Archie awoke in a stupor. He could remember no details of his dream, only feelings. Watchful eyes. An interrogation. His answers had not been found satisfactory. His punishment had been a fitful sleep.

He rolled over, thankful that the sun hadn't risen, and bumped into something that hadn't been there when he fell asleep. Fear and adrenaline jolted through him, eliminating his drowsiness. In his newfound clarity, he recognized the bundle. Blanche had moved over to him—she had been too far away to accidentally roll to him in the night.

He didn't mind. In fact, the thought of her had managed to wipe away any residual nightmare. He slept through the rest of the night. As the sun rose, he stirred, waking Blanche up. She rolled over to face him, her drowsy eyes widening when she realized how close she had gotten.

"Sorry," she whispered. "I got scared in the middle of the night. Weird dreams."

Archie smiled. "It's alright. Me too."

They hadn't been the only ones to lose sleep. Sutton groaned and complained as they tried to wake him. Hawthorn was as quiet as Barley, and the two Khalyans kept exchanging knowing looks. Nori had the worst of it, her busy mind keeping her up later than anyone else, her nightmares denying what little time she had left to sleep.

Archie had half a mind to go back to sleep. If he did, he knew the others would follow. They were going to Barley's home, but everyone acted as if it was Archie's mission. He pulled his blankets up to his chin and shifted around, letting his eyes drift closed.

"Let's eat," Barley said, breaking the group's silence as he stood and rolled up his bedding. "We should get moving."

Archie sat up and studied Barley's face. Thus far, Barley's only input on their trip had been directions, not commands. Something had changed overnight. Archie had seen plenty of melancholy from Barley, but this was the first time he ever saw anxiety.

"Sorry, Blanche," Barley said as he nodded out to the fields. "Do you think you can find something quickly?"

"Let's just eat what's in our packs," she groaned. "We can restock in Jakha, and I'm tired."

Barley chewed on his cheek and stared into the distance, ending his consideration with a nod. "Okay. That'll get us moving faster. Hawthorn? Jhamdu?"

Hawthorn, usually the last to get up, had already risen and was digging into the ration pack. "Yeah, I'm on it. Archie, a pan?"

Archie gripped his omnihandle, closed his eyes, and imagined the iron within the handle expanding and curling into a skillet. He opened his eyes to a mild success. One side of the lip dipped down, and the thickness of the bottom was entirely too uneven, but it was good enough for Hawthorn. He snatched it before Archie could try to fix it.

The two Khalyans moved with uncharacteristic speed. Barley used his reserves of dry tinder and a flint and steel striker to start two fires, leaving one to Hawthorn and setting an iron teapot over the other—Archie figured he was still years away from managing to make something that complex from his omnihandle.

As Barley broke a brick of tea leaves into the teapot and poured water from his pouch, Hawthorn got to work on the jhamdu. He poured roasted barley into the pan, adding a precious slice of ghee from their well-wrapped ceramic jar. As the ghee melted into the grains, he dropped dried, crumbly yak cheese in—Blanche would have protested if she wasn't still waking up. Sutton was the only other one that had risen, and that was only to press an interesting looking flower into one of his books.

"Archie, bowls," Hawthorn commanded.

Archie groaned as he got up and fished a stack of bowls from his pack. Barley left the tea on the fire, rushing over to roll up Archie's bedding and strapping it tight with Archie's rope-noodles. He hurried back to the tea before Archie could even finish handing the bowls to Hawthorn.

"Is everything okay?" Archie asked.

Hawthorn looked at Barley.

"Everything's fine," Barley answered. "We should just get moving."

Hawthorn scooped the tsampa into bowls, adding tea to turn it into a porridge. Barley took his bowl last but finished first. Blanche ate the slowest, but Nori ate the least. Archie gave her his ration of sugar, hoping that it might compel her to finish her meal. She ate half. Barley packed everyone's things and watched the others finish eating, his leg shaking as he waited.

He led from the front, and it wasn't until the fog of morning cleared that Hawthorn's charismatic shine managed to pierce the morning fog and his stories occupied the minds of the weary travellers.

"There were rats everywhere. My first day in Khaldeer, I must have seen a hundred. And I grew up out east, so I hadn't seen many before then. Supposedly they had tripled over the summer, and the whole city was freaking out. And the docks! Oh, you should have seen the docks. You had to watch where you were stepping!"

"Gross," Blanche added, forever the chorus to Hawthorn's tales.

"Right?! They tried rat traps and even had the Bhante prepare a poison, but the rats just kept coming, so finally, King Tritsun turned it over to the people with a reward. A pound of barley for every five rat tails. Pretty soon, every restaurant in Khaldeer was giving their take on cooked rat tails."

"Now that's gross!" Blanche quickened her pace to get away from the story.

"Were any of them good?" Archie asked.

"Oh Ambrosia, no. The only ones I could stomach were the ones so cooked and crispy that you couldn't tell what you were eating. Funny thing is, the rat problem got worse. Turns out, people started cutting off the tails and letting the rats go free, hoping they would reproduce and provide them with even more rat tails. The whole city was overrun by tailless rats!"

Archie laughed with Hawthorn.

"I don't remember seeing any rats," Sutton commented. "What did they do to solve the infestation?"

"Infestation took care of itself."

"What happened?"

"Same thing that happens to anything weak in Khala. Not enough resources to go around. Nature has a way of correcting that."

Archie felt guilty for laughing and felt guiltier still when he saw Nori look up at the cloudy sky with her bottom lip sucked in. Barley stopped and bent over as Hawthorn started his next tale in which the students of the Monastery cooked a loaf of bread that produced enough flatulence to lift a seated person off their chair, their mission being to get it to the Bhante.

"You good, Bar?" Archie asked as he jogged to catch up. He had seen Barley doubled over many times after their exercise with Tarragon, and the result was never good and often explosive.

But Barley wasn't tired. He was worried. He stood back up, holding up a piece of tattered black fabric. He looked past Archie to Hawthorn, who promptly stopped his story.

"A flag?" Barley asked.

Hawthorn scratched under one eye, his jaw slack. "Maybe. Could be someone threw out a torn up jacket."

Barley set the fabric back down and considered it for a moment. "We should keep moving."

"If it's a flag, we should turn around," Hawthorn said in a peculiarly serious voice.

"No!" Barley countered, making Archie jump. "We need to keep moving."

The rest of the students broke into questions.

"What's going on?"

"Turn back? Why?"

"Are we in danger?"

Barley shook his head, speaking softly. "No…no," he said as if trying to convince himself. "Everything is fine. We just need to keep moving."

The other students looked to Archie, wanting him to consolidate their voice and concerns. "Barley," he said as leaned in. "Seriously, what's going on? Should we be worried?"

Barley took a few heaving breaths. "Not yet."

He jolted back into motion, his quarterstaff striking the dirt hard as he used it as a walking stick. The rest of the group rushed to keep up. Hawthorn never told the end of his story.

They moved on from gravelly hills and gradual slopes for much more trying terrain. For the entire morning, they followed a river through mountains that grew taller with each mile the group traveled. They walked in wide arcs around the mountain slopes, moving just as quickly but covering half the distance.

Instead of grass, they walked on red mud and pieces of bark and discarded pine needles. They followed the easiest path, weaving through the pine and spruce trees that covered the mountains like a fur. Occasionally, to keep on the flat ground, they lost sight of the river through the trees, but still managed to follow it by sound.

Gray clouds took over the sky, leaving not a speck of blue and casting a dull grayness on the ground below. An occasional raindrop, heavy and half-frozen, fell from the sky, hitting the leaves on the ground with a cracking sound. The group donned their yak wool cloaks and pulled their hoods over their heads so that the water would roll off the waterproof material. As the day went on, the ground beneath their feet grew soft with wetness.

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Barley only let them rest for a short while, insisting that they eat on the move. An eerie quietness accompanied their march. Even the birds and critters seemed to be missing. Archie spotted a herd of elk in the distance just as Barley called his attention elsewhere.

"Look," Barley said. He pointed to a clearing in the distance. Archie squinted and saw a compound with small stone walls.

"Does that mean we're close?" Sutton whined.

"Probably a couple hours out," Barley answered.

Archie looked up into the sky, failing to locate the sun behind the gray veil. Whatever sunlight there was wouldn't last long.

"Is there a flag?" Hawthorn asked.

"Can't tell. Come on."

They exited one final thicket of trees and entered the small valley with the compound. Two streams met on the far end of the valley, creating an area of swampy overflow before exiting as a single river. Long yellow stalks of wild rice grew in the overflow, giving the area the false impression of solid land with the occasional puddle.

"No yaks," Hawthorn said as they picked a narrow dry path. "Not a good sign."

"It's fine," Barley said. "It's fine. It's—"

The wind picked up, lifting a piece of black fabric off the compound gate. Barley froze, watching it flap in the wind.

Hawthorn sucked air in through his teeth. "Okay, everybody, we're turning around. We'll find somewhere else to stay for a couple of days."

The group broke out into a chorus of confusion and complaints, Barley breaking through the chaos with a resounding, "No!"

"Barley…" Hawthorn offered a sympathetic look. "You know the rules. No outsiders. If you want, you can go ahead, but I have to take them back."

Archie looked back and forth between Barley and Hawthorn, desperate for an explanation.

"No, no, no," Barley muttered. "She might need them. There aren't many people here—and no Chefs!"

"Who's she?" Archie asked.

"Barley, you know the rules. No outsiders." Hawthorn and Barley stared at each other, their eyes conveying a fierce argument.

Barley stamped his quarterstaff into the ground. "The Bhantla is performing an exorcism," he declared.

"Barley!" Hawthorn started to march toward Barley, but the secret spilled out.

"This flag means there is a Glutton in Jakha," Barley stated. "The Bhantla will exorcise the wendigo from its host."

Archie's head spun. Exorcism?

"They cannot know!" Hawthorn shouted over the wind. "No outsider can know!"

"Well now they do!" Barley countered. Archie had never seen his friend so worked up. "And they can help!"

Hawthorn rose to match Barley's aggression, neither letting the other finish their sentence as they shouted back and forth.

"If word gets out—"

"If something goes wrong—"

"You're endangering all of Khala—"

"I won't let something happen to my village—"

"Don't be so selfish—"

"They're good people—

And then, finally, their argument was broken up by none other than Sutton, his voice screeching as he bent down to yell as loud as he could. "Shut up!"

The valley echoed, "Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" as everyone fell silent.

Sutton pushed up his glasses and took a second to catch his breath. "Do you mean to say that the Bhantla can cure Gluttony?"

Archie's heart raced. Hawthorn shook his head at Barley. But Barley could not be stopped.

"You wanted to know why you don't see Gluttons in Khala? It's because we get rid of them. One way or the other. It's one of the main responsibilities of the Bhantla," he explained. "They channel the essence of others and flood the Glutton with it."

Archie thought of the Gluttons devouring the kulkida risotto. Their appetite for essence was insatiable. "You give a Glutton…more essence? Isn't that exactly what they want?"

"Explain," Sutton demanded.

"In every Glutton is an internal battle. The wendigo versus the person that was. As the battle rages, the wendigo consumes the person's essence, leaving them too weak to fight back. When we flood the Glutton with essence, our hope is that some of it reaches that person and gives them the power to take back control."

"Is it dangerous?" Sutton asked.

"Yes. While we try to get essence to the person underneath, the wendigo feasts. Grows more powerful."

"You said one way or the other," Archie interrupted. "What's the other? What happens if the exorcism doesn't work?"

Barley sighed. "Well…then we kill the Glutton before they kill us."

Archie recoiled at the statement. For as much as he hated Gluttons—and as much as he wanted to see certain ones dead—he questioned the morality of killing them indiscriminately.

"That'll be changing soon," Hawthorn added with disappointment. "Once we answer to Grand King Glutton, it's just a matter of time before he bans exorcisms."

"But that's…" Archie rubbed his forehead as he struggled to reconcile his hatred of Gluttons with the potentially fatal result of the exorcism. "If a Glutton is a person possessed by the wendigo, then you're killing an innocent person too."

"Only if the exorcism fails," Hawthorn said. "In that case, I'd say it's freeing, not killing. And they're never wholly innocent to begin with."

"No one is," Archie retorted. His arguments surprised even himself. He questioned why he defended the Gluttons. He had seen firsthand how one was made—through great cruelty. But if that was the case, what had his grandfather done to allow the wendigo to take root? He had starved in his prison cell—rightfully so, Archie believed—but would a death sentence have been justified before having ever committed his crime?

Archie's philosophical musings had no effect on Hawthorn, who shrugged. "You have the luxury of considering morality in Ambrosia City," he said. "Here, where the next meal isn't guaranteed, we can't coexist with Gluttony. It's either we purge the wendigo or we kill it."

Archie looked around at the others. Barley shrugged at him. Nori munched on a dried apricot. If her face showed anything, it showed approval. Only Blanche and Sutton shared Archie's pensive expression, staring at the ground in silence.

"We need to keep moving," Barley said. "When the Bhantla performs an exorcism, she calls all the people of the surrounding areas to contribute their essence. They put up a black flag for others to see. The fact that they aren't back yet means that the exorcism hasn't happened yet. It means we can help."

Hawthorn clenched his teeth. "They're not supposed to—"

"We're helping," Archie said. If they could help, they had to help. Everyone but Hawthorn nodded in agreement.

They continued their trek beyond the valley, Barley leading an almost unmanageable pace. They walked into a maze of mountains and trees, walking high through the trails, the valleys below them falling into darkness as the sun fell behind towering mountains. They heard a river half an hour before they arrived at it and started walking opposite its current.

While they navigated a mostly flat trail, the mountain slopes had grown harsher, creating extreme terrain alongside their path. Just a few steps off the trail, the ground fell away toward the river, twenty feet to the side but sixty feet down. The sun continued to fall. Archie expected it to disappear at any moment, but it seemed to always be just on the brink of setting. Barley reassured them that they were close.

The trail widened and solidified into a dirt road that had been created by leveling the ground and trees, creating a wall of red clay like a wound in the mountain. Above them, they saw the green carpet of trees. Below them, clover and bushes grew on the steep decline to the river.

Barley finally stopped as they came around a bend. The others caught up to him and sighed with relief. Ahead of them, in the fork of two converging rivers, a large hill hosted civilization.

A large white temple with a curved wooden roof looked over the fork from the highest point on the plateau. Behind it, smaller buildings poked out over the trees. Small buildings were built into the sides of the hill, their rectangular shapes combining to look like stairs that stretched from the top plateau to the bottom near the river. A wooden bridge spanned each of the turbulent rivers, having been built wide enough and sturdy enough to easily accommodate a cart.

Barley sighed with relief. "No music. They're not performing it tonight."

He doubled over, all of the fatigue of a full day's march hitting him all at once. Now that he could be weak, he withered, crumbling to the ground.

"Finally, a rest," Sutton said as he laid in the dirt next to Barley, producing a chorus of laughter and agreement from the others.

They stood for a while, no longer worried about losing the sun as they celebrated their arrival. They laughed to themselves, even when no one had spoken. They drank from their waterskins and shook water off their cloaks. They fixed their boots and adjusted their packs.

They let their guard down.

Crack!

The unmistakable sound of a breaking branch came from above. Archie whipped his head around to place the sound, but saw only trees. Barley and Sutton stood, searching the treeline. A fog spilled down from above, covering the road and making the distant Jakha disappear.

Something red moved between the trees.

Archie felt the fog coat his skin. His essence prickled. This fog wasn't natural.

The group looked around as they unconsciously moved closer together. Archie could hear his heart in his ears, the bump-bump mixing with the whispers of the others' panicked breaths.

"What is that?" Archie whispered.

"Shh!" Nori whispered back.

Crack!

Another branch, this one from further down the road.

Archie slipped his pack off his back and set it on the ground, careful not to make too much noise. He conjured a noodle across his left thumb and forefinger, his right hand digging into his pockets to find his hardened blueberries.

Barley and Hawthorn followed suit, removing their packs and gripping their quarterstaffs.

Archie looked over at Nori. Even without speaking, she knew what he wanted to say. She nodded, and they fanned out to cover and protect Blanche and Sutton.

They stood in silence, waiting.

Then someone else broke that silence.

"Put your weapons down," a man's voice commanded.

The group only sunk further into their defensive stances.

"You don't want a fight," the voice said from above them.

"You'd lose," another voice added from down the road.

Archie turned to the second voice. A female Red Jacket appeared in the fog. Archie fitted the blueberry into his slingshot. Then he heard footsteps from behind. He turned to see a Purple Jacket coming up the road behind them.

"Put it down," the voice from above said again. Archie looked up to see a male Red Jacket that leaned over the road, holding on to a tree behind him.

"Khalyan jackets," the Purple Jacket observed as he approached. "But I don't recognize them."

Hawthorn swiveled to face the Purple Jacket, keeping his quarterstaff between them.

"I'm from the Monastery," he declared.

The female Red Jacket clicked her tongue three times. "And that means the others aren't," she said with a long, threatening drawl.

"Why are you here?" the male Red Jacket asked the group.

"I'm from Jakha," Barley said. He put his back to Hawthorn to cover the other end of the road.

"Hm." The three highly-ranked Chefs looked at each other, exchanging nods. "Well then you wouldn't mind us taking you the rest of the way."

"We can manage on our own," Nori growled as a lemon filled the space in her hand.

The Purple Jacket laughed. The male Red Jacket dropped down onto the road.

"We aren't asking," he said.

"Why?" Archie asked, a blueberry nestled in the crook of his slingshot. "Why should we go with you?"

"Because…" the female Red Jacket said as she walked up to the end of Barley's quarterstaff and slowly pushed it down with her hand. "The Bhantla is expecting you."

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