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yanked. The board came up easily, and beneath it was a narrow space stuffed with papers. A hiding place? I dipped my hand inside and shuffled through the papers. Most were unintelligible to me—diagrams, lists, other things that made little sense to me. Then my fingers brushed leather, and my heart skipped a beat. I reached deeper and withdrew a book. A journal.
    My heart thudded. My throat tightened. With shaking fingers, I opened the book to the first page and saw the sign of the Thorns.
    This was the journal Doctor Borde had showed me five hundred years in the past. The one that had held my family’s riddle.
    I turned the pages slowly. Some were filled with the scrawl of a shaking hand, unreadable passages of frantic words. Others held rows of deliberate, neat words, the shape of the letters dark from some pressing hand. I flipped faster. Here was the riddle— What woven secret will keep you warm ? Here was the sketch of me, or someone who looked just like me. I touched the face of the girl as goose bumps rippled over my flesh.
    I tucked the journal back in the space where I’d found it, replaced the board, and stood. My whole body felt wrung out, shaken. This journal, this ruin—these things were like ghosts from the past, haunting me. I didn’t want them.
    I stood for a moment in the stillness of the ruined lab, taking one last look around the room. Then I slipped out the door and headed for Iceliss.
     
    ~
     
    The rustle of trees made me pause along the path to the village. The wall of vegetation parted, and a man emerged. I recognized him at once.
    “Stone,” I said.
    The Wanderer nodded at me in greeting. “Lia Weaver.”
    It was strange to see him here in my world, standing among our snow blossoms and pines instead of on his wind-swept ice plain. But then again, in a way, nothing was strange anymore.
    I searched for something to say, something pleasant to this once captor, now ally whose people shared the Frost with us in exchange for their assistance in overthrowing our oppressors.
    “How are your people?” I finally asked. The people who called themselves the Wanderers had made a new camp near the village, close enough to trade for goods when they needed them, but far enough that we did not see each other without purposing to do so.
    He considered his words before replying. “They are adjusting slowly. It is different now, to have access to this place. We are not used to seeing walls and houses of stone.”
    I nodded. They’d been in the village a few times, and they always moved like deer, furtive and easily startled by anything that moved too suddenly or made too loud a noise.
    “We still keep our own customs,” he continued. “We have pitched our tents at the far end of the Compound land, far from this place. With our ability to escape harm from the Mechs, some of us can hunt freely at night.”
    I nodded. We’d shared the serum that kept the Watchers—or Mechs, as Stone called them—at bay with those of the Wanderers’ tribe who’d joined us in the liberation of Iceliss. It had been necessary for our plot to work, as all the people present in the village square had to be able to repel the Watchers and drive them toward the Farthers instead. It was also how we’d convinced them to help us in the first place. Now, anyone whose blood carried the serum could walk the Frost freely.
    “Do you go to Iceliss now?” I asked.
    Stone’s expression shuttered. “Unfortunately, yes. I must obtain goods there. I bring furs to trade.”
    “Unfortunately?”
    “We are not always welcome,” he said shortly.
    I remembered the conflict yesterday in the village, and the angry words aimed at “outsiders.” I flinched.
    “I’m sorry to hear that. You are always welcome in my house,” I said.
    His eyes were dark as they held mine. “And you, Lia Weaver, are always welcome in our camp. If you ever need anything, ask me.”
    We parted, and I headed for the former Mayor’s house. Adam’s new mission.