Zach turned as a voice echoed faintly from across the room. Noah had gone back to the curtain, still mumbling on about the surprising show of strength they’d just witnessed.

  Almost instinctually, Zach got up following the voice all the way to the stone disk he’d inspected earlier. He couldn’t make out any words, it sounded like a foreign language. He slowly picked it up, wondering at the oddity.

  Upon closer inspection, he could see that silver had been worked into the sides of each of the concentric grooves on the disk, so fine and so thin he’d missed it the first time.

  “What is this?” he asked, unable to help himself.

  The voice was low, almost conspiratorial. Was there more than one?

  “Part of our research,” Noah answered, his voice guarded.

  A woman started crying, her sobs raw and racking. The silver pressed inside the groove started deepening, its hue pulling him in, blurring his senses away from his immediate surroundings. She was crying so much, she struggled to get a breath in.

  “What is this?” he whispered, instinctively trying to give the woman some privacy.

  “I just told you, it’s part of our research,” Noah said, fixing his attention on the street below.

  The sound of Noah’s voice anchored him back to the apartment. He looked up from the disk, glancing at Noah’s back. The cries were still there, but it was more muted now. As if the woman had covered her mouth.

  But there was more surrounding her. He could hear it.

  A fire crackling away. The low drone of a large group, all engaged in their own conversations. It wasn’t long before the crying started again. There was something else, too. The sound of water. Were those waves? He could hear the ocean?

  “Hopefully, he comes early tonight,” Noah said, turning away from the window to face him. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I heard a woman crying,” Zach answered slowly. “I still hear her. There are people there.”

  Was it a memory of Oliver’s bleeding back into his mind? Was it his own memory? Or was this something else, something happening right now?

  Noah stared at him, his eyes narrowing slightly as he looked down at the disk in Zach’s hands, then back up. His eyes widened in shock as he hurried over.

  “You actually hear something?” he asked.

  As if to answer Noah’s question, the woman’s son picked up again, but this time, there was someone else there, whispering softly to her, trying to console her, if Zach understood the dynamic correctly.

  “There’s a woman crying, someone’s with her now, but she’s not stopping.” He closed his eyes, trying to focus on everything he could hear. “It sounds like there’s a group with her, I can hear them in the background.”

  “A group?” Noah frowned. “Why would there be a group? Could she…”

  He shook his head, rushing over to open one of the windows. He hurried back and took Zach by the shoulder.

  He made that gesture he usually did when Stepping, his hand mimicking the shape of a gun, and without any warning, cocked his thumb, and launched them through the air. They’d done this four times already, but it was still a nauseating sensation, watching as the camp lurched by in the corner of his vision.

  They arrived at a brick wall that stood higher than them and about twice their height.

  “I need to start Stepping with weights,” Noah muttered to himself, frowning up at the sky.

  Behind them, the farm’s endless land stretched on, but before Zach could really take it in, Noah’s hand fell on his shoulder again, and they were off.

  It was even more of a lurch as he seemed to angle them up over the wall, then immediately straight on. His head whipped back at the swift and sudden change in angles.

  He stumbled, his vision swimming, when they finally landed again. Before he could get control of himself, Noah’s hand landed on his shoulder, and they shot through the air once more.

  The instant his feet found solid ground, he pushed Noah away, shutting his eyes against the wave of pain and nausea that enveloped him.

  It felt like someone had stabbed hot iron rods deep into his ears, rupturing his eardrums and incinerating every nerve that connected to them. He couldn’t stop himself from crying as he focused on the webs moving glacially over the wounds.

  When he infused it with his vitality, it quickly stitched the skin, tissue, and membranes of his ruptured drums. When he straightened and wiped off the clear fluid leaking from his ear, only echoes of the pain remained.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked, angrily rounding on Noah.

  Offering no answer, no explanation, Noah grabbed his shoulder again and Stepped. It took every shred of concentration Zach had to keep the webs in place, to keep his eardrums from bursting as soon as the smallest crack appeared.

  They Stepped well past the surrounding area of the camp until Zach was sure it was even farther than they’d gone that night. Until they arrived at the foot of a mountain range, the jagged spire-shaped mountain peaks stretching far overhead.

  But even here, Noah didn’t stop. They went from point to point, quickly getting higher and higher. Until they reached a small plateau, the area smaller than the parking lot back at the Store, and surrounded with thick and sharp angles of rock that looked unnatural to his foreign eyes.

  There was a woman sitting just up ahead, leaning against one of the sharp, jutting outcrops. They hadn’t arrived close enough to hurt her, but she sat crying, clinging to small glass vials. Noah stumbled over as if in a daze, their Stepping finally over.

  The woman finally noticed them, their footfalls echoing to her. Her eyes widened in fear as she pushed back against the wall, her feet trying their very best to dig into the hard ground of the mountain.

  She said something Zach couldn’t understand or repeat. Noah had stumbled to a stop halfway across from her, slowly shaking his head as he fell to his knees, his head lowered.

  Beyond the woman, someone came walking up from the only path that led to the eastern side of the mountain, a wide break between the stone juttings. The man ran over to the woman’s side when he finally spotted them, standing protectively over her, a sharp wooden board in his hands.

  “Noah,” Zach said slowly, trying not to startle the strangers.

  “You... you speak... glish,” the man said, his arms shaking uncontrollably.

  Now that Zach was actually looking at them, he couldn’t help but stare. They were both emaciated and dangerously thin. Wait. Did they say glish? As in English? A product of Cardinel and the others? But didn’t the Tettralians have another name for it?

  “Your accent,” Noah said, his voice sounding like he’d just come out of a trance. “You’re from Erosa.”

  The man gave a fearful nod, glancing back at the woman behind him. They spoke in a strong and harsh dialect so fast they might’ve just been making guttural sounds.

  “What are you doing here?” Noah asked, looking around. “In the mountains?”

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  “Eh... boat... crash… by there.” The man pointed just over the eastern edge of the mountain.

  It was at that point Zach noticed the murmurs. He shared a look with Noah before they walked over to the edge and looked down on what was at least a hundred people. People from different parts of Erosa, scattered across the mountainside.

  Farther below, the wooden remains of a ship, a large ship, lay strewn about with what had clearly been sails— many of them had been cut up and used as a pitiful form of cover against the elements.

  There was a stink to the place, fecal matter, and the smell of unwashed bodies. This was exactly what he’d thought to find in an apocalyptic world that didn’t have the organization of the Emerys keeping it together.

  “There are… more.. of you?” the man asked from behind.

  Zach looked back and forth from the man to the others below. These people hadn’t eaten in days. If not weeks. Something uncomfortable bloomed at the back of his mind. Noah interrupted his thoughts.

  “When did you get here?” Noah asked, pragmatism clearly the only thing on his mind. Whatever emotions had slipped through a few seconds before, they were long gone.

  “They won’t do nothing,” the man said. “No threat. Please… just help,” he finished, gesturing at those looking up from where they sat.

  Zach tried to keep his face as passive as Noah’s—or maybe it was curiosity lining his features—but it was a struggle. The desperation in the man’s voice scratched at his mind, trying to unearth whatever feeling or memory stirred at their suffering. The look in their eyes only made it worse.

  A mark of the cruelty the world could bring. It was deeper on the woman. Much deeper.

  If Noah noticed the same thing, he didn’t let on.

  “When did you come here? And why?”

  “Boat crashed. All of us... put on boat… from Sailea...” The man scowled, trying to find the right words, but for now, they seemed out of his reach. “Boat crashed,” he finally repeated, pointing down at the distant beach.

  Zach looked back at the sea, and his jaw dropped open. Oliver’s mind had made it seem normal, but the sea was purple! A deep purple that shimmered under the last light of the sun like liquid in a glass.

  A purple sea!

  The others had finally taken note of them. As sail canvases were removed, Zach’s heart ached when children stuck their heads out of their scant cover. To see the defeated look on such young faces was even worse. He felt weak, wincing at the slight burning in his mind.

  He couldn’t look at them. Not as they stared up at him as though he were a god on earth, the physical embodiment of hope.

  Noah finally took note of all the eyes and the pain that were clearly sitting behind them. Even so, his tone was steady. “We’re traveling, just like you. We’re alone.”

  Zach looked at him sharply. He couldn’t fight the burning in his mind, the burning that drove him to at least offer help.

  “We come from a camp,” he said, eyeing the man and woman behind him, eyeing the children. “But it’s very far.”

  “What are you doing?” Noah demanded softly.

  “If you can make it, we have food there.”

  “Stop talking,” Noah said.

  Stop talking? How could Noah look at their faces, at their bodies, and tell him to stop talking?

  Someone from below shouted up to the man. They were speaking in that strange language again. But Zach knew from the way their fearful eyes kept darting his way that they were discussing him and Noah.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Noah asked again.

  “Look at them,” Zach said. “They’re starved. Look how thin the children are. That doesn’t bother you?”

  “You think there’s enough food at the camp for all of them?” he asked so calmly.

  A part of him knew Noah was right, but whatever was drawing closer to the surface in his mind threatened to end him if he didn’t at least try.

  “I remember from Oliver’s memory that the camp harvests more than we actually eat. There’s more than enough. And they wouldn’t have to move in. It’s just until they can go on by themselves. Besides, you brought us here.”

  Noah sighed out through his nose.

  “The things you were hearing, that woman’s cries,” Noah said, stepping closer and indicating the disk Zach somehow still carried. “This is a ward we’ve been using. That specific one connects to this mountain range. The silver’s linked to a point where she was sitting.”

  Zach buried his anger and looked down at the disk.

  “Last time you Stepped us close to the mountains, you didn’t need all those stops,” Zach said, glancing at the smokeless fire as the woman drifted past it and over to the man.

  Noah frowned.

  “Last time, I had the extra weight. I thought Stepping didn’t affect you.”

  “I just have to be conscious about using it now.”

  The mountain had gone quiet once more. Zach and Noah looked back and found all of them staring at them again, a certain hesitant light entering their eyes.

  “Your... camp... have food?” the man asked. “And… shelter?”

  Zach studied him this time. He’d had it wrong. The longer Zach looked at him, the more he thought the stranger might be his age, two or three years older at most.

  “We have food,” Zach said with a nod. “And shelter.”

  The stranger turned back to the group covering the mountainside, saying something in their language, though Zach noticed many of them didn’t understand the language either. Those who understood leaned in to translate.

  “This will never work,” Noah whispered low beside him. “Look at them, they won’t even make it to the camp. They’re weak, they haven’t eaten in days.”

  “You could Step them there,” Zach suggested.

  “No,” he said immediately. “These people come straight from Erosa. How do you think they’d react if they witnessed something like that? We’re better off just forgetting about them.”

  “We. Can’t.” Zach said firmly.

  “Why not? You don’t know them. You don’t know any of them.”

  “They... agree,” the stranger said. “Can... can I talk with you?”

  He nodded his head off to the side, closer to where Zach and Noah had walked in from. The woman walked ahead, wiping her sniffling nose. At a quick glance, a few of the others watched with narrowed eyes as they walked away.

  “Were you running away from the demons?” Noah asked the minute they were far enough from the others.

  The man looked at the woman and gave her an encouraging nod. She sighed, the hollowness in her eyes retreating just a fraction as she did her best to focus on the conversation. She held herself up, clutching the empty vials to her chest.

  “We were at sea for months before we knew where we were going,” the woman said, her accent coloring each word, but not making it intelligible. “I think we were at sea for at least a year.”

  “A year?” Zach said in shock.

  “We stopped now and then—the ship did, we weren’t allowed to get off. It was a difficult journey. A cruel journey.”

  Her hands tightened around the vials. Her tone was tired, listless, as if there were no longer any purpose to anything.

  “I noticed you’re not all from the same country?” Noah said.

  Of course, he’d also noticed their translating.

  “No, we’re not. A year ago, we were brought to shelters in Sailea to hide against the demons and the new war.”

  “New war?” Noah asked in shock. “There’s another war in Erosa.”

  “There’s a war everywhere,” the woman replied, a hint of bitterness entering her voice. “You think something as simple as death would bring an end to it?”

  “From shelter to boat,” the boy added.

  He looked at the woman, willing her to go on, but she couldn’t. Those tears had lined her eyes once more, and her lips quivered. The boy looked resigned, carrying on where she’d left off.

  “Because of shelters, they… scared,” he pointed back to the edge. “They think... your camp... kill them.”

  “They will help you,” Zach said. I’ll force them to help you.

  The woman laughed softly and weakly, shaking her head as she looked up at the sky. “Sure they will,” she said, her voice as raw as a wound. “Because people are so helpful. They’ll chase us out if they don’t kill us first.”

  “They will help you,” Zach repeated. “I promise.”

  His heart echoed painfully as those two words repeated in his mind, over and over. He felt lightheaded, his vision swimming as the words and the feeling they evoked washed over him.

  I promise. I promise. I promise.

  “If not...” the boy continued. “Please... the children.”

  That seemed to bring the woman back into the conversation.

  “When we shipwrecked here, a few of us found the food that washed to shore. We protected it before the crash. It’s not a lot, but we’ve been saving it, sneaking it to the children. They’re still hungry, but we can at least try to get them to your camp.”

  Zach looked at Noah, who sighed softly as he dug in his back pocket.

  “I assume there’s someone here who can follow a map,” he said, pulling out a folded sheet. Of course, he carried a map with him.

  I promise...

  His vision started swimming again, the promise stabbing his senses like a weapon. Before he knew it, tears were falling down his face, a searing pain in his throat ss the emotions rose in him.

  I promise I’ll get her.

  He knew they were his words, echoing out from his memory. He could feel the passion behind those words, but everything else was a blur. Who he’d said it to, who he’d meant, why he’d wanted to kill someone—actually kill someone.

  “What’s wrong?” Noah asked.

  “Nothing,” he said immediately. “We should head back and warn them.”

  As distracted as his mind was, the woman’s face still called to him. The familiarity of that hopelessness. He wondered what they’d had to endure for such levels of despair to darken her face like that.