The dust of the merchant camp hung thick in the late afternoon air, kicked up by a hundred boots and wagon wheels, settling on their shoulders like a second skin. Evals kept his hand under Mika's elbow, steadying her as she swayed on the loose ground, her steps shorter than they had been that morning. The bandage beneath her hat brim had darkened at the edges, dried blood flaking into her hairline, and she blinked against the glare of the low sun as if it cost her something.

"We could rest," he said, low enough that only she could hear.

"We've rested."

"An hour. By the water trough."

"The border's a day out." She said it like a promise she meant to keep, but her weight leaned into his hand a little more than it had a moment before. "I'm fine."

He didn't argue. He had learned, in the days since she woke, that arguing with her was like arguing with the weather—she would do what she would do, and the best he could manage was to stand close and catch her when the wind turned. The camp stretched around them, a sprawl of canvas and rope and the smell of soup boiling somewhere out of sight. Merchants called to each other across the lanes, their voices rising and falling like birds, and the creak of wagon wheels mixed with the ring of a hammer against iron.

Mika stumbled on a stone half-buried in the dust. His hand moved before he thought about it, catching her shoulder, steadying her before she could fall. She looked up at him, and for a moment her eyes were somewhere else—far off, past him, past the camp, past everything—and then she blinked and came back.

"Sorry," she said.

"Nothing to be sorry for."

"I keep—" She stopped, shook her head. "The ground moves. Like the road is breathing."

Evals said nothing. There was nothing to say that would help. The wound on her brow had been clean when he dressed it that morning, the edges of the cut pink and healing, but the blow had rattled something loose inside her skull, and he had no words for that. He had no words for a lot of things.

Ahead, a woman was stacking bolts of cloth on a low table, her arms full of deep red and indigo, her back to them. She moved with the brisk efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times, folding each bolt with a sharp snap of her wrists before laying it flat. Beside her, a man was crouched at the wheel of a wagon, one boot braced against the axle, hammering at something with a steady rhythm that rang across the camp.

Mika stopped walking.

Evals felt it before he understood it—the sudden tension in her arm, the way her breath caught and held. She was staring at the woman, her face gone still, her eyes wide and unblinking.

"Mika?"

She didn't answer. Her hand found his arm, fingers closing around his sleeve with a grip that surprised him.

"Mika. What is it?"

"I know her." The words came out thin, almost breathless. "I know—" She stopped, swallowed. "Evals. I know her."

The woman turned, a bolt of amber cloth in her arms, and her eyes swept across the camp with the automatic scan of someone who had learned to read a crowd for trouble. They landed on Mika, slid past, then snapped back. The woman's hands went still on the cloth.

For a long moment, nobody moved.

Then the woman set the bolt down, very carefully, and walked toward them. The man at the wheel looked up, saw her face, and rose, the hammer still in his hand.

"Mike?" the woman said.

The name hit Evals like a blow to the chest. He felt it land, felt the air leave him, felt the world tilt sideways for one sickening second. He opened his mouth to say something—anything—but no words came.

Mika's grip on his arm tightened. She was looking at the woman, her face pale beneath the bandage, and something was happening behind her eyes that Evals couldn't read.

"Kathrin," Mika said.

The woman stopped a few paces away, her head tilting, her eyes narrowing. "That's right. That's my name. And you're—" She squinted, taking in the dress, the bandage, the way Mika leaned into Evals's side. "You're Mike. You have to be. Nobody else has that scar."

Mika's hand came up, touching the line through her eyebrow, the scar Evals had put there himself and lied about. For a moment she just stood there, her fingers on the old wound, her breath coming short and fast.

Then she smiled.

It was a strange smile, uncertain and deliberate at once, like a woman testing a door she wasn't sure would open. "I'm not Mike," she said. "I'm Mika. His wife." She nodded toward Evals. "Mike was—" She paused, and Evals felt the pause like a held breath, the whole camp shrinking to the space between them. "Mike was someone we made up."

The man—Eric, Evals realized, the name surfacing from somewhere—stepped up beside Kathrin, the hammer still dangling from his fingers. "Made up?"

"For the ship." Mika's voice was steadier now, taking on a shape, a story. "When Lady Nora's spell broke, I was—" She gestured at herself, the dress, the shape of her body. "This. And the merchants on board, they were superstitious. They wouldn't have taken it well. A woman where a man had been, no explanation, no warning. They'd have called it an omen, thrown us overboard or worse."

She was lying. Evals knew she was lying—he had built the lie with her, brick by brick, and he could hear the seams in her voice, the careful way she chose each word. But there was something else there too, something he hadn't expected. She wasn't just repeating his story back. She was making it her own, shaping it, filling in the gaps he had left.

"So we told them Mike was real," Mika said. "That he'd been a friend, a traveling companion, that the spell had taken him somewhere else. That I was his widow, and Evals had promised to see me safe." She glanced at Evals, quick and almost apologetic. "It was easier than the truth."

Kathrin was staring at her. Eric was staring at her. Evals was staring at her, and he could feel the weight of the moment pressing down on all of them, heavy as the heat of the day.

"Mike," Kathrin said again, testing the name like a coin she wasn't sure was real. "You're telling me you're not Mike."

"I'm telling you Mike never existed."

"But the scar—"

"The scar is mine." Mika's fingers touched it again, and her voice dropped, softer now. "It's always been mine. The spell just—let people see it wrong for a while."

Silence. Two beats of it, stretching long and thin, the way rope stretches before it breaks.

Then Eric slapped his knee and laughed.

It was a loud, rusty laugh, the laugh of a man who didn't do it often, and it startled a few heads turning in the camp. "Well," he said, grinning, "if you're not Mike, then you're two of a kind with us. Come to a fire and a stew, and we'll call it even."

Kathrin didn't laugh. She was still looking at Mika, her eyes narrowed, her mouth a thin line. "But there are men on the road who don't care about stories," she said. "You're not safe here. Not with that—" She gestured at the bandage, at the dried blood, at the way Mika swayed on her feet. "You're not safe anywhere looking like that."

Evals felt the words land like stones. He had been carrying the weight of Mika's safety for days now, carrying it alone, and hearing it spoken aloud by someone else made it heavier, not lighter.

"We're heading for the border," he said. "Dog Territory. We'll be through by tomorrow night."

Kathrin's eyes flicked to him, assessing, reading him the way she had read the crowd. "Through the pass? With the slavers working the road?"

"We've made it this far."

"You've made it this far by luck." She stepped closer, and her voice dropped, meant only for the three of them. "Luck runs out, boy. I've seen it run out a hundred times on this road. You want to cross that border, you don't do it on your feet with a wounded woman and a story that won't hold."

Mika stiffened. "The story holds."

"Does it?" Kathrin tilted her head. "You just told me you invented a man to keep yourself safe. You think the men on the road are easier to fool than the merchants on a ship?"

"I think—" Mika stopped, and for a moment she looked lost, the way she had looked in the inn when she first woke, before she knew her own name. Then she straightened, and her voice came back, steadier. "I think we'll take our chances."

Kathrin studied her for a long moment. Then she nodded, once, a sharp motion that seemed to settle something. "Fine. But you'll take them with a full stomach and a place to sleep that isn't a ditch." She turned, gesturing toward a tent at the edge of the camp, its canvas gray with age and road dust. "We've got stew. We've got blankets. And we've got a wheel that needs fixing before we can move on, so you'll have the night at least."

Evals opened his mouth to refuse—the instinct was automatic, the habit of a man who had learned not to owe anyone anything—but Mika's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Thank you," she said. "We'd be grateful."

Kathrin nodded again, already turning away, already moving toward the tent. "Eric, get the fire going. They'll want to wash that wound before it goes bad."

Eric grinned, slapping his hammer against his palm. "Fire and stew. Told you."

Evals stood where he was, watching Kathrin's back as she walked away, and felt the weight of the moment settle into his bones. She had recognized Mika. She had called her Mike. And Mika had lied, smoothly and quickly, with a story he hadn't given her.

He didn't know whether to be proud of her or terrified.

"Evals." Mika's voice was soft, almost hesitant. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—"

"You did well."

"I made it up as I went."

"You did well." He said it again, and this time he meant it. "That was—" He stopped, searching for the word. "That was quick."

Mika looked at him, and there was something in her eyes he hadn't seen before—a flicker of something like confidence, or maybe relief. "I had a good teacher."

He didn't know what to say to that, so he said nothing. He just put his hand under her elbow again and started walking toward the tent, toward the fire, toward the stew that was already beginning to smell like home.

The tent was dim inside, the canvas filtering the late sun into a warm amber glow. Kathrin had already spread a blanket on the ground, and she was ladling stew into wooden bowls from a pot that hung over a small fire outside the entrance. Eric had followed them in, ducking under the low flap and settling onto a folding stool with the ease of a man who had spent his life in tents.

"Sit," Kathrin said, not looking up. "Eat. Then we'll talk."

Mika sat, folding her legs under her with a careful grace that made Evals's chest ache. She was still pale, still swaying slightly, but she held the bowl Kathrin handed her with steady hands, and she ate with the focused determination of someone who had learned not to waste food.

Evals sat beside her, close enough that their shoulders almost touched, and ate his own stew without tasting it. His mind was still back in the camp, still watching Mika lie to Kathrin, still hearing the name Mike spoken aloud for the first time in days.

"So," Eric said, breaking the silence, his voice cheerful and loud. "Mike, huh? That's a good one. Invented a whole man to keep the merchants happy. I like it." He grinned, showing a gap between his front teeth. "Wish I'd thought of that. I've got a few people I'd like to invent out of existence."

"Eric," Kathrin said, a warning in her voice.

"What? I'm just saying." He leaned back on his stool, crossing his arms. "So how'd you two meet, then? If it wasn't on a ship with a dead man between you?"

Evals felt the question land like a stone in still water. He opened his mouth, but Mika spoke first.

"We were slaves," she said. "On a plantation near the coast. We escaped together."

The words were simple, flat, matter-of-fact. Evals felt them hit him in the chest, harder than he expected. She had never said it that way before—never said it at all, really. He had told her the story of a field and a fence and a fire, dressed up in falsehoods, and she had believed it. But this was the truth, stripped bare, and she was offering it to strangers like it cost her nothing.

"Ran for the border," Eric said, nodding. "Smart. That's what I'd do."

"We're not there yet." Mika's eyes flicked to Evals, and for a moment the mask slipped, showing something raw underneath. "But we're close."

Kathrin set down her bowl, her eyes on Mika. "And the spell? The one that made you look like a man?"

Mika's hand went to the scar on her brow, a gesture that was becoming familiar. "It was Lady Nora. A dragon mage. She—" She paused, and Evals could see her building the story, brick by brick, the same way he had built it for her. "She cast it on me when I was young. To keep me safe. It made me look like a man, and I—I forgot I was ever anything else."

"Until the blow," Kathrin said.

"Until the blow." Mika nodded. "When the slavers hit me, the spell broke. And I woke up—" She gestured at herself, at the dress, at the shape of her body. "Like this. With no memory of who I'd been before."

Evals sat very still, his bowl forgotten in his hands. She was telling the story he had told her, the story he had built to protect her, and she was telling it with such conviction that for a moment he almost believed it himself.

"And Evals here," Eric said, jerking his thumb at him, "he just happened to be there?"

"He was there." Mika's voice softened, and she looked at Evals, really looked at him, her eyes warm and steady. "He was always there. He's the one who carried me to the village, who found the healer, who—" She stopped, and her voice dropped. "He's the one who told me who I was."

The tent was quiet. The fire crackled outside, and somewhere in the camp a horse stamped and blew, and the sounds of the evening settled around them like a blanket.

"Well," Eric said finally, slapping his knee again. "That's a story worth a stew, if you ask me. And you're welcome to the fire as long as you need it."

Kathrin said nothing, but Evals saw her glance at Eric, a quick, wordless exchange that passed between them like a coin changing hands. He didn't know what it meant, and he didn't ask. He just sat there, in the warm dimness of the tent, with Mika's shoulder against his, and felt the weight of the lie settle deeper into his bones.

"There are men on the road," Kathrin said, her voice low and serious, breaking the quiet. "Men who don't care about stories. They'll see two travelers and a wounded woman, and they'll see an easy target." She looked at Evals, her eyes hard. "You're not safe here. But you're not safe out there, either. Not alone."

"We're not alone," Mika said.

"You're two." Kathrin's voice was flat. "Two isn't a crowd. Two is a target."

Evals felt the words settle into him, heavy and cold. He had been telling himself the same thing for days, in the dark hours before dawn, when Mika's breathing was steady beside him and the road ahead stretched out like a promise he couldn't keep. He had been telling himself that they would make it, that the border was close, that freedom was just over the horizon. But Kathrin's words stripped the hope away, leaving only the truth.

Two was a target.

"We'll make it," he said, and he wasn't sure if he was saying it to Kathrin or to himself. "We've made it this far."

Kathrin looked at him for a long moment, her eyes unreadable. Then she nodded, slowly, and reached for the ladle.

"More stew," she said. "You'll need your strength."

Evals held out his bowl, and she filled it, and he ate, and the fire crackled, and Mika's shoulder stayed warm against his. And somewhere beyond the tent, beyond the camp, beyond the darkening road, the border waited—close enough to taste, far enough to hurt.

The stew had gone lukewarm in Evals's bowl, the fat congealing at the edges, and he had been staring at it for so long that the pattern of the wood grain had started to look like a map. Eric had moved to the tent flap, crouched there with his back to the canvas, whittling at a piece of kindling with a knife that caught the firelight in flashes. Kathrin had taken the stew pot outside to rinse it, and Mika had followed her, carrying the bowls, her steps still careful on the uneven ground.

Evals watched her go. The amber dress caught the last of the sun, and she moved like someone learning a body she hadn't quite decided on yet—each gesture deliberate, almost tender, as if she were handling something fragile. His chest did something complicated. It had been doing that a lot.

"She's something," Eric said, not looking up from his whittling. The knife scraped against the wood in long, even strokes. "Quick with a story. Quicker than most."

Evals said nothing. He set the bowl down on the blanket beside him and wrapped his hands around his knees, watching the fire through the gap in the tent flap.

"Kathrin's worried," Eric went on. "She's got a nose for trouble. Always has. Says there's something off about your story." He looked up then, his eyes catching the firelight, and there was a knowing in them that made Evals's stomach tighten. "I told her every story's got a seam somewhere. You just gotta decide which side of it you're standing on."

The silence stretched. Evals could hear the women's voices outside, low and indistinguishable, the clink of a pot being set down, the creak of a wagon settling for the night.

"She doesn't remember," Evals said.

The words came out before he had decided to say them, and they hung in the air between them, heavy and raw. Eric's knife paused mid-stroke.

"Mika," Evals said, and the name felt strange on his tongue, a lie he had worn so long it had started to fit. "She doesn't remember anything. The blow—" He touched his own brow, where Mika's scar would be if he had one. "It took everything. Her name. Her past. Who she was."

Eric set the kindling down. He didn't speak, just waited, and there was something in his patience that made Evals want to keep going, to spill it all out like grain from a torn sack.

"I named her Mika," Evals said. "She woke up and she didn't know her own name, and I—" He stopped. Swallowed. "I gave her one. I gave her a whole life. A story about how we met, how we fell in love, how we got married. I told her she was a woman under a spell, that a dragon mage made her look like a man, that the blow broke the spell and brought her back to herself."

The fire crackled. A horse stamped somewhere in the camp. Eric was very still.

"She was a man," Evals said. The words felt like stones dropping into deep water. "Before. She was a man, and she was my best friend, and I—" His voice cracked, and he pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes, hard, as if he could push the truth back in. "I told her we were soulmates. I told her we were married. And she believed me. She believes me."

Silence. Long enough that Evals started to regret the words, started to wish he could gather them back up out of the air and swallow them down where they couldn't hurt anyone.

Then Eric moved. He crossed the tent in two steps and sat down on the blanket beside Evals, close enough that their shoulders almost touched. He didn't say anything for a moment. Then he reached into the pouch at his belt and pulled out a small glass vial, no bigger than his thumb, filled with a pale amber liquid that caught the firelight like honey.

"I found this three years ago," Eric said, turning the vial between his fingers. "In a ruin up in the foothills, before the passes got too dangerous. There was a healer's cache there, half-buried in a landslide. Most of it was ruined. This wasn't."

Evals stared at the vial. The liquid inside seemed to shift as Eric turned it, catching the light in layers, gold and deeper gold.

"It's called remembrance," Eric said. "Or it was called that. The healer who made it was trying to help people who'd lost themselves—head wounds, fevers, things that scrambled the mind. The stories say it can bring back what the blow took." He paused. "The stories also say it might do nothing at all. Or worse."

"Worse."

"The mind's a delicate thing, friend. You pour the wrong thing into it, and you don't always get back what you poured out." Eric held the vial out to him, balanced on his palm. "I've been carrying it for three years, waiting for someone who needed it more than I did."

Evals looked at the vial. He could feel the weight of it from here, the weight of the choice it represented. If he took it, if he gave it to Mika, she might remember. She might remember being Mike. She might remember the truth—that they were never married, never soulmates, that he had built their whole life on a lie.

She might hate him.

Or she might remember nothing, and drink it like water, and the lie would go on, and he would go on carrying it, and the border would get closer, and they would cross it, and he would spend the rest of his life waiting for the moment it all came apart.

"Why," he said, and his voice came out rough. "Why would you give me this?"

Eric shrugged. "Because you told me the truth." He set the vial down on the blanket between them, where it caught the light. "That's worth something. More than a vial of old healer's tricks, anyway."

Evals looked at the vial for a long moment. Then he reached out and picked it up. It was cool in his hand, the glass smooth, the liquid inside shifting with a weight that felt like it should have been heavier.

"I don't know if I want her to remember," he said quietly. "I don't know if I want her to know what I did."

"That's the thing about the truth," Eric said. "It doesn't care what you want."

He stood, brushing the dust from his knees, and moved back toward the tent flap. "Kathrin'll have the fire going again soon. You want to do this, do it tonight. Don't let the road decide for you."

He ducked out under the canvas, and Evals was alone with the vial in his hand, the amber liquid shifting in the firelight, and the weight of everything he had built pressing down on his shoulders.

Mika came back a few minutes later, her hands damp from washing, the bandage on her brow freshly changed. Kathrin had given her a clean strip of cloth, and it sat white against her skin, stark and new. She smiled when she saw him, a small, tired smile, and sat down beside him on the blanket.

"Kathrin says we can sleep here tonight," she said. "She's going to make up a bed in the corner." She paused, looking at his face. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Evals looked at her. In the firelight, with the new bandage and the amber dress, she looked like someone he had known his whole life. She looked like home.

"I have something," he said. His voice came out steadier than he felt. "Something I want you to drink."

Her brow furrowed. "What is it?"

"A tonic. For the head." He held up the vial, and the amber liquid caught the light. "A healer gave it to me. She said it might help with the memories. Bring them back, the way they were before."

Mika looked at the vial. Then she looked at him, and there was something in her eyes that he couldn't read—a flicker, there and gone.

"Do you want me to drink it?"

The question landed like a stone. Do you want me to remember? Do you want me to know? Do you want me to see what you did?

"I want you to be whole," he said. And it was true, even if it wasn't the whole truth. It was true the way a lie could be true, the way a story could hold a shape of the thing it was reaching for.

Mika studied him for a long moment. Then she reached out and took the vial from his hand. Her fingers brushed his, warm and dry, and she uncorked it and sniffed it, her nose wrinkling.

"Smells like honey," she said.

"It might taste different."

She looked at him again, and then she tipped the vial back and drank.

Evals watched her throat move as she swallowed. He watched her lower the vial, watched her lick her lips, watched her blink. The world seemed to hold its breath.

Mika sat very still for a moment. Then she smiled, a slow, warm smile, and set the empty vial down beside her.

"That was delicious," she said. "Thank you."

Evals stared at her. The fire crackled. Somewhere in the camp, a dog barked, and a man called out, and the sounds of the night settled around them like a blanket.

"Do you—" He stopped. Swallowed. "Do you remember anything?"

Mika tilted her head, thinking. Then she shook it, gently. "Just the honey." She reached out and took his hand, her fingers lacing through his. "But I don't need to remember the past to know what I have now."

Evals looked at their hands, at the way her fingers fit between his, at the way the firelight caught the amber of her dress. The vial sat empty on the blanket, and the truth sat heavy in his chest, and he didn't know if he was relieved or broken.

"Come on," Mika said, tugging at his hand. "Kathrin said we should rest. We've got a long walk tomorrow."

He let her pull him up. He let her lead him to the corner of the tent, where Kathrin had spread a bedroll and a blanket. He let her lie down beside him, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder like it had always belonged there.

And he lay awake, staring at the canvas ceiling, the empty vial a small, cold weight in his memory, and listened to her breathing even out into sleep.

The border was a day out. The truth was closer.

They left at dawn, before the camp fully woke. Kathrin pressed a loaf of bread and a skin of water into Evals's hands and looked at him with eyes that saw too much.

"The pass is two days if you push," she said. "There's a way through the rocks, past the old watchtower. It's not on any map, but it's safe. Safer than the road."

She gave him directions, short and precise, and then she looked at Mika, who was standing by the wagon, adjusting the strap of the pack Evals had bought her in the village.

"Take care of her," Kathrin said. It wasn't a question.

"I will."

She nodded, once, and turned away. Eric raised a hand from where he was crouched by the wheel, and Evals raised his in return, and then they were walking, out of the camp, onto the track that led toward the mountains.

The morning was cool, the sky pale and clear. The mountains rose ahead of them, blue-gray in the distance, their peaks catching the first light. Mika walked beside him, her steps steadier than they had been the day before, the new bandage bright against her skin.

They walked in silence for a long time. The track wound through scrub and rock, the camp shrinking behind them until it was just a smudge of canvas in the distance. The air smelled of dust and sage and something green and growing.

They stopped at midday, in the shade of a rock overhang, and shared the bread and the water. Mika sat with her legs stretched out in front of her, her head tilted back, her eyes closed, the sun falling across her face.

Evals watched her. He always watched her. It was a habit he had picked up in the days since she woke, a way of checking that she was still there, still breathing, still real. The lie had given him so much, and it had taken so much, and he didn't know how to measure the difference.

"Evals," Mika said.

Her eyes were still closed. Her voice was quiet, almost careful, like she was testing the weight of the word.

"Yes?"

"I remember."

The words landed like a blow. He felt them hit him in the chest, felt the air leave him, felt the world tilt sideways for one sickening second.

"I remember everything," Mika said. She opened her eyes and looked at him, and there was something in her gaze that he had never seen before—a clarity, a steadiness, a knowledge that went all the way down. "The ambush. The slavers. The club. The inn. The healer. And before that—" She paused. "The plantation. The field. The fence. The road. You. Me. Mike."

Evals couldn't breathe. The bread was in his hands, and he couldn't breathe, and the world was spinning, and Mika was looking at him with those clear, steady eyes.

"I remember you carrying me," she said. "I remember you fighting them off. I remember you holding my hand in the inn, telling me I was going to be okay. I remember—" Her voice cracked, just slightly. "I remember you naming me Mika."

He opened his mouth. He didn't know what he was going to say—an apology, a confession, a plea—but before the words could come, Mika reached out and took his hand.

"I heard you," she said. "In the inn, when I was drifting. I heard you say my name. Mika. Like it was the most precious thing you'd ever held." She squeezed his fingers. "And I knew, even then, before I knew anything else, that I wanted to be that. I wanted to be the person who got called that name."

Evals stared at her. The world was very still.

"I know I'm not a woman," Mika said. "Not really. I know I was Mike, and I know that's not a spell or a lie or a story. It's just—" She gestured at herself, at the dress, at the shape of her body. "This is who I am now. This is who I want to be."

She leaned forward, her face close to his, her eyes holding his gaze.

"I like your version of our life better," she said. "I like the story where we fell in love across a fire. I like the story where you carried me to safety and named me something beautiful. I like being your wife." Her voice dropped, soft and warm. "I love being your wife."

Evals felt the tears before he knew they were coming. They slid down his cheeks, hot and silent, and he didn't try to stop them.

"I'm sorry," he said. His voice came out broken, raw. "I'm so sorry. I lied to you. I built a whole life out of lies."

"I know." Mika's thumb brushed across his cheek, catching a tear. "And I'm choosing it anyway."

She leaned in and kissed him. It was soft, gentle, a kiss that tasted like salt and honey and the beginning of something new. When she pulled back, her eyes were bright, and she was smiling.

"I'm Mika," she said. "I'm your wife. And I'm going to spend the rest of my life being exactly that."

Evals looked at her. The sun was high now, the mountains rising ahead of them, the border close enough to taste. She was sitting in the shade of the rock overhang, her hand in his, her eyes full of light.

"Okay," he said. And the word felt like a door opening. "Okay."

She smiled, and stood, and pulled him to his feet. The road stretched ahead of them, toward the mountains, toward the border, toward the life they had built together out of a lie that had become truer than the truth.

"Come on, husband," she said, and there was a lightness in her voice that hadn't been there before. "We've got a border to cross."

He followed her. The sun was warm on his face, and the dust of the road rose around their boots, and somewhere ahead, beyond the rocks and the pass and the old watchtower, freedom waited.

And for the first time in days, he believed they would reach it.