Buff seems to recognize my discomfort. “Don’t worry, you’ll do just fine,” he says.

“Whaddya mean, I’ll do just fine? You’re in this as much as I am.”

Buff’s chuckle is his response. He knows when the time comes, I’ll do the talking.

I’m tempted to start the meeting without the last Black District member, but just as I’m mustering the courage to stand, the door swings open and a wiry form fills the entrance. When the man steps into the lantern light, I gasp, my breath sticking in my lungs.

I want to laugh or cry or shout or all three, but I can’t do anything as I’m still holding my breath, because…

…because the last Black District rep is Abe, my old friend, as responsible for me being alive as anyone else on this planet. And behind him, filling the entirety of the doorway, is his brother, Hightower, as big and tough as a Yag, but with a heart as bright and shiny as the bags of gold that the two of them stole from the palace when the whole world was being sliced to ribbons by a million swords.

“Hey, Dazzy,” Abe says. “I heard you’ve got somethin’ big to tell the consortium.”

Chapter Seven

Adele

There are fierce red marks where my metal belt dug into my belly and hips. The gashes sting like hell, but I’ll take them any day compared to having razor-sharp teeth embedded in my skin. My belt probably saved my life. Well, that and Skye, who threw her own life to the winds of fate and attacked the Killer just before it mauled me to death.

She saved my life. Why? The question zips around my head, but I can’t seem to latch onto it to really focus.

Killers. A strangely appropriate name for the enormous beasts that attacked us. Their carcasses lie nearby, dark shadows on the sand. More than once Siena has had to shoot her arrows at the Cotees who’ve been skulking close by, drawn by the scent of blood and hoping for an easy and satisfying meal. Cotees and Killers: I’m thinking about them like they’re normal things that people think about, when really they’re as foreign as the sparkling—actually sparkling—stars filling the clear, dark night sky, their beauty dwarfed only by the unbelievably surreal moon looking down like a pale fluorescent eye.

I sit back to back with Tristan, who’s got nasty claw marks bleeding down his naked chest, his shredded shirt being torn into strips by Wilde, who’s tending to his wounds. Miraculously, she’s mostly unscathed, having only had the wind knocked out of her before Tristan saved her from the Killer.

Siena’s working on her sister, who took a pair of nasty claw scrapes, one to her cheek and the other to her shoulder.

“We got lucky. Searin’ lucky,” Siena says.

“I don’t believe in luck,” I say, not unkindly.

“Neither do I,” Skye says, and then, as if realizing she’s just agreed with me, clamps her mouth shut and focuses back on her shoulder, which Siena has just wrapped tightly with some kind of animal skin.

“Thank you,” I say to Skye. “You saved my life.”

She mumbles something I can’t make out. “What was that?” I say.

Siena grins. “She said ‘Thank you’ back. Don’t make her say it again, she might not survive it.”

I can’t help but to grin back. What the hell am I doing? Where the hell are we? It’s like Tristan and I are trapped in this strange world of burning suns and fierce sword-swinging, arrow-shooting women, fighting for our lives against creatures that see us only as their dinner.

“Welcome to fire country,” Siena says, dabbing at the blood on Skye’s cheek.

“What is fire country?” Tristan asks dumbly, stealing the question right off my lips.

Skye laughs. “As if you don’t know.” She says it like she doesn’t believe us, but there’s less certainty in her voice than before.

“It’s everything around you,” Wilde says. “Fire country extends to the great forests in the east, to the cliffs and the waters in the south—where the Killers live in packs—and to the north, to the edge of ice country.”

“What’s ice country?” I ask.

“Where the Icers live,” Siena says, as if that answers everything. “Like my sister’s boyfriend, Dazz.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Skye says, cringing when her sister dabs her scrape too hard.

“Lover then,” Siena says, hiding a smile. I smirk at their banter—the same banter that gave me the opportunity to escape the first time. Now escaping’s the last thing on my mind. Not when there could be more Killers—or worse—roaming the desert. Not when there are oceans of sand surrounding us, as far as the eye can see, and I don’t have the slightest clue what direction we came from.

“And to the west?” Tristan says.

“What about the west?” Siena says.

“Wilde told us how far fire country goes in every direction but the west.”

“Anyone who’s gone west has never returned,” Wilde says. “As far as we can tell, fire country goes on forever to the west.”

~~~

Evidently, we’re going to march straight on through the night. They don’t bind our hands this time. Or blindfold us. Skye starts to object, but Wilde silences her with a hand. “We’re beyond all that,” she says.

Skye looks like she wants to say something, but bites her lip instead. Her message is delivered when she points the tip of her blade in my direction. If I try to run, she’ll kill me.

I guess saving each other’s lives didn’t change anything. It just goes to show that enemies can be temporary friends in a life or death situation. Then everything goes back to normal.

Siena, however, seems to have softened somewhat. She walks easily next to me, swinging her arms, her bow bouncing against her back. I cast a final glance back at the shadowy forms of the dead Killers, just to make sure they’re still dead.

Wilde leads; Skye watches from behind.

Tristan falls in beside me. “You okay?” I say.

He gives me a wry grin. “Yeah, you?”

“Never been better,” I say.

“Perhaps a holiday at the Sandy Oasis would’ve been a better choice,” he says casually.

“There’s sand here,” I point out.

“But no cold drinks.”

My mouth seems to go even dryer. “Thanks for reminding me.”

“What’s the Sandy Oasis?” Siena asks.

Surprised, I look at her. “It’s a place where sun dwellers go on vacation.”

“What’s vacation?” she says, her head tilted to the side like a child.

“Uhh,” I say.

“It’s taking a break from life to just relax,” Tristan explains.

“But then who will do all the work?” This time it’s Skye who asks the question. Evidently our conversation has captured even her attention.

“The other people,” Tristan says, sighing. “I suspect the world we come from is very different than yours. Some people work harder than others.”

Siena’s head bobs in understanding. “That ain’t different. We got shankers, too. People who just live off the work of others. One of my good friends, Veeva, her guy’s the shankiest shanker ’round. I ain’t never seen him so much as lift a finger to help out. He’s always on—what did you call it?—vaycayshun?”

“Yeah, something like that,” I say, suddenly feeling very weary, like my legs can’t go another step. We’re climbing a large dune, one step at a time, our feet sinking into the soft sand. “How far is New Wildetown?” I ask.

“’Bout a day’s hike in the opposite direction,” Skye says. “Why? Are you gettin’ tired, Glassy?”

“No. And I’m not a Glassy.” I’m barely able to make my voice sound strong, when inside of me my heart’s settled into the pit of my stomach. A day’s hike?

“I thought that’s where we were going?” Tristan says.

“We hafta stop somewhere else first,” Siena says.

“Don’t worry, weak little Glassy, we’re almost there,” Skye says.