They left Varden Post on the second morning, while the Rift frame on the eastern hill was still dark against the early sky.
Peva had re-dressed the wound without being asked. She did it quickly, checked the thread, pressed the edge once with two fingers, and said nothing except "good" in a tone that meant she had seen worse and was not entirely unhappy with her own work. She charged them for the materials and nothing else, the same as the heavyset man had promised.
Kai paid with the last of the currency he had carried out of Helios. It was not the right currency for this world—he had seen the difference in the post office when the woman behind the counter had looked at it with the polite, carefully neutral expression of someone declining to comment. But Peva took it without complaint and filed it somewhere behind the counter in a way that suggested it would find its use eventually.
Fen was at the edge of the road when they walked out.
