The vent camp sat in a dent of black rock, the whole cave smelling of boiled eggs. Ferra knelt at the rim of a steaming pool, testing the water with one bare scarred hand.
"Forge-grade medicinal," she announced, flicking drops off her knuckles, "nobody gets in until I finish tasting it."
"You are tasting the bath," Juna said flatly.
Ferra shrugged, "Iron, a little copper, a lot of sulphur... it's the best water I've found in a month."
Her Emberheart glowed steady under her ribs for the first time since the stacks, the vent doing an anvil's work.
Across the camp Hajin sat alone on a boulder, the crest page from the Archivist flattened across his knee. Its torn corner stayed stubbornly under his thumb all afternoon, the bread in his other hand going completely cold.
"You've been staring at that page for three hours, Scrap," she said.
"It said my mother's name," he answered, thumb resting on the torn corner, "nobody screams that at me and expects me to chew."
