The soldier shotain Darian a gold bracelet adorned with garones.

  “That’s Liz’s alright,” the captain says.

  “Where did you find it?” Quell asks. He reaches out, but Darian takes the bracelet first.

  “I’ll let you know what we find,” she tells him, nodding to her soldier to lead the way. “Go grab Ear, the back.”

  Before Quell has a ce to object, the captain leaves with the guard. Quell’s face falls, and he and I are left alone.

  “I’m sure she’ll be fine,” I say, awkwardly attempting to fort him. “Darian seems capable.”

  “Oh, she is,” Quell agrees, gng away from where the captain had headed off. “Probably the best oo find Liz. But I ’t just do nothing while my sister is out there, you uand?”

  “Yes, it would be frustrating to be kept fr to find your sibling,” I say dryly.

  Quell looks at me in surprise. It’s a look he’s given me a couple times now. Like he’s just realized—or been reminded—I’m my own plex person with my own wants and needs, and not just a background character to his life.

  “You mentioned your brother yesterday.”

  My throat tightens. “Yeah.”

  Quell hesitates. “Is he, ah, in a simir situation as you?”

  “I don’t know,” I admit. “I think he’s here, somewhere on this world. He was there when we ended up in that dark pce, after we… Well, before we woke up here. Some kind of void. So I figure, if I ended up here, and someone like Hans did, then my brother’s probably somewhere out there, too.”

  Quell frowns. “A dark pce… a void before you ended up here… Between, maybe?”

  I shrug. “It was between our worlds, yeah.”

  “No, I mean, The Between,” Quell says. His eyes light up at the opportunity to expin. “It’s another dimension and source of arum. Like how the Lull is a dimension which be accessed as a source of Life arum. The Between tains Null magic. Sort of the opposite of Life, in some respects. Not in that it represents Death, but more of… the absence of life. A void. The current magical theory is that souls pass through the Between before tinuing to the afterlife. Though, I’m not sure how you would have ended up there in the first pce. Truly a fasating drum!”

  My stomach turns at his expnation. “You said it’s where souls go before they reach the afterlife.”

  “Yes, but that would mean you…” The pyful curiosity in Quell’s eyes snuff out, and his face falls. “Ah. Right. I—I fot that you had mentiohat. I’m sorry.”

  I shrug, brushing off his words and fighting down the swell of emotions that threaten to rise within me. “It is what it is, I guess. But what does any of that have to do with how we ended up here? Is this where everyone goes when they die?” The thought makes me pause. “Is this purgatory?”

  Quell still looks ed, but is clearly too unfortable to pry—or perhaps he’s just more ied in unraveling the mystery. “I’m not sure what that is,” he says. “But no, people don’t typically e back after death. Even neancy is just using the echoes of life to animate a corpse—at best, it cage a soul, preventing it from passing. But dying on another world, entering the Between, and ing here… Well, I suppose it’s not impossible. It stands to reason that if a soul ehe Between, it also leave it. And null arum is also associated with certain spatial attributes and summoning ara, so maybe that was involved with transp you here, somehow. Or perhaps if a mage was tapping into the Between just as you e, you’d have a path out. The timing would have to be impeccable, though.”

  I frown, trying to recall what this Between pce had felt like. What all I had experienced.

  “I think I heard voices,” I say. “Someone eaking, but they seemed a long way off. And besides my brother and I and the other souls, there was this other entity—this sense of malice. I don’t know how else to describe it. I felt trapped. There was a fight going on, I think.” I look at Quell iion.

  He helplessly holds up his hands. “I have no idea what any of that could mean. How many other souls were there with you?”

  “Not sure,” I admit. The memories are so abstract, it’s hard to make sense of them. “A lot. More than a dozen, at least.”

  “Iing.” Quell scratches at his . A fine fuzz of stubble has started to shade his jaw. “So there could be many other people out there like you. I wonder what happeo cause this event? This aberra,” he says, dropping his voice as he repeats Zeyaelid’s words.

  “The gods must know what happened,” I realize. Even trying to my mind around the cept of fn gods—physical beings which walk this earth—is bizarre and unfortable to me. It tradicts everything I’d grown up believing. Are these really Gods, or only in name? People like Zeyaelid seem too mortal, too small and knowable to be anything like an all-powerful Creator of the universe. And that’s it, right? These gods ’t be all-knowing, or they would have known about me.

  Somehow, I find that f.

  “You’re right,” Quell says. “What was it she said? She was taking him into the custody of the pantheon.”

  “And she asked for our discretion,” I add. “She didn’t want us to know they’re snatg up people like me. And she didn’t want us to go telling anyone else. Why?”

  “The gods always have their reasons,” Quell says, but the words sound rote, and even he doesn’t appear certain.

  I stare at him for a momely how loyal is he to these gods? He didn’t speak up when Zeyaelid was there, but we’d all been a bit caught off guard. “Will you be handing me over at some point, then?”

  “What?” Quell says. “No! I mean, I would never do anything to defy the gods’ will. But she only said to be discreet, right? She didn’t say we had to turn over any others we found.”

  I ’t help but ugh. That sounds like a loophole he’s spent the st day puzzling out. “So why are you c for me?”

  “Well, I don’t know,” he says, a little flustered. “It seems like the right thing to do, since you didn’t want to go with. And also, we don’t he gods to figure out what happeo you,” he says, an edge of vi entering his words. “I’m sure we learn more about yi our own.”

  Ah, there it is. The real reason he’s relut to hand me over: It would be a missed opportunity to learn about a strange, possibly undiscovered field of magic. He’s as hungry for knowledge as his brother is fht. In a way, they’re both keeping me around for the same reason. Not the best reason, but ohat I use to my advantage for now. As long as I have something they want, at least I won’t have to worry about either of them outio the gods.

  I’m given some tough jerky to chew on around midnight, which I realize was lunch when I get nothing else. I catch glimpses of Darian occasionally, hurrying about, talking to stance, and gathering packs of supplies. She prepares one of the star drakes for travel, moving most of its tents to other beasts of burden. Looks like she’ll be traveling light.

  After a time, she and two of her guards, the araoid Xamireb and the human Ear, approach Quell once more.

  “We’ll be leaving in pursuit of the princess now,” Darian informs him. “I promise I’ll send word as soon as she’s safe within our pany once more.”

  “Be careful, Captain.” Quell csps her arm. “Godspeed.”

  Quell is taking this suspiciously well, given his previous objes. I watch him with narrowed eyes, but he doesn’t notice, instead keeping his attention on Darian as she and her guards speak with stance more, therieve their star drake a. It doesn’t take long for them to vanish in the dunes.

  Only a few more hours pass before stance calls for the army to stop for the night, and we begin to set up camp once more. The tents go up quickly, and the fire pits and boear as if by magic—actually they probably do. Quell is quiet and fidgety, but scarfs down a quick meal areats to his tent as the first streaks of dawn begin brightening the sky. My feet are sore from walking all day, so I’m more than happy to eat a meal of watery meat soup aire as well. This is going to be a long march.

  The ghostly touch of a hand on my shoulder wakes me. I sit up with a jolt, heart lurg in surprise as I grab the wrist and twist it around.

  “Ow!” Quell jerks forward. “Hey! It’s just me.”

  He’s whispering. I let go of his hand and squint around the tent for an indication of the time. It’s dark inside, but I’d noticed the cloth’s unnatural ability to block out the sunlight the night before when I’d fallen asleep. Probably magic. Everything seems to be magic around here.

  “What is it?” I ask, also keeping my voice low. “What’s going on?”

  “Follow me,” he says. “Grab your things. Move quietly.”

  I quickly pull the st piey armor on. “Is it an attack?”

  Quell ducks out the tent, and bright, white light nces in. I hiss, squeezing my eyes shut as they sting and water. Blinking the tears away, I squint against the painful light and follow Quell out.

  The heat hits me like a physical force. It’s like I’ve stuck my head in an oven. My skin burns and prickles, and no matter where I look—sand or sky—it’s impossibly bright. The sun shimmers overhead.

  Quell takes my wrist and leads me around the back of a roation my tent itched against. I stumble over the uneven ground, hiding my eyes in my arm. It’s unnaturally bright. And the sun is insufferable—I bet I’d bake alive out here after only an hour. No wohey only move at night.

  “Here.” Quell presses something into my hands. “Put them on, they’ll help.”

  I fumble with the object for a moment before I realize it’s a pair of goggles. Slipping them onto my head, the world dims, and I immediately feel relief. I blink, finally able to take in our surroundings. The camp is still and quiet.

  “Quell,” I say, my stomach sinking in anticipation. “What are we doing out here?”

  “We’re following Captain Darian,” he says.

  I try to run a hand down my face, but the goggles get in the way. “No. She and your brother already said that wasn’t a good idea. Besides, she’s got to be hours away from us at this point.”

  “Six hours,” Quell agrees. “But don’t worry, I snuck a tracker into her cloak so we find her.”

  “You what?”

  “Well I’m not just going to wander aimless around the desert trying to track her down, am I?” he says.

  I shake my head. “This is a terrible idea. What do you think you do, anyway? You’ll just slow her down.”

  He presses his mouth into a thiermined line. “She’s my sister. You wouldn’t do the same for your brother?”

  Guilt twists in me like a knife, quickly followed by a him using my brainst me. “Watch it,” I growl.

  Quell doesn’t appear ashamed in the least. “But you would, wouldn’t you?”

  I would have if Prince Charming here hadn’t dragged me away. “It doesn’t matter what I would or wouldn’t do. The camp’s going to wake up in a few hours, notice yone, and track you down.”

  “By then we’ll be hours away,” Quell says.

  “Not unless I wake them up now,” I ter. “Just one yell is all it would take.”

  His expressioeely, and for a moment he looks just like his brother. “You could try, but I wouldn’t reend it.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “Is that a threat?” What exactly does he think he do to stop me?

  He holds the look for another few seds. I don’t know if you’ve ever stared at ahout saying anything for several seds, but it feels a lot lohan it sounds. Then, he gnces away, defting.

  “Look, I’m going to go whether you e or not,” Quell says. “I only told you because it seemed cruel to leave without saying anything, what with your curse. But I’m not going to let anything stop me from making sure Liz gets home safe.”

  I bite back a groan. If I yelled to wake up the camp, and he ran, what would happen? Would he do something reckless? Get himself into danger in his attempt to flee? And what would happen if he did mao get away, and then got into trouble somewhere too far for me to reach?

  He’s damn stubborn about this. More than I would have given him credit for. Part of me wants to throttle him, and part of me kind of respects him for it.

  “Dammit,” I hiss. “Alright. What’s your pn?”