"All the carpet. Maybe if we pay extra we can get a bath in our rooms."

"...okay."

She can probably make it as far as the carpet.

They take off again. Over Andoran, where they aren't stopping, "because screw them!" 

         "I think they're doing their best," Fazil says. 

Hagan snorts. "They're not hiring harvesters."

She has nothing particularly to say for or against Andoran.

She looks over the fields and houses and other things, sometimes, instead of just reading her book. She does try to study. Lost three days to rain, after all.

They reach Isger shortly before sunset.

The nearest town is smaller and poorer than the others they've stopped in, though it does have some very nice inns for visitors. There are some children playing with garbage in the street.

The remains of an execution can be seen in the town's central square. Death by impalement. The bodies remain, presumably as a warning.

She turns Verita's face away.

"Cheliax," he says to her.

"I have spent far more time there than you have."

"I don't know what they teach about Isger, there. Maybe they claim you're best friends and allies. Every three months Chelish show up in Osirion's bookstores to fetch all the history books you now want burned, no one can keep track."

"Do you imagine Cheliax is kinder to its own citizens?"

"Honestly? Probably. Most places are crueler to their colonies than they can afford to be at home. It's more fun to hurt foreigners, right, that's how people are.

- I do imagine they're also horrid locally."

"We don't torture people because it's fun."

"People other places attend executions because they like a show but the Chelish do it because -?"

"Because our god and our rulers command it."

"They're mandatory?"

Nod.

They keep walking.

Sounds good.

The inn they stop at is very nice, and does have the option for a room with an attached bath. It's pricey.

But they're very muddy, see. They'll go for it.

It's a nice set of rooms. There's only the one bath, though, and she's definitely not going to claim it first. Possibly ever, depending on how long the others take.

She gets Verita's books out and sets them on the table for her to keep studying. She reads a section of the Disciplines. She prays.

They get unmuddy. He comes in to let Verita know it's her turn if she wants it. He glances at the Disciplines. 

It's weird how she can say all that about Cheliax and still devotedly pray to Asmodeus for - for what, for favor in this mission? For her kidnappers to be captured and killed as they deserve? With spells that send them directly to Hell, probably, spears wouldn't do that. 

"Your bath."

She shuts her book and puts it away and leaves to take a bath.

Some time later she and Verita are also successfully unmuddied.

Then they can sleep.

In a place like this they keep a watch.

She and Verita sleep all night. Or try to, anyway; it presumably won't do any good to not, but Verita has a hard time falling asleep.

She tells her a story and pets her hair and eventually they manage most of a night's rest.