It took most of the day to reach the waterfall.

Kira was a strong jumper, but she and Yoshi couldn’t seem to get in sync. When their timing was wrong, the three of them spun in lazy circles, leaving Anna feeling like she’d swallowed a pukeberry. It didn’t help that Kira and Yoshi kept arguing with each other in Japanese, presumably about whose fault it was.

When the roar of the waterfall finally grew near, Anna was almost happy to worry about tanglevine instead of motion sickness.

They alighted on the big rock that overlooked the falls. Once they’d untied themselves, Yoshi stood staring at the undergrowth, ready to draw his sword.

“Refill the water bottles,” he said. “But be careful.”

Anna rolled her eyes.

“I’m taking a bath,” she said, then mimed washing herself for Kira.

Kira nodded and pulled off her jacket.

“It’s pretty cold,” Yoshi warned.

“Cold sounds great.” Anna was hot and sweaty, and she wanted to wash away the thought that Molly was probably getting sicker every minute. “Anyway, jumping in is the easiest way to fill the bottles without getting near the undergrowth.”

“If the vine attacks, I’ll kill it,” Yoshi said. “Then we can use it as climbing rope.”

She stared at him. “You want to use me as bait?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” He looked away. “It’s just that tanglevine could be useful.”

Anna almost smiled. In a way, Yoshi was like her—practical about what was necessary to survive, and a little too blunt about saying it out loud.

But she did feel safe with him around. And nothing was more necessary at the moment than a cold bath.

She dropped her jacket and backpack onto the rock but kept the rest of her clothes on. She might not have another chance to wash them on this expedition. Besides, Yoshi was right there.

Anna steeled herself before jumping in, but when she hit the water, the icy reality forced a shriek from her lungs. Kira smirked down at her from the rock, but when she plunged in, she also let out a squeak.

When the two crawled back out, Yoshi looked up from his radio with a grin.

“Told you it was cold.”

Anna tried to shrug, but it turned into a shiver.

“Anything?” she asked through chattering teeth.

He looked up into the misty spray of the falls. “Just static. But I swear, I heard something the first time I was here.”

Anna sat up and began to squeeze water out of her shirt. “I’m not doubting you.”

She didn’t have a choice but to believe Yoshi. Finding other people was the only hope for making Molly better. Anna couldn’t wipe away the image of the wound, shimmering like a green insect’s wings.

As she and Yoshi had crossed the jungle that afternoon, they’d twice heard the cry of the giant bird echoing across the jungle. And both times it had come from back near the crash. Anna just hoped that the others were safe.

Kira was squeezing out her hair. The red color from the omoshiroi-berries was partly washed out, but now she was rubbing in some of the blue berries, turning it a faint purple color.

She said something in Japanese, and Yoshi nodded in agreement.

“We should start climbing,” he said.

Anna followed his skyward gaze into the mists. There was probably a whole other biome up there, with its own food web, its own edible plants and animals. Its own predators, too, of course.

And hopefully people—or aliens, whoever might have a cure for Molly.

Anna suspected that whatever was up there, it was going to be very omoshiroi.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”

They retied the bungee cords and began to climb. The incline grew steeper and steeper, until it was almost vertical—a wall of stone.

It was like climbing in a dream. The only sound was the roar of rushing water beside them. Thanks to the gravity device, Anna could hold her own weight with one hand—or just a couple of fingers when she wanted to get fancy. The tricky part was hanging on when a strong breeze tried to tug them from the wall of rock. The thought of falling all the way back down, even in low G, made her queasy.

And what if shredder birds attacked? They couldn’t turn off the device without falling to their deaths.

It took the first hour for Anna to relax. The birds probably didn’t fly this high. Not that she had any real idea about their altitude—the swirling clouds erased everything except her two companions.

“Shouldn’t we be able to see by now?” she asked. “I mean, the mist out in the jungle only went a couple of hundred feet up.”

Yoshi stopped and hung from one hand, taking a drink of water. “Where does mist come from?”

“Water evaporating from the jungle. But we’re way too high for that.” Anna looked up. “This mountain must have clouds rolling down it.”

Yoshi nodded, then started translating for Kira, and Anna paused for a quick drink. Her fingers were starting to cramp. The wall of stone was so flat—there was no place to rest, not even an outcrop big enough to plant her feet on.

Maybe it really was a wall, a huge one. But what was it keeping out?

There was no way to find out except to keep climbing to the top.

By the time the sun started to set, both of Anna’s hands were aching. She might not weigh much, but holding on to the rocks was like carrying an egg for hours straight with no place to put it down—one slip and it was broken.

“What if we never find a place to stop?” she asked. “What if this just goes up forever?”

“Don’t think about that,” Yoshi said. “We keep going until we get to the top.”

“Sure,” Anna said, but a slow panic was building inside her. She tried to remind herself—even if she lost her grip and pulled the others free, they would only drift back down together like a handful of feathers.

But they’d lose the whole afternoon’s climb, and the breeze could carry them miles away from where they’d started. And any rescue for Molly would be another day away.

Just then, a low, familiar moan came from the jungle below.

“Yokaze,” Kira said.

Yoshi translated, “The night wind.”

“Good name,” Anna said, and shivered. It was the same cold wind that had swept through the jungle two nights before, taking Caleb away to his death.

If the three of them fell now, the night wind might carry them over a double-G zone—they’d all be smashed to jelly. Or they might drift into the roaring waterfall.

Anna just hoped her fingers didn’t get too cold to function. The air seemed to be getting colder every minute they climbed.

“We should have brought gloves,” she said.

Yoshi managed a shrug. “I told you it would be cold.”

Anna sighed—she had brought a jacket. But she’d tied it around her waist at the start of the climb, and now there was no way to put it on.

Then she felt it, the yokaze ruffling her hair, reaching its cold fingers beneath her shirt. A shiver trembled along her spine.

Then a sudden gust hit, and her right hand slipped free from the rock.

Her left hand was holding one of the scrubby plants that clung to the rocks, and it came loose, too—she found herself drifting away from the wall of stone, grabbing at air.

“Uh, guys,” she said. “Abunai!”

The cloudy abyss opened up beneath Anna. Even floating in low G, the yawning drop made her stomach flip inside out.

She forced herself to freeze—flailing would only make it harder for the others to hang on. Kira and Yoshi were scrambling to take hold of whatever they could.

The bungee cords slowly stretched, went taut, and then pulled her gently back toward the rocks. Anna reached out for a pair of handholds, her heart pounding in her throat.

“Sorry,” she said, clinging gratefully to the rock. “I grabbed the wrong plant.”

Yoshi’s face looked pale, but he said calmly, “When rock climbing, never trust vegetation.”

“Especially here, where it can eat you.” Anna tried to laugh at her own joke, but it came out more like a whimper.

“Yoshi!” called Kira, then added more in Japanese.

Anna looked up. The night wind had cleared the mist a little, and a dark shape was forming in the rocks above Kira.

The mouth of a cave.

“Maybe we should rest,” Yoshi said.

Anna stared at him. “Maybe?”

A minute later they were all inside the cave. The yokaze roiled around its mouth, still threatening to pull them back out into the misty air.

“Ready for heavy?” Anna said.

The other two nodded, and she switched the device off.

Normal gravity tumbled down like a sack of doorknobs. Anna dropped to her knees on the stone. After hours of climbing in low G, the muscles in her hands were burning, but the rest of her felt rubbery and weak. And hungry.

“Ow,” Kira said, rubbing her hands.

“No kidding.” Anna’s cold, sore fingers struggled to unzip her backpack. She could smell the food bars through their wrapping and was already appalled that they’d only rationed two for each meal.

She pulled one out and tore it open, wolfed it down, then took a long and welcome drink of water. Kira was ripping open packets as well, and somehow the scent of stale airplane pretzels made Anna’s mouth water.

Then she noticed how warm it was in the cave and placed her palm flat against the ground.

The stone was warm to the touch.

Kira crunched a pretzel, and the sound echoed back at them from the depths of the cave.

“There’s some kind of passage back there,” Anna said softly.

Yoshi nodded, but he was listening to his radio. Instead of the usual hiss of static, a soft sound was coming from it.

Beep, beep, beep …

A warm rush of relief went through her. It was definitely some kind of transmission, the ordered pulse of civilization. The sound of medicine and food and nothing trying to eat you.

Maybe Molly was going to be okay. Maybe they were all going to get home.

Yoshi listened for a while, then placed it beside him and sat cross-legged, staring out at the mist.

“Aren’t you hungry?” Anna asked. “Or do you want to explore the cave first?”

“Let’s wait for that. The night wind is clearing the air, and this is higher than we’ve ever been.” He sipped from his water bottle. “Soon, we’ll finally be able to see where we are.”

Anna looked at Kira, who handed her some pretzels and shrugged.

But Yoshi was right—as the sunset turned the mists to shades of rust and rose, shapes began to form on the dark horizon. The yokaze was clearing away the clouds, and the landscape below was coming into focus.

The three of them settled in the cave mouth, staring out, hoping for some sliver of the truth to be revealed.