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“Why’d you come up this way?”

“Why do you think?” Her voice is harsh—derisive

“To look for more strays?”

“Clearly”

She sets off again, picking her way over the sheer rockface,slowly at times as she finds her hand- and footholds I hu like a fucker even as I know I can’t turn back without her—without at least talking to her If she won’t help me, I’ll be in the bed by tomorrow

After she hoists herself up onto the small plateau where the archway and the spires are, she disappears behind the arch’s left side

Touché

I shouldn’t be surprised, though Why would she want to spend time with me?

I lift myself onto the plateau and blink down at the slopes below us Fuck, we’re way up in the clouds now Froulches like tiny trickles I can barely make out the herd down near the mouth of the valley The huts scattered all about the Patches look like soda cans I’d say this is two thousand feet—easy

I turn and look behind me, at the archhich rises twenty-five or thirty feet above er than a spacious great rooain, and I can’t see the space well

“Finley?”

“Up here!”

I look up

“Atop the archway”

I crane h, I think I see a shadow up there