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from every rock that could possibly be a snapper in disguise, with the result that I strayed off the paths that led directly to the cove. No one could claim I was lost—I retained my bearings by keeping an eye on the dead tree rising high above the reeds in the center of the marsh—but when I finally reached the turtle-free safety of the forest, I was far from the frequented trails.
    You can measure the distance from town to any part of the forest by the age of the people who use that area as a hiding place. The youngest children make their forts just deep enough into the trees to be out of sight of the Council Hall steeple. As they grow older they venture beyond, in search of OldTech dumps and collapsed buildings they believe have never been seen by Tober eyes. Teen-aged couples steal out even farther, past the haunts of tattletale siblings, to beds of scratchy pine needles where they share love poems and ghost stories. (Ghost stories are the best aphrodisiac a fourteen-year-old knows.) Past the nesting areas of new lovers are the glower-bowers of the jilted, the solitary clearings where older teens brood over the unfairness of life and tell themselves how sorry everyone would be if they were found dangling from an oak. Soon, most of the brooders return to the coupling grounds, but a few proceed to higher degrees of restlessness, ranging farther and farther until their connection to Tober Cove snaps and they are propelled down-peninsula to the cities of the south.
    Avoiding turtles had brought me to those outermost regions, a part of the forest seen only by solitaries and the occasional hunter. It was still Tober land, however, and a clear trail led back in the direction of the cove. No doubt the trail would reach more familiar regions soon enough.
    I had barely walked twenty paces when I caught sight of a yellow-orange campfire in the forest on my left. Common sense said to avoid it—no honest traveler wandered so far from the main road. More likely, it was some fugitive from Feliss City. Each year, a handful of thieves and murderers came up-peninsula to hide in our woods; each year, the Warriors Society tracked them down and turned them in for bounty at the Feliss army outpost in Ohna Sound. It was a lucrative business: for fifteen years, the bounty money had completely paid for Tober Cove’s “Fish-on-a-Bun” booth at the Wiretown Fall Fair. (We used to call the booth “Perch-on-a-Bun” .. . but cityfolk who didn’t know perch were a type of fish got the strangest ideas.)
    The thought of tangling with a criminal so soon after the last fight turned my stomach. On the other hand, Cappie would have reached the village already and given her version of our battle. She’d likely paint me in a bad light…and people in the cove envied my success so much, they’d love an excuse to look down on me. I could use something to counteract Cappie’s spite, to explain why I was late getting home. Reporting the whereabouts of a big-bounty outlaw was perfect for redeeming myself.
    As quietly as I could, I laid the violin under a bush and stole through the forest toward the fire. Soon I heard the sound of wood burning, popping and snapping loud enough to cover any noise I made. I managed to get very close, down on my stomach behind a fallen spruce where I could peer through the cover of dead branches toward the lighted clearing.
    The fire burned high and bright, set on the edge of one of the many limestone shelves layered throughout our woods. By its light I could see old Leeta, the Mocking Priestess, huddled on a rusty wrought-iron bench. (The woods are full of such things—the whole area was once an OldTech nature park, but the OldTechs liked to see nature made presentable with benches and signs.)
    Leeta was dressed in green, with daisies threaded through her loose gray hair and crusty-dry milkweed pods dangling from a fringed band at her waist. Her face was hidden in her hands; I couldn’t hear over the crackling of the