Once the twelve moths climbed into the broad upper shelf of the thermal, the violent pitching stopped.
They were flying two thousand feet above a carpet of valley fog, carried south-southeast in a steady, warm stream of air that smelled faintly of sulfur and wet cedar. Ahead and behind the two elders, the younger silk-backs held their places in the slipstream, their broad wings rising and falling in a slow, unhurried rhythm that barely rustled the fur along their flanks. Beside the lead female’s right wing tip, Lilt locked her gliding fins into the rising air so Chaska could rest her hands on the bamboo crossbar and let the wind do the work.
Between Ysabet’s knees, Pip slept deeply beneath the warm fold of the moth’s inner hind-wing. Even in sleep its hollow flanks twitched, and whenever a stray curl of cold mist brushed its nose, the faint quartz-cave lights inside its chest gave a thin, pale flicker before dying back. Inside Ysabet’s pack, the lame mouse scratched once at the lid of its wooden box and settled back into its wool nest.
Ten paces to the left, the big russet male flew level and steady now that the forty-pound iron archive case was gone. Osha sat hunched in its collar wool, looking startlingly small without the square oak box strapped across her back. Her right hand stayed buried inside her habit until she drew out her father Amren’s small, grease-stained leather notebook.
