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“Don’t let it get in the way, okay?” she says.
She holds up her algae bulb and keeps walking.
All I can do is follow.
??
The corridors wind deep into the planet, until my ears pop with the pressure. We leave a trail of glow sticks behind us in the hope that we could find our way if we got lost. I’m just starting to doubt myself when we find running water—the canal I saw in my vision.
Squadrons of soldiers around a single node, running water in a circle around it. A single figure bound in vines, as if they’re interfacing with a zephtan…
I blink my eyes and gesture at the canal.
“This is it,” I say. “It has to be.”
“I don’t see any sign of other people,” Frankie says. “Do you suggest we swim…?”
I frown and walk toward the canal, a stone pillar suddenly spiraling out of the floor in front of us. Frankie jumps back, then moves forward to investigate, her head cocked.
“Did you do that?”
“No,” I say. “It just…happened. I don’t know how.”
She wanders closer, her steps halting. I glance over at her as I reach my hand toward it, my fingers curling.
“I don’t know if you should touch it,” she says. “It might make us fuck.”
I raise a brow. “Would that be so bad?”
“I would expect you of all people to want to stay on task,” she scoffs. “But go ahead—touch the mysterious artifact, see if it makes youhoar-knee.”
“What is—”
Frankie raises her hands. “When this is all over, I’ll make you a list,” she says. “But I guess…touch the mystery pillar and we can find out of it’s going to help or if it’s just going to force us to have sex.”
I drag my eyes from her to the stone, then reach out my fingers. It flickers like the wall did earlier, dragging me in like it has some kind of internal gravity…then I place my palm against it.
No visions this time, thank the ancestors. But the water in front of us begins to bubble, and then something emerges from the pale blue water.
A sphere—much like the ones that take people through the canals in Saga.
I exchange a look with Frankie, then we both stare at the sphere. She opens her mouth, chewing on her lip, then puts her hands on her hips.
“Are we going to get in the glass ball and pretend everything is fine?” she asks.
I meet her eyes. “I don’t think we have any other choice,” I say.
She exhales through her nose, then shakes her head.
“Fine,” she says. “But you have to go first.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
??
TARAVEN
I’m home.
