Dad held Mom back from her next patient, and they whispered furiously between them. Another nurse rushed to take Mom’s patient, and it was just as she was bending over him, telling her android assistant where to apply some weird-looking gel to his reddened skin that the man blew himself up.

—Love, Grace

As Cindra helped Lexa pack the remaining trade supplies in the infirmary, the rest of us milled around in the main room. Pax and I stood off to one side. He seemed as relaxed as always, his black eyes impossible to read.

“Are you nervous?” I asked him.

“No. Why would I be?”

“Because we’re going to a town full of people. People not like us. People like those who tortured you and Cindra. Aren’t you even a little scared? Or do you know that nothing will happen to you?”

“Are you asking if I know what will happen? If I know whether your dad is alive?”

“Yes. No. Don’t tell me.” I twisted my hands together, reopening the cut on my thumb. “No, tell me.”

He smiled in that enigmatic way of his. “I can’t tell you.”

“What? Why? Is it bad? Does it need to happen? Is one of us going to die? Is it Oliver? I promise I won’t tell him.”

His mouth quirked. “I can’t tell you because I don’t know. Like I said before, it’s a crossroads. Like when we were with the Saints of Loving Grace.”

When they tried to burn us alive, you mean . “Oh.” Deflation turned to nerves that twisted my belly. “Then why aren’t you scared?”

“Because these aren’t the same people who tortured us. They have a home. They feel safe. They have food, and water, and medicine.” He gestured toward the open door of the infirmary. Lexa was reading a list aloud as Cindra checked boxes and called out numbers.

“What if they find out what we are?”

He shrugged. “Then the path will be decided for us.”

Tor stood near the outer door, brooding. He glanced at me, seemingly torn between anger and concern at how I must be feeling. His mother had died in Vancouver, killed in the first wave of bombings. He knew I’d never fully accepted that my father was dead, and that being faced with the possibility of finding out was both a dream come true and a nightmare. Several times, it appeared as though he was going to walk toward me, but each time, he stopped abruptly and turned away. Oliver watched him, amusement plain on his face.

Should I manipulate Tor’s body and give him all the satisfaction of smashing Oliver in the teeth without any of the culpability ? Maybe then he’d see that us being connected wasn’t such a bad thing. Not likely.

“Is everyone ready to go?” Lexa asked brightly, interrupting my reverie.

“Lexa, what if someone recognizes me? Or Cindra? From before?”

“Just keep your heads down and your hoods up. It’s been years since anyone’s seen you, and it’s unlikely you’ll be recognized out of context. Now, let’s go before it gets too late.”

***

The air outside the compound was cool, the sky as gray as ever. The entrance itself was obscured by a copse of sun-starved trees that refused to lie down and die.

I followed Cindra as we picked our way through on the twisting path, the silken length of her braid sliding over the top of her pack distracting me. Callum trailed behind me, his eyes darting back and forth. Lexa hadn’t wanted him to come with us, given his unpredictable behavior, but Cindra and I had promised to keep an eye on him. I smiled at him over my shoulder, and he grinned back. He’d rarely left the compound since he’d woken, on lockdown after what had happened to Ros and Adrian.

Tor stalked after us, his long strides erratic to keep pace with our shorter ones. Kalbir pursued him as closely as possible, describing the various delights of Goldnesse.

“I’ve been waiting to go for ages, ever since I woke up. Mil and Lexa have told me all about it. It’s supposed to be like a real town. There’s all different kinds of people. All survivors, of course. But in the five years since the war, well, four really, if you count the time it took for people to start gathering there. Anyway, they actually have an economy. Bartering, obviously. They’ve got hunters, people who scavenge, some guy who’s trying to grow stuff.”

Some guy who’s trying to grow stuff.

“Builders, teachers, a few engineers, cops…” she continued. “Lexa said there’s even a hairdresser. Not,” she said, wrapping a thick section of glossy black hair around her wrist, “that I would trust them to cut my hair.”

“How many people live there?” Tor asked.

“About three thousand, I think,” Lexa said from the front.

Three thousand. Before the war, there’d been more than ten times that number.

“They still get the odd person finding the town even after all these years. And I think they also trade with a small satellite group a few miles north, near a place called Tow.”

Cindra’s braid stopped sliding.

“I wonder why they chose Goldnesse to make their home?” Tor mused, mostly to himself, but Kalbir pounced on the opportunity to feed his curiosity.

“Well, there’s two lakes, and a massive dam that supplies their hydro-electric station. Every single building has electricity. Can you believe it? I bet the food will be amazing. I mean, it’s got to be better than the plastic crap we eat at the compound.” She shuddered. “Unless it’s like rabbits or that sort of thing.”

“If you’d been awake for the last five years rather than just a couple of months, you’d think rabbits tasted like ambrosia,” Lexa said dryly.

“Hares,” Tor said.

When we emerged from the thicket, I instantly recognized the surrounding landscape. The compound was hidden in the base of a small hill about a mile away from the road; I’d driven past it numerous times and never suspected it was anything more. It looked like hundreds of other hills in the area, covered with patches of crooked, wind-stunted trees, scrubby brush, and little dried cactus-balls you never saw before you found them clustered inside your pant legs, the long thorns embedded in your skin.

Very little had changed.

“It looks the same,” Cindra whispered to me.

“I was just thinking that,” I whispered back. “I guess it makes sense. It’s always been dry here. Now it’s just colder.”

“Motherfucker!”

Cindra shot her hand out and grabbed my arm.

Oliver hopped up and down on one foot, clutching at his ankle.

“Oliver! Don’t—” I was too late.

He scrabbled at his trouser leg, trying to pull it up. His next scream had a sharp edge of very real pain as the sliding fabric embedded the cacti spikes even deeper.

“Oliver, stand still.”

He ignored me.

“Oliver.” Cindra’s voice was quiet, and Oliver froze, not wanting to scare away this sudden attention. She knelt in front of him, putting her knee under his foot. Gently, she rolled up his pant leg, pulled it wide on the assaulted side, and deftly plucked the spiked plants free. Oliver reached out, his hand hovering over her hair before boldness overtook him, and he smoothed a lock between his fingers, tucking it behind her ear.

“Thanks.”

She smiled up at him.

Oh Cindra, seriously? I hope for all our sakes that Asche is still alive . Oliver didn’t deserve a happy ending.

Callum bent and picked up the discarded cactus, rolling it over thoughtfully in his fingers. As we all turned back to the road, he closed his fist around it, wincing at the sudden sting.

Umbra.

He saw me watching and shrugged.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yes. She’s just curious.” He said it low, so only I could hear. “Let’s keep walking before the others see.”

Cindra returned to walk beside me, stroking the lock of hair Oliver had touched.

“You know he’s an asshole, right?” I said.

“Maybe.” She smiled coyly. “Or maybe he’s—”

“Do not say that he’s misunderstood, Cindra. Please.”

She laughed, glancing up at Oliver’s back. “Okay, I won’t. But maybe he is.”

Was it my imagination, or was Oliver suddenly taller? Should I remind her what’s he’s done? About Celeste? The last time I’d seen Celeste—the young woman who’d worshiped Oliver with everything she’d had: her body, her loyalty, her innocence—she’d been lying on the ground, stunned, as he crushed her hand with his boot.

As though she could read my mind, Cindra laced her fingers with mine. “Let’s not talk about Oliver. One problem at a time.”

“Problem? I thought this was an adventure?”

As we left the desert hills and mounted the worn road, I felt it. Him. Whoever had been following Tor and me from the beginning of our journey was here, somewhere close.

“Hello?”

Images slid through my mind. Stepping out of a dark cave into the blinding sun. Thousands of brightly-colored balloons floating in an azure sky. A name carved in the sand. Fane.

I’d never met Fane, but he’d followed us since the beginning. And while I’d been inside him, I knew little about him other than that he was some kind of cyborg and part of a group of Cosmists, those who believed artilects——sentient, synthetic beings—were our only future. My communication with him was different than with the others, snippets of images amid the odd coherent vision. And, unlike the others, he could connect with my mind. He’d helped us escape the Saints, joining his strength with mine to generate the sonic pulse.

“Ailith? Are you all right?” Cindra peered at me as though into a darkened room, searching.

“I’m fine. I—” How do I explain? Tor and I hadn’t told anyone about the specter shadowing us. “I’m just a bit disoriented, that’s all. Must be from the fresh air after being in the compound the last few days.”

“Well, get ready, because I think we’re almost there.”