I rest my chin on my bent knees, the back of my skull no longer throbbing, the cut along my throat already starting to heal and scab over. “How did you find me?” I ask at last, words thin aswinter ice, hardly even there. “How did you know where I was?”
Noah’s hands are warming over the small flames, firelight shivering up his exposed arms—along the tattoos I trace with my eyes, the brand that marks him as a traitor. He is handsome in this light, and I long to stroke my fingers along his flesh, to be back in the lake with his body so close to mine. Before everything changed. I’d drift forward into his arms, water receding between us, and I’d press my mouth to his. I’d wrap my fingers around his torso and up his shoulder blades; I’d let myself kiss him until the night sky became a blur of unnamable starlight. I’d say “sorry” for all the things that hadn’t yet happened. I wouldn’t let go.
But I can’t go back. And here we sit, beside a small campfire in a dark forest, with too much loss measured between us. And a look in his eyes like he’ll never stare at me again like he did at the lake. Like all of that is gone now. The pain too massive inside him.
“I heard you scream,” he says, still not looking at me. “I woke up, and you were gone from the campfire.” He lowers his hands from the flames, nods a little, remembering. “I traced your footprints around the lake—then Cricket and I found the men’s camp. We followed their tracks to Mill City.”
“But how’d you know I was in the schoolhouse?”
“We didn’t at first,” he answers softly. “We watched the town for two days, waiting, then saw that the schoolhouse was the only building with someone posted guard out front.”
He falls quiet, knowing how the story ends. How we ended up here. With Cricket choking on her own blood as we fled into the trees, looking back to see the first man reach her: He bent down to see if she was still alive, to check for a pulse, but her arm swungupward before he could even touch her—swift and quick—her broad hunting knife driving into his gut. He wailed like a child, and two more men approached, but her knife glinted in the air as she slashed their shins, their ribs, until at last, one of the men aimed a rifle, steadied it, and fired a single shot.
Cricket slumped back and went still.
It was a warrior’s end. A hero’s end. And now a thousand miles of distance rest between Noah and me, a loss that cannot be set right, settled in his eyes.
But he saved me, broke down the door of the schoolhouse and ripped Holt off me. He freed me from a room where I thought I’d die, Holt’s knife cutting me apart.
“Do you think Holt’s dead?” I ask.
“Maybe.” Tension winds tight around his shoulders. “If he’s not, he’ll keep coming for us. But if he is, then his men will come for us anyway. They’ll want retribution for his death.” His eyes dim. “It’s about honor now.”
The air stiffens in my lungs. They won’t ever stop hunting us. They’ll track us all the way to the sea. It’s not over.
Noah leans closer to the fire, poking at the coals with an elm stick, and sparks ignite upward, illuminating his face—a face that is marred by grief, a face I still want to touch. “What happened back there?” he asks, voice hollow, like an echo rising up from a deep, dark well. “With Holt. What did he say?”
I fold my arms around my knees, lowering my chin, the cold always there, never subsiding, even with the fire. “He asked about my tattoo.”
The whites of Noah’s eyes cut over to me.
“He wanted me to tell him how to read it, how to navigate by the stars.”
“Did you?”
I lift my chin from my knees. “No.” I remember the feel of the blade against my neck, the threat of it, the cold, sharp point nearly breaking my skin. “He said he was going to cut it out if I didn’t tell him.” I pull my lips in, hating the memory. Wanting to scrub it out, never think of it again. “But you came… before he could.”
Silence burns the air between us—he saved my life, but Cricket gave hers in return—until his eyes graze mine. “What happens when we reach the sea?”
The question feels dangerous, too many old stories woven together, too much to unravel. The truth hidden somewhere underneath it all. I remember when he said that August only ever told him thewayto the sea, nothing else. None of the reasons. None of the choices our ancestors made to lead us here. He said August didn’t want him to know everything—the burden was too great.
And now I do the same.
Picking around the truth, giving him only enough to calm the questions in his mind. But careful not to reveal the rest—the things that Mom said were meant only for me.
I find Tova and Llitha, hovering bright and clear well above the trees. “See those two stars?” I say, pointing up to the eastern sky. “They’re sister stars, caught in the same orbit.” Noah tilts his gaze but doesn’t speak. “For the last hundred years, they weren’t visible in our sky. They were too far away. But now—” The words feel vulnerable, and I’m afraid he will hear the crack of fear in my voice. “They’re finally near enough to see—our orbit and theirs have finallyswung on the same axis. It’s a rare event, and won’t happen again for another hundred years.” I dip my eyes back to the fire, a static pulse in my eardrums. “It’s why I left the valley,” I tell him. “Those two shimmering stars are the reason I came to find the Architect—findyou. And now we have to reach the sea before they move away, out of alignment.”
Noah breathes, and the sky expands. He breathes, and I feel unanchored in every deep exhale.
“How long do we have?” he asks.
“Not sure. I’ve lost track of the days. But—” I flash another look at the sister stars, trying to remember all the reasons why I’m here. The reasons why I need to keep going. “I’d say we only have a handful of days left.”
“And if we don’t get to the sea in time?”
My mouth falls, doubt nagging at my bones. “Then we wait another hundred years.”
He shoots me a look.
