The few drops of rain turned into a soft drizzle as they stole across the road to the other side. Cass took note of the Turned at the front of the Winchester house. There were at least twenty more shambling up the street. All wearing faded and torn pre-plague clothing, with leathery skin stretched across their bones.

None of them noticed Cass and Theo. Maybe the rain really did dull their senses. Cass let out a small breath of relief, but they weren’t in the clear yet.

They reached the corner of the first house, and Cass immediately dismissed it as a potential hiding place. Too close to the amassing Turned. They passed the second and third house, all similar to the first, with brick siding and weed-entangled gardens in the back. The rain came down harder. At the fourth house, she checked the back door. Locked.

The fifth house was bigger than the others, and the kitchen door was already open. Cass hesitated. Should they take a chance?

She glanced to the right. They would have to cross the bridge to reach more houses, which would mean possibly being seen by the Turned. And she was cold and drenched from the rain. They’d have to take their chances here.

Cass led the way in, her revolver out. She checked the first floor but only found the now-familiar thin white threads dangling from drapes and the ceiling, and a coating of spore dust across pre-plague furniture. Theo waited for her in the hallway. She motioned toward the stairs, and he nodded.

As she reached the top of the second floor, the rain turned into a deluge, hitting the thin windowpanes in the bedrooms with violent pings. Shadows spread across the hall as dark clouds continued to pass overhead, darkened even further by the cover of the Mist.

Cass could barely see as she checked through the rooms. After clearing the last room at the end of the hall, she let out a long sigh of relief. Despite the open door, there was nothing inside. Not even traces of wildlife.

She motioned to Theo. “We’ll hole up in here for now.” The room was slightly bigger than the others, with a double bed surrounded by burgundy curtains hung on brass rings. Faded floral wallpaper covered the walls, peeling at the corners. A black-and-white photo in a gold oval frame of a little girl dressed in a frilly white dress hung above the dresser.

The rain continued to patter against the window. Cass glanced around the room again. It was the best place to stay: top floor, back of the house, a window overlooking the garden for possible escape. Theo still stood in the doorway. “We’ll stay here until the rain stops.”

A shiver rippled over Cass. Her clothes, drenched from the rain, were chilled and sticking to her body. After stowing her revolver, she began to work the clasps of her glider with numb fingers. “We should let our packs dry out.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked as he entered the room.

Cass slowed, her fingers on the metal loops.

“What if we need to run again?” Theo’s hair hung around his face in long dark strands.

She continued working the straps. “You’re right. But I also don’t know how long before the rain lets up, so we should use the time to dry out our packs and clothes.”

“All right, good idea.”

She shot him a grin through her mask. “I’m full of good ideas.”

Theo chuckled.

For one moment, the heaviness within her lightened. She pulled the pack off. She was glad she was not alone.

Cass checked her glider. A little bit of water had gotten in, but not too much. There was no need to spread the canvas wings out. Not that they had the room to do such a thing. They wouldn’t be here for long anyway. At least, she hoped so.

She stepped out into the hallway and listened for any sound, however slight. Satisfied, she went back into the room and sat down on the bed with her back against the headboard. Now that they were temporarily out of danger and the rain, her body crashed. Hunger and thirst waged war with fatigue. She couldn’t eat, but she could drink.

She stumbled off the bed, dug around in her pack, and pulled out the leather pouch and straw. “You should probably drink,” she said as she carefully pushed the metal straw through the opening, making sure there was a tight seal, before connecting the straw to the tiny opening in her mask. The water was tepid with a strong leathery taste, but it quenched her thirst and put something in her belly. She finished it off. With the possibility of contamination, she could only use the pouch once.

Cass stowed the pouch and straw away as Theo drank his own supply of water. Then she went back to the bed, exhausted.

The rain turned to a gentle drizzle, like a lullaby. Theo moved to the side of the window with the small wooden box in hand, carefully turning and studying it with a focused intensity.

She frowned as she watched him. That box looked familiar. She had seen something like it before. A small dark wooden box with different gears and keyholes.

She sat up straight on the bed. “Theo, I’ve seen a box like that.” She found it hard to keep her voice down in her excitement.

His head jerked up. “You have?”

“Yes, it was during—” She choked as a wave of grief washed over her. Her emotions were on edge. “It was during the dive when we lost Oliver and Captain Gresley.” She vividly remembered hugging the box to her body, running through the trees as the Turned pursued her.

“What?” he exclaimed, coming over to her quickly. His voice low but intense. “Do you remember anything about it?”

She shook her head. “Not really. Only that it was a puzzle box like this one, with gears and keyholes.”

“Cass,” Theo pressed. “Who was the job for?”

“One of the Five Families. The Staggs family.”

“The Staggses?” His tone was incredulous.

She was a little shaken by at the look of contempt on his face. “Yes, do you know them?”

“Yes.” The word was short and terse.

Cass blinked. “You know another one of the ruling Families?”

He looked away, the box stilled in his hands. “Yes.”

Cass didn’t know much about the elites of the skyworld, but she’d overheard enough people talking about the House of Lords to know the names of the Families. Staggses. Atwoods. Kingsfords. Etheringtons. And Winchesters.

Winchesters . . .

She glanced at Theo. “That house we were just in, with the underground room. That was the Winchester house. Are you doing this job for them?”

There was a pause. “Yes.”

“Do you know the Winchesters?”

Another pause. “Yes.”

“How?”

Theo rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll tell you later.”

Theo wasn’t a Winchester, was he? He said his name was Byron. But the portrait in the house was of Byron Winchester.

She took in a quick breath. Was Theo part of the Win-chester family?

“When do you think we can leave?” Theo asked abruptly.

Cass looked at the window. Rain continued to patter against the glass. “I’m not sure,” she said slowly. What time was it? They started the dive near noon when the Mist was the least dense. Given how much time was spent going through the village, hiding from the Turned, and looking over the Winchester house, they had been on the ground at least three hours, maybe more.

What if the rain didn’t stop, or at least stop before night fell? She’d never spent a night in the Mist before. It was done. Bert had told her about a dive where he and Captain Gresley spent the night in an old merchant shop and how hungry he was when they finally ascended back to the Daedalus.

She stared down at her fingers, ticking off each thing she could think of about staying the night down in the Mist. One, their masks would work for three days thanks to the filters Theo had acquired for them in Decadenn. Two, they couldn’t eat due to the masks, but they could still sleep and use the privy, as long as they were careful. And they’d had a pouch of water each, which would help stave off thirst. Three, there would be no need to dive back down. Theo had found what he had been looking for.

It was risky, especially with the strange Turned here. Who knew what they were capable of? And she was still worried about Bert. He wouldn’t try to come back in the rain, but would he risk a dive at night?

No. He was too smart for that. He would most likely try in the morning.

“I think we’re stuck here for the night,” she finally said.

Theo looked up from fiddling with the box in his hands, a small wooden slate now sticking out from one of the sides. Was he managing to open it? “I thought we might be,” he said. “Is there anything I should know?”

“Obviously we can’t eat. We might want to take shifts sleeping, and we need to be extremely careful with our masks. And it will probably get really dark.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Theo said and went back to examining the box.

Cass watched him for a couple minutes, a storm beginning to brew inside her. “Aren’t you afraid?”

Theo looked up again. He studied her for a moment, and she lowered her head. It felt as if he could read all the worry and fear on her face.

“Yes,” he admitted. “But there’s not much I can do about it. Instead, I’m going to use this time to try to get this open. When it gets too dark to see, I’ll take the first watch and let you sleep. Focusing on what I can do, instead of what I can’t, helps me not succumb to fear. That, and I pray.”

“To Elaeros?”

“Yes.”

The storm inside her came rushing to the surface. “Why? I don’t see Him here. I don’t see Him driving away the Mist, or helping those who Turn, or fixing everything that’s broken in this world. I don’t think I’ve seen Him at all!”

Theo didn’t answer. After a few seconds, Cass slumped back against the headboard and crossed her arms. No one had an answer for her. Captain Gresley once said something about healing the brokenness in the world, but from what she could see, there was no fixing this world. The Mist would continue to rise and consume, the Turned would rove the surface, and she would always be alone.

She drew her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around her knees. The storm inside her dissipated, leaving a gaping hole in her middle.

“You’re right,” Theo said a moment later. “And I’d believe that as well, except every time I despair, I catch glimpses of Him. Just tiny ones, circumstances too perfectly aligned to be simply luck. These are the threads I hold onto. For example, the fact that we found this.” He held up the box. “Or that I even knew about it.”

Cass scowled. “If the cure for the Mist was always around, why wasn’t it used years ago?”

Theo laughed sadly and shook his head. “Because humans were involved. Humans who didn’t want the cure to be found.”

She lifted her head. “Humans who don’t want the cure to be found? Who in this world would want that?”

“You’d be surprised,” he said darkly.

She shook her head and laid her cheek down on her knee and watched the rivulets of water run down the window left by the rain. It didn’t make sense. And she still wasn’t convinced about Elaeros. Maybe it was because if she were that powerful, she would have never let the Mist exist in the first place. Or wars. Or pain.

But then where would that leave humans? Many of those things existed because of the human race. Should they not exist either?

Ugh, I’m getting a headache. Maybe Theo’s right. Maybe I’m just not seeing what he sees. That made sense. Right now, her body ached. And her face felt hot. Cass pressed her cold fingers along her forehead. Must be from exhaustion. She closed her heated eyes “Thanks for taking the first watch, Theo,” she said.

She barely heard his reply before being swept into the warm darkness of sleep.