“Really?” Her voice is low and breathless.

“Really.”

“You told me you didn’t love me,” she says, and there’s a tiny note of hurt in her voice.

“I told you the truth. I didn’t love you, then.” My arm tightens around her waist. “But being near you was like waving my hand through a lit torch, hoping I might get burned just a little. I thought that was just the way a boy feels when he’s near a girl. I didn’t realize the feeling was specific to you.”

She laughs and leans into me. “You also told me I’d get over you.”

“I’ve been known to be wrong,” I say, and kiss her before she can say anything else. She rolls her eyes, but kisses me back until Ian whistles appreciatively behind us.

Laughing, I step back from Rachel and turn to the vine-clad rectangle that looms above us. Grabbing a handful of thick, rubbery kudzu, I tug sharply and the entire curtain of vegetation begins slowly sliding to the left. Rachel wraps a few more vines around her hands and helps. In a few seconds, we can see most of the sign. White letters against a faded blue background say Best Races in Town. Just above the words, a brown horse with a rider on its back is pictured running like his life depends on it.

“This is it!” Jeremiah comes up beside us, his bent fingers clamped on his head to keep his hat securely in place. “This is the sign. The clearing is just past those trees.” He points north, where the road beneath us wraps around a thick copse of black cherry trees whose white blossoms flutter in the wind.

“We’ll stop there for lunch and sparring practice,” I say as I let go of the kudzu and join Rachel in leading the group toward the clearing. We round the curve and find a large metal wheel, mounted upright as if trying to spin into the sky, resting near the center of a field of wildflowers, spring grass, and scrubby bushes with tiny berries clustered against their leaves. Kudzu climbs the wheel, wraps around its spindles and gears, and then plunges down the other side in a curtain of green.

I’ve never seen anything so strange and beautiful.

“What is that?” I ask.

“It’s a Ferris wheel,” Jeremiah says. “Folks used to ride them.”

“Ride them where?” I look around the field for the rest of what must have been an enormous vehicle.

Jeremiah laughs a little. “It doesn’t go anywhere. It spins. You’d sit in one of the seats”—he points to large buckets in sun-faded colors that dangle from the inner edge of the circle—“and take a ride, round and round, until the ride operator stopped your cart at the top. Felt like you could see the whole world.”

“Seems like a waste of time,” Rachel says.

“Seems like a technological marvel.” I walk closer to the wheel, skirting a thorny bush before it snags my cloak. Behind us, the wagons reach the field and Nola supervises the task of setting up for lunch.

“It was just something fun we did whenever a carnival came to town,” Jeremiah says.

“What’s a carnival?” Rachel asks.

“Well, now, used to be we’d have sort of a community holiday once a year.” He twists his hat in his hands. “The folks that ran the carnival would bring rides, like the Ferris wheel, and cook kettle corn and funnel cakes and pies—celebratory food like we’d have on Claiming Day.”

“Where did the Claimings take place?” I ask as I glance around the field, looking for a fancy stage.

Jeremiah coughs. “No marriages at the carnival. No Claimings, period. Not in the old civilization. Men and women asked the person they loved to marry them, and then picked a date and a fancy location, and did it themselves. Claiming is something the Commander came up with.”

Before I can reply to him, a shout goes up behind me. I spin on my heel and nearly get knocked flat on my back as Adam and Ian crash against me. Adam’s face is flushed with rage, and he throws a punch straight for Ian’s nose.

Ian blocks the blow and delivers one of his own, slamming his fist into Adam’s shoulder and spinning him directly into me. We hit the ground hard, and the thorny bush I’d been so careful to avoid earlier pierces my thigh with needle-sharp spindles.

I swear and push Adam off of me. Ian lunges forward, grabs Adam’s tunic, and hauls him to his feet. Ian’s eyes are murderous as he reaches for his sword.

“Hey! Stop!” I scramble to my feet, but Rachel is already shoving her way between them.

“What are you two idiots doing?” she snaps.

“He hit me.” Adam spits blood onto the grass and glares at Ian while his fingers bunch into fists. He takes a step toward Ian, and Rachel smacks his chest with her Switch.

“Unless you want me to make you cry in front of everyone, you’d better calm down,” she says.

“I hit you because you deserved it,” Ian says, and every ounce of the charm he wears like a second skin is submerged beneath the cold brutality in his voice. “And if I ever hear you say something like that again, I’ll take my sword to you.”

“No one is going to take a sword to anyone unless we’re facing Carrington or highwaymen,” I say. “Both of you take a step back and calm down.”

“Not before he apologizes,” Ian says without once breaking eye contact with Adam.

“You owe me an apology,” Adam says, and shoves against Rachel’s restraining hand.

She braces herself. “Adam, I’m warning you—”