She’d be in serious trouble when they found she was gone. So she’d have to prove herself big. She couldn’t fail.

Tracker stuck to her. He could smell adventure. He wanted desperately to come. But with everybody gone, he had to stay and be watchdog for the Lanes.

She woke Bean. She slipped a rope bridle on him and they rode through the sleeping junkyard. She moved quietly now, thanks to the songs. They sang her along the silent ways. Tracker saw them off, quivering nose to tail tip with desire.

Once she was outside the gates, she paused for a moment to listen. The ground still hummed of their passing. Good. They’d left a clear trail for her to follow. With sure hands, she guided Bean along it.

She was learning from the songs—earthsongs and stonesongs—spending her days with them, listening and studying, but there was so much she didn’t understand. She needed to find her teacher. With all the messages she’d been sending Auriel, surely, surely she’d come soon. She was the only one who could help her.

The first starfall of the night caught her eye. Burning bright, some starsoul racing back to earth on urgent business. Or maybe, just maybe, it was Auriel. She could be travelling to her the quickest way possible. Hitching a ride on a shooting star. Streaking across the sky to land in New Eden in a perfect dazzlement of light.

No one could stop a shooting star. No one. Not even the Pathfinder or the Tonton.

We leave the horses in a mossy dell an move in on Edenhome by foot. As we softpad through the trees, my whole body’s tuned fer any whisper of Jack. The skin an the blood an the bones of me listen. To the creak of a branch. The pass of a breeze. The sigh of the ground unnerfoot. Is he nearby? Is the heartstone slightly warm? No, jest wishful thinkin.

All the way here, I kept two bark rolls curled in my fist. In the hope that I might git the chance to send Nero with ’em. One of the rolls we ain’t never used before. All it’s got scratched on it is X. Which means we gotta axe our meetin. The other tells him to meet me at noon at High River Gorge in Sector Six. It’s our closest meet spot to Starlight Lanes. A V with waves in the bottom. A small square box perched at the top of the V’s right leg. Full sun directly overhead. But Nero never touched down. He kept to the sky. I couldn’t call him to me without suspicion.

I’m desperate to find out how Jack’s gang is doin. To hear that everythin’s rollin out fast like it needs to. It ain’t that I don’t trust him to hold the line. He will. He’ll do the right thing, he won’t blow no chances. So I do trust him an I believe, truly, that this is the only way we can possibly win, but …

But. This whole thing sits uneasy in my nature. So little in my control. So much to go wrong. So much to lose. An not usin bows or guns. The fact is, we live in a sticks an stones world. It’s the only way that any of us knows. I fear that if we come unner pressure, somebody’s gonna pull a trigger an that’ll be it. Endgame over.

Nero plays the night sky above the treetops. He lofts an banks an scoops the chill winds, always circlin back to keep track of us.

Saba! hisses Lugh.

We bin halted by a fierce corral of barbwire. It hems in the grounds an buildins of Edenhome. A high, weak fence. The worst kind. Impossible to climb, even if you padded yer hands to the barbs. Only way through would be to cut our way.

Lugh’s scopin the place with the long-looker. Guards, he mouths, an holds up two fingers. In a moment, two Tonton come into view. They approach from opposite directions. Must be on a loop patrol. They each got a armoured boar-hound strainin on a short chain leash. They pass each other with a nod an continue around. Me an the boys look at each other. Their eyes a white gleam in their night faces. There ain’t no gittin in there. Fence, guards, an dogs bred to kill with snap-trap jaws. We’re stuck on this side.

Follow the fence along, I says. Check it out. Meet back here. Don’t let them hounds catch wind of you.

Lugh splits right into leafy darkness an Tommo sifts away to the left. I prowl along the centre bit, back an forth, takin in the lie of the main buildins, the sheds, workshops, little barns an so on. It’s tidy an clean an well-kept. The kids livin here—every single one of ’em stolen from their families—they’re set to be Stewards of the Earth at fourteen. This is where they learn to not remember who they come from. Where they learn to believe their only family is the Earth, that the Pathfinder has chosen them to heal her. Where the stream of who they are is stemmed to carve another channel. An who they were dies to a trickle, then dries to dust.

Here, they’re learned the kinda things Pa learned us. How to build an mend an cobble together, how to plant an tend an grow. An all the other day-to-day you need to know to git along. There’s a junkbarn half built. The silent gleam of a duckpond. Patches of ground set aside fer crops. I wonder if they’re usin any seed from the seedstore or if DeMalo’s savin it all fer the tide of numbers on his great maps. Pushin outwards from New Eden to beyond an then beyond. They oughta be usin these woods fer a forest garden, but they’d never be able to keep tabs on the kids. Blink an they’d be lost to the shadows.

Gawdamnmit, Jack, where are you? My skin bristles, waitin fer the sound of a nightpip. If he came now, right now, I could hotfoot it, have a quick word with him an be back before the boys pitch up.

I tuck myself tight behind a tree an stare through the fence at the quiet dark of Edenhome. That woman from the Snake River camp. Her name’s gone from me. The one half-mad with grief, who wouldn’t give the body of her dead child to be burnt. Her older girl, Nell, the ten-year-old stolen by the Tonton, she might be asleep inside one of these huts. I remember sayin to the woman, to Ruth—that’s her name—I told her that wherever Nell was, she was bound to be watchin an thinkin an plannin how to git away. How to git back to her family. An she wouldn’t give up till she did. I hope I was right.

C’mon, Jack, c’mon, c’mon. Where are you?

Suddenly, I smell DeMalo. I look panic about me, breath trapped, heart caught. Where is he? Where? I flatten myself deep to the tree, not breathin. Then I’m cursin myself fer ten kinds of fool. I’m only huddled aginst a juniper. That’s the scent of DeMalo’s shirt, his skin. I found sprigs of it in the chest where he keeps his clothes. I crush a needly twig. The cool dark smell fills me. But no warmth of his body to soften its bite.

The boys steal back. Lugh first, then Tommo. Still no Jack an we cain’t do nuthin more here tonight. How we git these kids outta Edenhome is gonna be a harder nut to crack than stealin babies or slippin Skeet into a slave gang. The setup here, with the fence an the dogs an the guards, it gives us a whole different problem to solve. An not much time to do it. We’ll need to come back in the daylight.

Fer now, we need to go. The chill wind’s bin blowin in our favour all night but now it’s restless, twitchy, on the change. I don’t fancy our chances with them boarhounds if they catch our smell. We turn around an start to head back to the horses. Once we’re at the Lanes, we’ll talk it through. Lugh’s good at unpickin complicated situations.

Nero’s bin flyin guard duty above the woods all this time. He suddenly dives. Disappears into the trees. A few moments later, a bird calls. It’s the krik of a nightpip. My heart jumps. Jack. At last. Lugh ticks his head towards the sound. It comes from forty or so foot to the left of us. The heartstone’s faintly warm. I sign to Tommo that it’s only a bird, an we carry on. A nightpip callin in the dark ain’t nuthin untowards. Nuthin to give rise to second thoughts.