Most beloved Zann,

I didn’t know of a crossroads that had anything to do with my family.

I had begged the use of a room in the Wizards’ Hall building so that I could hide out until dark. Not only did I not want to walk the city in daylight without Sandavin’s charm, but that day’s mist was a black-streaked grey I had never seen before and I didn’t want it touching me.

The wizards didn’t have a map of the roads around Crideon. That might have been helpful. I could see if anything stirred my memory. Instead I rested and read a book someone had left lying around. Which family did they mean, anyway? Me, Wande, and Jhus? Or my parents and sisters, from up in the Boltmarch? Or…

Then I remembered that there was a famous crossroads to the east of the city, downstream, that they told folktales about. I couldn’t think of a connection to my family, but there might be one.

It’s called the Four Signs. Usually a crossroads will have one signpost with signs pointing where different places are, down this road or that one. But at this place, for whatever reason, two big roads crossed and each of the four different ways had its own sign. There was a song about a band of highwaymen being killed at Four Signs. “The Red Riders”. I had never been there, but it couldn’t be hard to find. Just follow the Mill Hill road.

The rest of the day was a series of almost doing things but then not doing them. I almost finished the book, but then I thought I should go down to the kitchen and see what was to eat. I had my hand on the kitchen door when there were some bangs and lightning cracks from above. A horrible smell seeped down. Not wanting to see what happened next, I left the building altogether.

Sunset had dispelled the grey mist, so that was good, but when I tried to follow the Mill Hill road out of the city, I ran into a battle between Lord Clear’s men and some other soldiers. I took the long way around to stay clear of the fires, and ended up leaving the city by some other road, anonymous in the night.

It couldn’t be too hard to find the Mill Hill road from here, I thought. Just take the first road north and I couldn’t miss it. Well, I tried that, after some hours walking, and the road took me into the middle of some woods, and by the time I realized it, I had lost the road in the dark.

Ordinarily this wouldn’t have bothered me very much. I might have been lost, but I wasn’t very lost, and I’ve slept outside in worse conditions than this. But something growled from up a nearby tree, and then some more things growled from some more trees.

Love,

Ybel