<- Chapter 119 Chapter 121 -> The place settings gleamed without a spot and Cora pulled at the sleeves of the dress Gavin picked out for her.  It was dour, black, and long.  The collar high.  She felt like a nun in service to the Moon. I always declared fealty to the Moon, but this…

<- Chapter 118 Chapter 120 -> Empty bottles rolled around the bottom of the boat.  Alexander didn’t know if it was day or night.  Layers of gloom rose over them, the mist obscured what the branches did not.  The water was a perfect mirror of the foliage above, marred only by the occasional slithering tail…

<- Chapter 117 Chapter 119 -> Feeling her clean hair on her face made Cora smile as she woke.  She stretched her neck and pulled her hands out of the covers.  Wrists flexed, and she stretched her fingers.  Cora flipped the sheets off and raised her injured thigh, bending her knee.  She ran her fingers…

<- Chapter 116 Chapter 118 -> Alexander’s feet were sore from the walk.  They knew they would be taking a boat, so the horses had been left behind with the Nomads and with Lissie.  Riley had not spoken to him during the long journey. The southern tribe wore suspicious eyes and frowns, and nothing else.…

<- Chapter 115 Chapter 117 -> Twelve days of bread and water.  The meat and the bandages were a distant memory.  Cora gathered the fork out of her shirt and scraped it slowly against the stone floor. She tested the side against her thumb.  The flimsy metal took an edge with patience. It’s something to…

<- Chapter 114 Chapter 116 -> “You still owe me two stories,” Riley announced as she swept back the tent flap. No locks on these things. It was dark outside, the Nomads were all awake, but the space around them was silent. “I suppose I do.”  Alexander looked up from Ruskin.  He leaned over the…

<- Chapter 113 Chapter 115 -> Cora breathed slowly.  Her leg itched.  She squirmed against the restraints.  The broken skin flexed around the discontinuity.  She let her eyes unfocus against the dots of light in the burlap.  It shattered into fractals and reformed in different patterns. The door clicked and opened.  Her eyes focused.  What…

<- Chapter 112 Chapter 114 -> Alexander stood where the salt met the grass.  No one had told him to go any further.  He could see Riley screaming at the Dust Women.  The wind blew away her words. Lissie no longer rode Peach, but her feet did not touch the ground.  Hers was the only…

<- Chapter 111 Chapter 113 -> Cora listened.  The bag clung to her face.  She forced herself to take steady breaths, and waited for them to come again.  Behind her eyes danced how she would write this moment. They took my journal.  We burnt my books.  Mother was right, though.  There will always be more…

<- Chapter 110 Chapter 112 -> Alexander looked over to Lissie from Monsieur d’Cirque’s back.  Her eyes glowed.  Endless wind over the Salt Flats threw her blond hair back like a flag, pointing to the line of the sick.  They marched behind her like silent ants. Lissie’s ringing voice had promised they wouldn’t feel the…