The convoy left the shelter at first light, following the white thread while fog thinned behind the stones and pale mountains appeared ahead.
Loccy carried the dead guardian beside the carts, and the refugees kept their separate tablets wrapped beneath their coats.
Ash walked near the Watcher with his Ringlet covered, though the buried road pulled gently beneath every step.
Hajin reached the front of the convoy and stopped when the last fog folded into a white wall across the valley.
Juna raised one Wing and said, "The fog is leaving the ground, though the sky above it has become one unbroken sheet of white."
Ferra held her copper needle toward the wall and replied, "There is no weather behind that brightness, because the needle finds a vertical current rising through the clouds."
Eirwen studied the pale horizon and said, "The route has brought us to the edge of an old engine, so every person stays behind the marked line until we know what sees us."
