"Ravi…" His sister's voice finally reached him. Her voice was part of why he had been yelling. He feared to hear it. He began to move toward another red-cloaked man, but Mor threw her arms around him and would not be shaken off. "Please, Ravi, stop it! This helps nothing. You'll make them angrier."

Angrier? Ravi thought. Angrier? What did it matter if they were angry? He came near to whirling on her with harsh words, but her grip on him was tight and, in truth, he did not really want to break free from her. He knew that she was right. She was always calmer than he was. She never wasted actions, as he often did. On the farm, she worked each day steadily and slowly. She moved like an old woman, he used to think. But somehow she always finished her chores before him, no matter that he was faster and stronger than she. Even now, she was more self-assured than he was. Acknowledging this stilled him more than her grip on him and more than his fatigue and his battered face.

"Good, Ravi, come," she whispered, starting to pull him back into the mass of children. "Better they don't see you. They're not going to let me go. You know that, and they might separate us if you keep drawing attention to yourself. I don't want to be alone, Ravi."

Neither did he. He let her pull him into the group, sliding between the others until they were two among many. Now that he had ceased his commotion, he and his sister were little different from the rest. He saw a few faces from the neighboring village. The rest were strangers, but judging by their clothing, demeanor, and fear-filled eyes they were much the same as he and Mor. They were farm children, too, from the fertile but isolated territory north of the Lakelands. They had been gathered together near a town he had never been to. They were like so many sheep brought into one corral and kept in place by wolves in red garments.