They followed the cart through the streets, expecting to come to some sort of guard tower or police station. Instead, the cart continued to wind its way through the city, taking seemingly random turns and even doubling back at times. It made Smellerbee uneasy, the covert nature of the movements. If these were just the police, why take such care to keep their movements secret?

She and Longshot were persistent, however. They split up at times if they weren't sure where the cart had gone, followed along adjacent streets, even getting ahead of the cart at times. They could hear Jet's protests at first, but they seemed to die down as the minutes stretched on. We're right out here, Smellerbee wished she could whisper to him. You're not alone. You still have us.

"Where are they taking him?" Smellerbee asked after half an hour of following the cart all over the city. The cart was a few blocks ahead of them now, but seeming to pick up speed. So did they, down a dark and deserted alley. Then the cart turned onto a larger street, which thy realized was bright and crowded. Good. They were able to blend in with the throngs of people out for an evening in the city as the crowd parted to allow the carriage to pass and refilled the empty spaces left behind as the cart rolled on.

The cart took another seemingly random turn down an alley, and at a nod from Longshot, Smellerbee kept close to the cart while Longshot took a parallel street.

The alley it took was quiet and deserted. Smellerbee let out a whistle to let Longshot know she had eyes on it but would give it space. It was like being back in the forest, running operations again, so smoothly they worked with each other.

The cart took yet another turn, this time in the direction of Longshot's side street. Smellerbee whistled again to let him know she would fall back and he needed to be ready. When she rejoined him, the cart was a few blocks ahead of him. They watched it turn right and took off running, slowing only when they got to the corner.

It was a dead end, though. And the cart was gone. Smellerbee felt almost sick to her stomach. Whatever was going on was not normal. Even here, why would they take such extreme measures for a street fight?

"Where is he, Longshot?" she asked quietly, looking around. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the alley at all. Nothing to indicate where they might have gone. The wall in front of them was taller than Longshot and thick, flanked by what looked like little factory shops, now abandoned in the nighttime hours.

I don't know. Longshot was looking around for the same signs as Smellerbee. When he found nothing, his eyes settled on the ground.

"You think they took him under?" Smellerbee asked. She couldn't stand the thought of Jet, a creature of the trees and open forests, stuck in some underground vault.

Longshot glanced over at the wall. Or through there.

Smellerbee looked at the buildings. One of them had a drainage pipe running down the back corner. She shimmied up it to the top of the building. The only thing on the other side of the building was the other half of the alley. No cart in sight. Smellerbee climbed back down, and the panic started to set in.

"Longshot, where did they take him? And why?" she asked. Longshot shrugged.

I don't know.

"We have to find him."

Longshot nodded solemnly.

"We have to find him!"

Longshot put his hands on Smellerbee's shoulders. We will.

"How?" Smellerbee asked, and she felt tears starting to pool around her eyes. "How will we find him when we don't know who has him or where they took him?"

Longshot shook his head and Smellerbee saw that his eyes were sparkling with tears, too. She pulled him close to her, hearing the thrum of his heartbeat feeling his chest starting to heave with breath as he tried not to cry.

"I can't lose him, Longshot," Smellerbee said, her voice muffled in the worn fabric of his shirt. "We have to find him."

: –:–:–:

Neither of them slept well that night. They decided against asking around, not wanting to draw attention to Jet or themselves, but it was nearly dawn before they were exhausted enough to give up wandering the city in search of Jet. They collapsed into their beds for an hour or two of restlessness before rising when the sun's rays invaded their little apartment.

Work was torturous. Nobody, of course, noticed Jet was gone. Nobody, except Longshot and Smellerbee, who felt his absence as acutely as physical pain.

Longshot was hyperfocused and seemed closed off, somehow, as if the usual murmur of his glances and playful movements had been silenced. His eyes focused like a raven hawk, he looked at the work in front of him and would not look at any thing or any one else. Smellerbee, on the other hand, could not seem to keep her attention on any one thing. She felt herself mentally floating in and out of awareness, seeming to wake up to find herself with a half-filled mold or a block of hard wax, not really remembering how she got there.

It wasn't until she was careless filling a mold and found her hand covered in molten wax that she was pulled from her distraction with a cry of pain.

Without missing a beat, Longshot grabbed her and pulled her over to the bucket of ice water they used to cool the candles. He stood behind her, arms around her, forcing her burned hand into the water, which elicited a hiss of pain from Smellerbee. But Longshot held her there, and Smellerbee felt the cold water surround her burn and start to ease the pain away.

"What's going on here?" the foreman had noticed. Longshot pulled Smellerbee's hand out to show him. "How'd that happen?"

"My hand slipped," Smellerbee lied.

"Can you still work?"

The honest answer was no, but Smellerbee didn't want to admit it. She hesitated, and Longshot, knowing her mind, shook his head at the foreman.

"I should get it looked at by a healer," Smellerbee admitted quietly.

"Go, then," the foreman said gruffly. "And come back when it's better."

Smellerbee reluctantly headed for the door and could feel Longshot, sure as a shadow, behind her.

"Where do you think you're going?" the foreman asked.

Smellerbee turned around. The words had been directed at Longshot, whose eyes had gone wide.

"He's got to help me," Smellerbee said, holding up her left hand. "I can't do much with this." It wasn't true, but Smellerbee knew Longshot was as reluctant to leave her side as she was to leave his.

The foreman didn't look too happy about that, exhaling in exasperation, and said, "Fine, then. But I'll expect you both back as soon as possible."

No word about their missing friend. No, they were just two pairs of hands he saw leaving his shop. Smellerbee had to wonder if they were even people to him.

They walked out into the sunshine. It was beautiful that day, but Smellerbee barely noticed.

"We have to do something," Smellerbee said quietly to Longshot as they headed through the crowd in search of a healer.

Longshot nodded. Yes, we do.

But what?