Dear Risa,

  Before Cuff, everything was fields and farms. I thought that was pretty boring and isolated.

  Turns out, Cuff is where the farms end and desert begins.

  Risa. Girl. There is nothing here. Like, I literally can't see any houses from where we decided to stop for the night. In Cuff a couple people mentioned it was good we had someone with water magic with us, and I was like “yep, always handy”, but no, I misunderstood.

  There's no water anywhere. No rivers. No wells. No houses with plumbing. Not even a single cloud in the sky. No nice green plants to show there’s water underground. The road is dusty dirt that the liondrakes complain hurts their paws.

  Actually, that was a problem. At lunch they apparently discussed it and agreed they weren't going to keep walking. Cali and Luke had to make boot things for them before they agreed to keep going.

  I will say, the boots are pretty cute. Being liondrakes, they refuse to wear anything that isn't fancy, so Cali sacrificed a blanket of hers with a bright blue star pattern. Seeing these giant winged murder kitties prancing along with star-patterned booties is just adorable.

  Usually when we pass people, they’re at least a little wary of the liondrakes. If not totally afraid. Today we passed someone, and once what she was seeing registered, she laughed her head off.

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  When we get to the grand city of Riverriverriverriver we’ll pick up some dyed leather and sequins to make proper boots that last more than an hour.

  Now, I’m not sure, but if I had to guess, I’d say Riverriverriverriver is a city… built on a river.

  Daring guess, I know.

  I assume that when people were first exploring this area, after days of seeing no water at all, they got to a river, and four people immediately shouted “river!”, and that’s how the place got named.

  Anyhow, Maki likes it here. He says the desert is lovely. He spent a long time walking next to the wagon, and I think it helped him psychologically.

  It is pretty. But you know me. City girl through and through. If we’d come here for half a day and then went back to the city for a night in a club, I would have said it’s an awesome and beautiful desert. But we have to spend multiple days here.

  My fur is going to be soooo brittle and dry when we finally get back to water.

  However! I do not wish we were in a damp place. Nope. I know how dangerous that is. I am perfectly happy staying here for as long as we need to. I’m not going to say I miss water or anything, because that’s the kind of talk that would get us stuck in a swamp or introduced to a flash flood.

  So I am perfectly happy dealing with this super dry air.

  No one can accuse me of tempting fate, nope! I am way too smart for that.

  At what point is it considered going too far in the opposite direction?

  I should just stop writing.

  Regards,

  Maeve Zee