd just have to keep moving out towards the edge, and hope for the best.

Eventually they came across a little dirt track running through the fields.

"Looks like our road," Hina said, judging their direction from the position of the sun. "Keep an ear out."

"Okay." Kai nodded. "So, wanna tell me what happened?"