icah didn’t so much as look at Phoebe while they chewed their Honeygum and crunched through the Chokarai. Mechanical screeches and calls faded as the path led through a sickly swath of the metal forest. The trees were limp with thinning leaves, their trunks brutally gouged and spray-painted with numbers, and piles of ore had been ripped from the ground, then dumped beside the open scars.

“A tr-tr-tragedy,” Dollop muttered mournfully. “The Covenant will not, um, stand for this. No, n-n-not one bit.”

“Covenant?” Phoebe asked.

“Wh-where?” Dollop said excitedly, stopping in his tracks to look around.

“No, I was just asking.”

“Oh, r-r-right.” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “The Covenant is a myst-sterious, uh, super-secret army of freedom f-f-fighters, sworn to defend Mehk. They s-strike in the night, s-swoop from the skies, and er, even burst up from underground!” Dollop said, leaping up dramatically like a toddler during storytime. “They can k-k-kill with a stare! Ex-explode things with their minds! Ka-bo-o-o-om!”

“Uh-huh,” Micah said, not in the least bit convinced. Phoebe wasn’t sure what to make of it. It sounded ridiculous, but then again, she had already seen so much that she never would have believed.

They arrived at the edge of the Chokarai. Beyond a border of scraggly trees lay a sprawling grove of symmetrical stumps. These were not ragged and splintered logs, but uniform and meticulously severed just above the ground. The clear-cut scar stretched for miles.

“The C-C-Covenant will fix this,” Dollop vowed as he looked out upon the leveled forest. “They will m-make them all pay. Uh, you’ll see.”

“Wicked,” Micah breathed in wonder.

But she didn’t share his sentiment. This was horrible. These woods were the chraida’s home. No wonder they had wanted to kill her and Micah. She was about to tell him as much when she noticed he was not looking at the stumps at all. He was shielding his eyes to stare up at the sky.

To her astonishment, it was not a flat expanse of color and clouds. Instead, she saw a spectacular writhing nebula of liquid blues and yellows, shimmering like reflections in a puddle of oil. Rather than a sun, there was a glowing ring suspended overhead, halfway between horizon and zenith. They squinted against the glare, trying to make sense of it. The ring must have been more than a hundred fiery celestial bodies, like a circle of smoldering coals.

“Oh good!” Dollop said cheerily, chomping on a handful of crusty gray seeds and spitting out their shells. He gestured to the suns. “O-only a couple more clicks until the fusion. We’re making good time. Th-this-a-way!”

The sight of food made their empty stomachs grumble, a rude reminder of their predicament. Phoebe picked up one of the discarded shells and sniffed it hungrily. She would have tasted it if it didn’t smell exactly like silver polish.

Dollop led them around the clear-cut grove to a spot where the forest gave way to rolling hills covered in tall golden grass that swayed in the breeze. The glaring solar halo reflected off the amber waves like flames. Jutting up at irregular intervals throughout the landscape were tall, curling spires. They reminded Phoebe of brown stalagmites, but it was hard to make out what they might actually be.

When Dollop led them to the first glinting hill, she realized at once that the sea of knee-high golden reeds were thin and sharp as a fencer’s foil.

“Lemme guess,” Micah said, flinching as one of the blades scratched him. “The brasslands?”

“Pr-pr-precisely!” Dollop said. “Now if my c-calculations are correct we—”

The blades of brass suddenly thrashed around him, and the air exploded into a fury of spinning black wings. Dollop screamed and dove, and the kids ducked as a flock of agitated creatures buzzed past. They soared off into the sky, carried aloft not by wings, but by a series of fringed propellers.

Micah’s eyes bugged out, and he clutched his throat. He hocked and forced something down with a hard swallow.

“You okay?” she asked. It was the first thing she had said to him since their argument.

“What do you care?” he snapped. “Them stupid things made me swallow my gum, is all.”

“C-close one,” Dollop said as he picked up his arm, which had come loose. He pointed to the kids with the detached limb. “G-g-gotta look out for vetchels. They’ll, um-um, eat your eyes right out of your head. V-very rude indeed.” He shoved his arm back in place and continued on his way.

As they trotted through the brass, Phoebe was grateful that she had wrapped her foot in protective metal leaves. She had to walk carefully, folding the reeds down with each step and then leaping forward to avoid the whipping recoil. Even so, the sharp reeds often snapped across her calves, leaving crisscrossed scratches. It was slow going, but the brush eventually grew high above their heads, and she no longer had to worry about the razorlike tips.

Now that she was closer, Phoebe could see that the jagged brown spires scattered across the land were made from layers of dead, windblown brass reeds. They were hardened into sweeping shapes that wound up from wide bases to create ribbon-like structures reaching ten to fifteen feet overhead.

The fiery ring in the sky rose and contracted as the day progressed. It might have astounded Phoebe had she not been so uncomfortable. She peeled off Micah’s jacket and used it to fan herself, but it did little to break the heat. She wanted to say something to Micah, but he didn’t want anything to do with her. Any mention of food or water was likely to result in a nasty “I told you so.”

Dollop must have read their body language. He looked back at them with sympathy pooling in his big eyes. “Poor Phoebe-Micah. You are huh-hungry.”

She nodded, but Micah just made a dismissive grunt.

“I-I’m sorry. I c-can’t help you,” he said, repressing a little shudder of revulsion. “I don’t know w-w-where to find you any elderly humans.”

The kids shared a baffled look.

“Y-you know, for you to…eat.”

The kids burst into laughter. “We don’t eat old people!” she corrected.

“I th-thought…” Dollop blinked rapidly, bewildered. “I thought that after you h-h-hatched from the head of your bir-birthing host, you ate—”

Micah chuckled. “Hatched from what?”

“I think you may have the wrong idea about us.”

“Where’d you learn that crud anyway?”

“Ev-ev-everyone knows that. It’s, um, common knowledge.”

“Well, you oughta get your facts straight,” Micah retorted.

“Hmm, I—I wish an axial were here. They’d s-straighten this out. I—I was raised in a housing of the W-Waybound, and they taught me everything I know…ev-everything I can remember, at least. They t-t-taught me all about you evil bleeders and your f-filthy language. Uh, n-no offense.”

“None taken,” said Phoebe. “I guess.”

“Ar-are you certain you don’t, umm, feed on your elderly?”

“Positive,” she nodded.

“That’s a relief. But strange…I—I must have it mixed up. I do that s-s-sometimes. B-because the axials are wise beyond measure and are n-n-never wrong. They’re the ones who, uh, showed me the Way.”

“What way is that?” Micah asked.

They crested the top of a hill, and a surge of warm wind blew over them, cooling the sweat on their bodies. The brasslands stretched as far as the eye could see, a golden ocean roiling in the breeze, crashing up against corkscrew spires. The solar ring had merged into a single blazing orb overhead, firing up the sky with swirling orange and crimson rivulets that reflected off the waving stalks in a dazzling inferno.

“The Way is h-harmony,” Dollop trilled.

As the three of them took in the majestic view, a shape rolled in the distance. It was nearly the same color as the reeds, a tumbling and bucking mass that flowed over the hills and dove out of sight.

Dollop spoke in a soft, reverent tone.

“O M-Makina, Divine Dynamo, Tender of the Forge. Thou art the Everseer, our Mother of Ore. We that seek to find our f-function in Thy infinite and infallible plan, shall through the Way become vital components in Your sacred machine.”

The ground vibrated, and the whirling shape reappeared, racing across the land like wildfire. Phoebe could see that it was not a singular form but a herd, a field of swerving wheels caught up in a frantic race, some unfolding and springing ahead like salmon in a swarming school. One of the wheels rolled away from the pack and unfurled, pausing to nibble at a brass reed. The creature stood waist-high, its curved body a streak of shiny gold with white vertical stripes. It had a narrow beaked head that twitched, quick and wary, and only two nimble legs, one each in front and back.

“As Th-Thy faithful creations,” Dollop continued, “we praise Thee and bes-s-seech Thee to help us, um-um, build interlocking unity in Your name, O Great Engineer, to create peace on Mehk and in the Shroud hereafter.”

The grazing creature turned its head. For a split second, it looked right at Phoebe, its pale eyes finding hers. Then the metal animal leaped forward like a gazelle, flipped in midair, and folded in on itself to form a wheel once again. It was quickly lost within the twirling, migrating herd.

“Th-that is known as the Bond of the Way,” Dollop said blissfully. “S-sounds even better in the original R-Rattletrap.”

Phoebe hadn’t breathed since her fleeting moment of eye contact with the creature. Chills rippled through her. A lump formed in her throat.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. Dollop nodded, content.

“No doubt,” said Micah.

She looked over at him. Surprisingly, even he was transfixed.

“Are you still mad at me?” she asked with softness in her voice, a vulnerability that took Micah aback. For once, she did not hide it. And for once, he did not mock her in return.

“I…” he started. “I’ll get over it.”

“Thanks.”

They watched the spinning herd race toward the horizon.

“I can’t get over this place,” he exclaimed, changing the subject. “Dollop, what’d you call it? Mehk? I can’t wait to tell everyone when we get back home. This is gonna blow people’s minds. Jacko’s gonna lay a two-ton brick!”

“No one’s going to believe us,” she said.

“Shoot, what I wouldn’t give for a FotoSnap. A couple pics is all it’d take to prove it. We’d be famous!”

Phoebe smiled. So did Dollop, a silly grin bending his face.

“The Way has made you hap-p-py again. You-you are interlocking.”

“Huh?” she said, taking a step away from Micah.

“No, we ain’t.”

“M-Makina is the mother of all, not just mehkans. E-e-even humans are a part of Her sacred machine, don’t you see? The gears of fate have engaged. W-we are like the fusion,” Dollop said as he pointed to the sun. “Connected. Like the Chok-k-karai,” he said, pointing toward the distant pipe-work forest. “Like the tr-trelligs.” He pointed excitedly at the departing herd of twirling creatures. “All c-c-connected!”

Phoebe couldn’t explain it, but somewhere deep inside she felt truth in his words. It seemed to make sense beyond any rational explanation. But the smirk on Micah’s face said that he felt otherwise.

“I-I’ve been following the Way my entire span, s-s-seeking my function, but I never found it. Until now!” Dollop was jubilant, hopping up and down, his loose parts separating and reconnecting with every bounce. “Sh-She led you to me. And now I know. Now I have a function. I’m a…I am…a…”

“A guide?” Phoebe offered helpfully.

“Yes! A guide! I—I am a guide!” He spun with joy.

“Speaking of which,” Micah said, “how much farther till the Citadel?”

“I have no idea!” Dollop sang.

Their eyes went wide as he twirled around and around.

“Wait. Dollop, what are you saying?”

“No clue where we are! We’ve been l-l-lost for clicks! Isn’t it magnificent!?”

The three of them hunkered down in the shade beneath a copse of corkscrew spires. They didn’t know what their next move was, but standing out in the unbearable heat was not an option. They were drained and drenched in sweat. The Honeygum in Phoebe’s mouth had long since gone stale, but she kept chewing it to stave off hunger pangs. She felt weak and achy all over, as if she were getting sick. Dollop’s ecstasy had been replaced by inconsolable sobs. He had been at it for minutes on end, maybe hours.

“I-I-I’m not a guide,” he blubbered. “N-n-not a guide…”

That was all he kept saying, over and over, and they could think of nothing to say in response. Micah was lobster-red from the heat, sullen and silent. He channeled his rage into shooing away sizzle bugs. She didn’t know what else to call them because Dollop was too unresponsive to share their real names. When the metal midges had first appeared, the kids tried to swat them. But instead of stinging, the mehkan pests seared them like tiny hot pokers. The sizzling sound they made on skin was foul, and the pain was even worse. All they could do was try and fan the torturous things away.

A guttural rumble shook them out of their stupor—a revving sound, an engine growling across the plains.

“Did you hear that?” she asked.

“Moto-bike,” Micah declared with a start. “Sounds like an old model Torrent. Maybe a Fireball GT.”

“Foundry. We gotta move.”

“N-no,” Dollop said, sniffling. “No Foundry. N-n-not out here. That’s a-a-a reticulated ulkett. Nasty things, ulketts.”

“No way,” said Micah. “That’s a Moto-bike. I’d know the sound anywhere. My old man used to fix ’em.”

“I—I don’t think so. It’s an ulk-kett. Th-these are their hunting grounds.”

Given their situation, Dollop’s confidence did little to settle Phoebe’s nerves. Surrounded by brass reeds that towered overhead, she couldn’t tell where the sound had come from and did not want to risk walking into an ambush. She looked up at the twisting growth they were using for shelter. The spire, made of layers of hardened brass reeds, didn’t look sturdy, but it would have to do. She shinnied up it, moving carefully to avoid slicing her skin on its many barbs. It screeched in complaint but held her weight as she climbed.

It was sweltering with the suns reflecting off the sea of brass. She shaded herself with Micah’s jacket and scanned their surroundings. Gold and more gold as far as she could see. In the sky, there were soaring mehkans like kites with fluttering tails. At first, she worried they might be predators, but they wound in far-off lazy patterns and showed no interest in the kids at all.

No Foundry vehicles in sight.

She was about to climb down to share the news when something caught her eye. It was faded by distance and distorted by the heat, but—could it be?

The angular top of a slanted mesa. She had seen the landmark before, from the back of the cargo truck the previous night, before they were captured by the chraida. The train tracks ran that way. That was the direction Goodwin had taken her father—it had to be! She raced back down the spire, stumbling as she landed. Micah jumped to his feet, ready to run.

“What is it?” he asked, shooing away the sizzle bugs.

“I found it!” she cried. “The train tracks are this way!”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, come on.” She motioned.

“Two points for Plumm!” He held up his hand to her, and she slapped it, beaming with pride.

“Yes. W-well done,” Dollop moaned. “Phoebe is, um, a much better guide than I ever was.”

“Aw, come on. Buck up,” Micah said.

Phoebe agreed, “Maybe directions aren’t your thing. You did your best.”

“Do you suppose, uh, perhaps, M-M-Makina might have a different function in mind for me?”

Micah shrugged. “Yeah, that!”

“M-maybe you’re right,” Dollop chimed. “Until I know what part I play in Makina’s inf-f-finite and infallible plan, my work is never done. The Way is quite cl-clear on this matter.” He hopped to his feet and wiped away his tears. “It-it’s all for the best, really, Phoebe being our new g-guide. B-b-because I think the ulketts are circling. Y-you do not want to meet an ulkett, believe me.”

The three companions set off in their new direction with Phoebe in the lead, their ears peeled for any sound of danger.

“Hey, maybe that’s your thing.” Micah nudged Dollop with a smirk. “You can teach us about all of the scary crud that wants to kill us.”

Dollop’s amber eyes lit up. “T-t-teacher,” he intoned.

“I’m pretty sure he doesn’t get sarcasm,” she whispered.

“Te-e-e-eacher. I-I’m a teacher. I t-teach!”

Dollop’s chatter took their minds off the trek. He was eager to tell them about the interconnected components of Makina’s sacred machine, as he called it. The excitable mehkan rattled on about how a certain creature (though he couldn’t recall its name) exuded an oozing varnish that preserved the flaking metal skin of others. And about the rhouth and the t’ulk—two species that were defenseless on their own, but together could create a powerful electric charge to ward off predators. Or was that their mating ritual? At one point, he had the kids tickle the scabby feelers of a roving plant, only to recall that it was an acidic ryzooze waiting for prey. When the thing nearly took off Phoebe’s hand, they all agreed that Dollop was not much of a teacher either.

Since Micah was the better climber, he occasionally scaled the coiling brass growths to ensure that they were still heading toward the mesas. It was hard going, but when the clustered suns at last separated back into a ring and began their descent, the heat became less brutal. Of course, Phoebe’s feet still felt like lead and her mouth like it was full of cotton balls, but she would take what relief she could get.

It was then that they saw the oasis.

The sunken glade stood out from the monotonous brasslands, distinguished by lush, fanning fronds with a waxy reddish hue. And twinkling between the leaves was the unmistakable ripple of water. Micah was off and running for it, and Phoebe was hot on his heels, her parched throat crying for relief. They crashed through the copper leaves with green patina blossoms and raced for the pond. The air had an astringent aroma, stinging their nostrils like fermented citrus. They splashed in knee-deep, reveling in the refreshing chill, and scooped handfuls of the liquid into their desperate mouths.

As soon as the greasy orange stuff hit her tongue, Phoebe wanted to throw up. Micah refused to accept that it was undrinkable, but after three attempts that left him retching, he gave up. It was like trying to chug gasoline.

“Water,” croaked Micah, nearly in tears. “I just want a drink of water!”

Dollop slurped a handful of the orange fluid. “N-n-no,” he corrected politely. “Tastes pretty much like v-v-vesper to me.” He dunked his head into the oasis and drank greedily.

But Phoebe wasn’t thinking about water, or even about the foul taste that coated her mouth. She was transfixed by the shapes that danced beneath the vesper surface and around her legs. At first, she thought they might be a hallucination, but when she rubbed her eyes, they were still there. She stared into the depths, feeling like her heart was being squeezed in a vise.

Dollop was right—everything was connected. But not quite in the way he meant.

How could she not have seen it before? How could she have been so blind? That uncanny, fleeting sense of déjà vu she had felt before now hardened to a stone in her gut that grew heavier by the second. Micah saw them too. He forgot his dehydration and stood beside her in somber silence. Slowly, she unstrapped the Trinka from her wrist.

Now she understood why Mehk was a secret.

Phoebe laid the Trinka in the shallows of the pond and watched the gliding forms gather around it. They were bulbous silvery creatures with four paddle-shaped tentacles that spun like propellers. A little red organ fluttered within them, pulsing softly with a warm glow.

They were identical to her Trinka.

But alive.

The swimming mehkans inspected the Foundry trifle as it sank into the vesper like a ceremonial offering. They wrapped their appendages around it, nudging the corrupted carcass as if attempting to bring it back to life.