So lost in thought am I in my cell—pondering the many unintentional wrongs I've committed toward my biological father, wondering if perhaps my behaviour was never as unintentional as I like to believe—that it takes me several minutes to fully grasp that there is a great commotion afoot: shouting, screaming, explosions, and other sounds of battle.

I am cold. Icy water surrounds me, undulating in the glare of morning sun. It has been nearly twelve hours since I took Shashi into the desert and made those tracks. I hope, with every shivering inch of me, that Jagmeet's men are not able to distinguish the difference between the tracks of a boy fleeing across the desert sands and the tracks of the a boy walking carefully backward over his own footsteps.