Nothing about this was coming together into a coherent whole and Kaitan could not puzzle out what Fara meant, despite an urgent thrumming in the back of her mind screaming that she should know, that the secret must be in somewhere in everything they'd shared. That sorrowful look was hard to take. The hardness and urgency in Fara's gaze made Kaitan's heart pound with fear and allegiance and she tried to meet it with equal competence.

This was a side of Fara she had never seen before, and it drove into her a need to know more.

She looked at Tunada who butted her in the shoulder with his big, rectangular head. "Do what you have to do," he told her in a rumble just for her ears. Before she could respond he rose his voice and told her and the rest of them, "I'll do my part."

It wouldn't be the first time she and her companion had been separated at dire moments, and even if Kaitan hated it she was getting used to it, and had already surrendered to the fact that, at times, they were more useful apart than together.

"Do you need an unbroken chain or just fast movers?" Tunada was asking, casting the question to Fara and her companion both. Fennel seemed competent despite her apparent objections to whatever Fara was suggesting, and he hadn't an inkling that her lack of knowledge about the lay of the land extended so deeply that she might not understand the question.