They left the house well before sunrise. Mikey’s feet were bare. Irenya had to leave him standing outside the door, hunched and withdrawn, while she rescued his socks, shoes, and jacket. She felt sick. The stress of the last three months was rolling over her with the weight of a steamroller. Hunched over the tight knot of her stomach, she struggled to place one foot in front of the other. And it would be many days before they reached Ilkyrie. The landlord had handed her two wrinkled apples as breakfast. Mikey allowed her to take his hand and they walked in the direction the landlord had indicated. Irenya braced herself to endure.
At the waterfront, the town drew itself into a narrowing ridge of land between two rivers. At the confluence, the ridge ended in a pointed stone structure topped
