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along the trail had not exhausted him. So, although Dark Death and Moon Frost decided to stay with the pups, Rascal insisted on running along.
    The ravens Bitter and Lovable completed their number, ostensibly to ease the trail and be there to follow Truth if she did indeed break loose. Firekeeper thought the real reason the ravens were accompanying them was that Lovable had learned they were going to a ruin. Wise or not, the raven had an insatiable appetite for the pretty things—or fragments thereof—that were so often found in these places.
    With such a company, the trip should have offered no difficulties beyond those involved in covering the intervening ground in the swiftest time practical. The ebb and flow of the tides dictated when they could swim between the various islands. Once or twice, when the low-tide waters were not shallow enough to allow for safe fording, Bitter, who had status within the Wise Beast community, despite his flutter-brained mate, requested aide from some seals who lived in the vicinity.
    Firekeeper found the strength with which the seals moved through the water exciting, but Blind Seer protested the creatures smelled abysmally of fish. Truth loved swimming, so much so that she grew agitated when they took her from the water.
    After their first fording, when they were planning their second, Truth slipped her harness. They were contemplating a river, wondering whether to look for a ford or take their chances swimming, when Firekeeper noticed that the leash so firmly grasped in Powerful Tenderness’s paw was strangely limp.
    Her gaze traced the length and found no arrogant jaguar at the end, just an empty nest of straps. She cast around and saw Plik emerging from the river, wherein he had gone to test the depth. Neither the ravens nor Truth were to be seen.
    “Hey! What!” Firekeeper howled. “Where is Truth?”
    At almost the same moment there were agitated croaks and quorking raven calls from the deeper tree line.
    “Here! Here!” the ravens called. “Truth is here! Hurry!”
    They all followed that cry, Plik not even pausing to shake off the water that had soaked into his thick fur. They arrived in an unorganized mob to find Truth lying on a tree limb a good twelve feet off the ground. Her gaze was—for her—clear and direct, though the burnt-orange orbs flickered back and forth, as if seeing things invisible to the rest.
    “I want to go fishing,” Truth announced sulkily. “My paws are sore, and I am weary of walking.”
    “I thought,” said Powerful Tenderness, his voice charged with the barely contained fury that comes when one has had a fright, “you wished to go to the house that is no longer a house. We will never get there if we keep stopping. Now, how did you get out of your harness?”
    Truth looked distinctly puzzled. “How did I get here?”
    Powerful Tenderness held up the tangled mess of straps at the end of the harness, suspending it from his broad hands so that all could see not a single buckle had been undone nor strap broken.
    “That is what I would like to know,” he replied. “We were looking at the river, working out the best way to get across, and the next thing I realized there was shouting that you were gone.”
    Firekeeper crinkled her brow in thought, remembering tales of Truth drinking water that wasn’t there, water that was real enough to dew upon her coat. Had the jaguar somehow gone where that water was for long enough to shed her harness? If so, why did she need Firekeeper to come and open a door for her?
    Glancing at Blind Seer, Firekeeper could see that the blue-eyed wolf shared her thoughts. She ran her hand through his fur, a mute request that they not speak of this. It was not that she did not think it would occur to Powerful Tenderness or Plik, but she knew their concern was for Truth, and that they would not welcome suspicions that Truth was being less than completely honest.
    Besides, Firekeeper thought, now more than ever I want to go