If she'd thought returning home the last time had been strange, stumbling onto Sullivan Territory this time around was downright surreal. The clansmen they'd left behind — the youngsters and the elderly and the lame — had managed to hobble together a new camp far from the last one, leaving tags and marks in tree trunks to show stragglers the way home. Maaike had almost turned back at several points and taken Sammy into the forest to live alone as hermits or something, far from the threat that other people (even supposed friends) posed — but there was a reason Therians lived in clans, and there was no way Maaike could protect her son out here all alone.
Besides, she'd taken one look at the exhaustion on Aiden and her grandparents' faces, recognised the fact that Aiden was still here with her even though his brother could probably have smuggled him Dardanos instead, and resolutely stayed in line with the others. The soft and grimy weight of her son curled over her shoulder only grounded her more, especially when his little feet kicked in his sleep and Dioghna sniffed at him with a mournful sigh as they walked.
And Xanth was it a long walk. They'd taken the long way around to and from the portal, hoping to throw off anyone trying to trail them. A few of the less injured Sullivans had split off to disperse the evidence she and Aiden had collected along the way, in hopes that at least some of it would reach a real court in pursuit of real justice, but there was still a bounty on both their heads and likely would be for a long time to come. They couldn't afford to take chances now, even with so many of their number wounded and limping. At least Kiel's potions had dealt with the worst of the injuries. (They'd reluctantly thrown their dead to the sea, sooner than leave them out for the scavengers like the poachers and brigands they'd left out for the City Guard, because they couldn't afford to carry the bodies all the way home.)
The walk was so long and Sammy's weight on her shoulder so heavy that the trees and bushes had blurred into a streaming wall of green and brown. Maaike had refused to give him up to anyone, though — not even Aiden, who could probably have carried him without breaking a sweat. It had nothing to do with trust, because she trusted Aiden and her grandparents more than anyone else in the world (including herself, sometimes), and everything to do with her arms simply refusing to let go. She couldn't survive losing Sammy again. She just couldn't.
And Graeme... Xanth, she had no idea what to do with him. His mind was so broken, he had no idea he'd been freed. He talked to phantoms and screeched when Aiden tried to give him food. He'd at least taken a shine to Dioghna's wolf, to the point where he followed her everywhere, but he apparently couldn't tell her apart from any of the other Therians when they took wolf form. He twisted this way and that, following the beat of his own drum, and had almost disappeared into the forest half a dozen times before his minders realised and dragged him back mumbling to himself about demons with blue eyes. (Maaike thought he was talking about Thanatos because Zanaryans didn't have blue eyes and nothing else made sense — but then, little Graeme said now made sense anyway.)
Maaike didn't even realise they were "home" at first. She kept walking, passing tree after tree and bush after bush, the song of birds in one ear and Sammy's snoring in the other, his over-heated forehead pressed to her neck and the brush of Aiden's arm against hers keeping her moving even when every muscle and bone in her body wanted to fall. It wasn't until someone tugged on her wrist to stop her that she blinked out of her daze, tensing up ready for one more fight, only to realise they were in the middle of a clearing surrounded by tents.