“What? Oh what?”

“Animals! At least a few dozen … goats, maybe? And—that one over there has sheep! They look just like they do on the net!”

“Tell me about the people.”

She tore her focus away from the creatures that were lazing in what shade they could find and tried to pick out the people wandering the streets. Though it was moving into evening, what appeared to be the main road was still teeming with small open-air shops, vibrantly patterned fabric walls fluttering in the breeze. “There’s a lot of them. Mostly dressed in robes like we are, but there’s a lot more color.”

“And how big is the city?”

“Hundreds of buildings!”

Thorne smirked. “Try to temper that enthusiasm, city girl. I told everyone that we met in Los Angeles.”

“Right. Sorry. It’s just … we made it, Captain.”

His hand slipped down her leg, wrapping loosely around her ankle. “I’ll be glad to get off these sand dunes, but there will be a lot more things to trip over here than in the desert. Try not to go too far, all right?”

She stared down at his profile and recognized the strained look of concern in the tilt of his lips, the crease between his eyebrows. She hadn’t seen that look since they’d stumbled across the caravaners, and she’d thought he was growing more comfortable with his blindness. But maybe he’d only been trying to hide his weakness from the others.

“I wouldn’t leave you,” she said.

It was clear from the moment they rolled into town that the caravan was well-known and expected and late. The caravaners wasted no time in setting up a spot amid the shops and unloading their goods, while Cress tried to drink in the architecture and details and beauty that surrounded her. Though the city had appeared bleached and sandy from afar, up close she could pick out vibrant swatches of orange and pink decorating the sides of buildings, and cobalt-blue tiles lining doorways and steps. Almost every surface was bedecked in some decoration, from gold trim to intricately carved archways to an enormous fountain that stood in the middle of the main square. Cress peered into the burbling water as they passed, mesmerized by the starburst pattern laid out on the fountain’s base.

“What do you think?” asked Jina.

Cress beamed. “It’s breathtaking.”

Jina scanned the surrounding market stalls and building fronts as if she’d never really looked at them before. “This has always been one of my favorite stops along our route, but you would hardly recognize it from a couple decades ago. When I was first learning the trade, Kufra was one of the most beautiful cities in the Sahara … but then the plague struck. Nearly two-thirds of the population was annihilated in only a few years, and many more fled to other towns, or left Africa altogether. Homes and businesses were abandoned, crops left to burn beneath the sun. They’ve been trying to recover ever since.”

Cress blinked, and looked again, past the beautiful ornamentation and vibrantly painted walls, trying to see the town that Jina described, but she couldn’t. “It doesn’t seem abandoned.”

“Not here, on the main square. But if you head out to the northern or eastern neighborhoods, it’s practically a ghost town. Very sad.”

“It was very wealthy, then?” said Thorne, cocking his head. “Before the plague?”

“Oh, yes. Kufra was on many of the trade routes between the uranium mines in central Africa and the Mediterranean. One of Earth’s most valuable resources, and we nearly have a monopoly on it. Excepting Australia, but there’s plenty of demand to share.”

“Uranium,” Thorne said. “For nuclear power.”

“It also powers most of today’s spaceship engines.”

Thorne whistled, sounding impressed, though Cress thought he had probably already known that.

“Follow me,” said Jina. “There’s a hotel around the corner.”

Jina led them through the cramped maze of market stalls, passing everything from crates overflowing with dark sugar dates to tables lined with fresh goat cheeses to a med-droid clinic offering free blood scans.

Leaving the market lanes behind, they passed through a worn gate into a courtyard garden, filled with more palms and a tree with big yellow fruits hanging from its branches. Cress beamed when she recognized them and ached to tell Thorne about the lemons, but managed to smother her excitement.

They stepped into a small lobby, with an arched doorway that led into a dining area where some people were crowded around a table playing cards. The room smelled sweetly perfumed and heady, almost intoxicating.

Jina approached a girl who sat behind the desk and they spoke in their other language, before she turned back to them. “They’re going to keep your room on our tab. They have a small kitchen here—order whatever you need. I have work to do, but I will ask about some shoes for you when I have a chance.”

Cress thanked her repeatedly until Jina trotted off to complete her business.

“Room eight, upstairs,” said the clerk, handing Cress a small tag embedded with a sensor key. “And please do join us for our nightly Royals competition in the lobby restaurant to your left. The first three hands are complimentary to guests.”

Thorne cocked his head toward the dining area. “You don’t say.”

Cress eyed the players gathered around the table. “Do you want to go see?”

“No, not right now. Let’s find our room.”

On the second floor, Cress found the door marked with a black-painted 8. As she swiped the tag and opened the door, her attention landed first on a bed set against the wall, draped with cream-colored netting that hung from four tall posts. Pillows and blankets with gold embroidery and tassels were more elaborate by far than the linens she’d had on the satellite, and infinitely more inviting.

“Describe,” said Thorne, shutting the door behind them.

She gulped. “Um. Well. There’s … a bed.”

Thorne gasped. “What? This hotel room comes with a bed?”

She scowled. “I mean, there’s only one.”

“We are married, darling.” He wandered around the room until his cane struck the writing desk.

“That’s a little desk,” she said. “There’s a netscreen above it. And over here’s a window.” She pulled back the curtains. The angled sunlight cut across the floor. “We can see the whole main street from here.”

She heard a thud and spun around. Thorne had kicked off his shoes and collapsed spread-eagle on the mattress. She smiled, wanting little more than to crawl up beside him and rest her head on his shoulder and sleep for a long, long time.

But there was one thing she wanted even more.

Through the room’s only other door, she could make out a tiny porcelain sink and an old-fashioned claw-foot tub. “I’m going to take a bath.”

“Good idea. I’ll be right behind you.”

Her eyes widened, but Thorne was already laughing. He propped himself up on his elbows. “I mean,” he said, flicking his fingers through the air, “I’ll take one when you’re done.”

“Right,” she murmured, and slipped into the washroom.

Cress may not have ever been in an Earthen washroom before, but she knew enough to realize that this was not the top of latrine-technological advancement. The small overhead light functioned via an actual switch on the wall, rather than computer, and the sink faucet had two water-spotted handles for warm and cold. The shower was a giant metal disk positioned over the free-standing tub and a lot of the white porcelain had been damaged with time, revealing black cast iron underneath. A bar was hung with plush white towels, in far better shape than the towel Cress had used on the satellite.

She pulled her clothes off with more than one sigh of contentment. Her bottom layers clung to her with a layer of sweat and grime. The bandages on her feet were filled with sand and dried blood, but the blisters had been reduced to raw pinkish skin. She threw everything into a pile on the floor and turned on the water. It came on hard and cold. She got in as soon as she could stand it and found that it felt shockingly good against the sunburns on her face and legs.