Cath was patching canvas near the fire on the fourth murkrise when I asked the question I'd been working toward all day.

Tom: How many people have been here longer than Roper.

Cath: One. Maybe two. They're not around now.

Tom: What happens to them.

Cath: You stop seeing them at the fire. Then you stop seeing them in the morning. Then they're gone and nobody quite says they've gone. Roper says it's what the ground does with the ones who've been in it long enough.