Fia woke up as Dara landed, unbuckling her as soon as he touched ground. She looked around the dark desert as she opened the other side of the harness. 

“Something’s not right,” he said.

“Where are we?” 

“Ten miles south of Carnation.”

They walked across the desert for a few minutes and Fia finally saw what he’d spotted already. A few mud huts barely visible under the cover of the night, a dim lamp lit in one with a white sheet on the laundry line on its roof. It was a sign, left by Pekka.

The huts were small and nondescript, with a wood barricaded window and a wooden door. The doors could only be locked from the inside and the planks on the window were spaced enough to let air and light in. They’d seen similar huts before on the way to Carnation, shelters for travellers in the desert. 

Dara knocked lightly on the door of the hut with the lit lamp. A woman answered. She was wearing a long white dress, her dark bed hair in a mess. They had woken her up. 

“Who are you?” she asked. 

“Just travelers headed for Carnation,” Dara said. “Sorry to bother you so late at night. Can you spare us some water?” 

“Who can spare water out here in the desert.” She shuddered. “The night’s too cold, but I suppose there are colder places. Stay here, I will bring you some water for the way. You should be able to make it to Carnation with this.”

Fia looked at Dara as the woman went in. He looked back, mind elsewhere. The woman returned with a small bottle. He thanked her and they were off again. 

“We didn’t need water,” Fia said when they were clear of the huts. 

He shook the bottle. Empty. “We have to go to Skadi.” 

---

It didn’t snow in Skadi during the summer. Winter snow melted in all but a few shady nooks and man-made mounds. Crops of fruit and grain flourished, from sprout to fruit in under three months. The trees in Skadi were stubby. None of them were green during the winter months, and all of them were laden during the summer. The rather flat landscape was now filled with flowery grasses and berry shrubs. So abundant was it that it would be impossible to go hungry even if one tried.

Dara and Fia kept near the southern cliffs, trekking westward. They walked through a large field covered in shallow water flows no more than a few centimetres deep, melted snow feeding the waterfalls of Skadi’s Throne into the Five Sisters—into the Trench Forests. To their left, beyond the plateau’s cliffs, stretched the green canopy of the forest.

Fia had been preoccupied ever since she woke up. She’d dreamt of a grey haze. She’d dreamt of it before, though she didn’t remember when. What bothered her, however, was the dream that had come before the haze. In it, Mikael was teaching her about crackling, though she no longer remembered much of it, except that he had called her Eliana and had seemed… fine. He had even smiled.

Alpha signed her name as E on the letters, she recalled.

“What’s wrong?“ Dara asked.

“Uh…“ No, nothing was wrong. And of course, Eliana was just a name her brain made up. “I just hope everyone’s okay. We should’ve caught up with them by now.“

“Don’t worry,” Dara said. “They’re all fine.”

“I hate this. I can’t even properly enjoy the thought of you showing them your cat-sized dealer bugs anymore.”

He chuckled. “You have no mercy.”

“Dara.”

“Hm?”

“Thank you, for showing me around.”

He glanced at her, lips curled. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course, you don’t.”

He reached into his pocket. “I made something for you.”

Fia caught a glimpse of wood and silver as he held it out to her. Small wood-carved charms hung around a chain bracelet.

Fia took it. “Is this what you’ve been carving?”

The first charm was an Ayyar Oxen, then a sand serpent, a coyote and a hawk, all animals they had run across in the desert. Despite being small they were detailed and finished perfectly. She turned it around. There was a silk moth, a dealer bug and the last one was the sun. She looked up at him.

“I know you don’t wear jewelry but maybe you’ll make an exception.” 

“You put so much effort into it. I don’t feel right taking it.” 

“It’s an apology… for lying to you.”

She drew in a deep breath. 

“You don’t have to forgive me to keep it,” he added. “It’s a souvenir only you can appreciate; keep it just the same.”

Fia smiled. “I will because it’s beautiful. But an apology only matters when you don’t intend to repeat.” 

He smiled. “I might do it again, but it wouldn’t work as well. It only works as long as I don’t confess and I already surrendered that advantage.” 

“You had no choice but to confess when you did. Don’t make it sound altruistic.” 

He nodded. “Mm perhaps.”

“Are you regretting a bit now?” She put the bracelet in her pocket. 

Dara’s gaze followed her hand, then met hers. “Not really. I gambled. I knew a win wasn’t guaranteed.”

An arrow flew in and landed half a meter away from Fia’s foot. She looked to her left. A young woman in a teal robe waved a bow at her. Fia broke into a run towards her, jumped into her uninviting arms and knocked her over. 

“I told you they’re fine,” Dara said, nodding a greeting to a confused Akira. 

“Yes, but seeing is believing,” Fia said, still lying on top of her. 

Noah, Pekka and Andrik weren’t far behind. They had been staying in a small village nearby that consisted of only fifteen people, six wooden houses with gable roofs, and a few fields of grain and vegetables. They had rented the annexe of one of the houses. Just two unfurnished rooms with some hay bales and a veranda with three chairs. 

They gathered in the veranda where Noah gave them the rundown. The four of them left Carnation before Abraha returned, but soon Noah received a tip that they were being followed. Despite their efforts, they were unable to shake the tail. They’d finally sent a coded telegram to Raija three days ago to investigate. When Fia asked why they didn’t contact her sooner, Noah’s gaze shifted to Pekka.

Fia peered at Pekka. “Surely you can tell us more.“

“No. I will not make guesses.” 

She gave a crooked smile, gaze shifting between her three friends who wore small frowns, clearly having also tried and failed.  

“Don’t worry about it,” said Dara. “We’ll sort it out when we know more.”

Of course, he’d say that. Pekka had probably shared his ‘guesses‘ and more with him already on the way over. She’d seen it in his grave expression when the two briefly hung back to talk. He’d chosen not to share them with her, distracting her even if not outright denying it. Yet now his smile tugged at the ends of her frustration, yanking it like it wasn’t the jagged wire it felt like but a slippery silk scarf. And somehow, she didn’t hate him for it. Maybe she was a fool for it, but she’d never shied away from walking into danger as long as she knew it was there.

She let out a resigned half-chuckle. “I suppose we will then.” 

“Do you have the bugs,” Noah asked. 

“It’s not fuel for the machine, Noah,” Fia said. “We had it all wrong.”

“But the notes say the toxin ‘walks machine’,” he said. 

Fia told him how he and Dara both hallucinated the same thing in the desert. 

“The toxin doesn’t run the machine, it likely reveals the path to it,” Dara said. 

“Exactly,” said Fia. “When we come to the Garden, our minds are manipulated. I believe some things we see are an optical illusion and the toxin just removes these illusory effects and reveals the real thing. The bugs don’t feed on some desert cacti, but on people, which is why they bit us. The venom targets the nervous system.

“Once bitten, it incapacitates people, and a fallen victim attracts more of them. The maggots consume the dying, extracting the liquids but unable to consume the bodies, turning them into the cactus that the bugs still stick to until they find a new victim. It is the true nature of the white desert that we saw there.” 

“So you’re saying everything we see is unreal?” said Andrik. 

“Not everything,” Dara said. “Apart from the sand and the cacti, the other things didn’t change despite the toxin.”

“We don’t think the desert is natural,” said Fia. “Alpha mentioned the Evolved cities, including Prime beyond the Dry Lands. We think the white biomes are defenses set up by the Evolved during the wars.”

“Could there be Evolved cities beyond the white biomes?” said Noah. 

“No,” said Dara. “Carnation has scouted the desert, it ends in the sea. But they may be across the sea.”

“Or in it,” said Fia. 

A solemn quiet fell over the veranda. 

“Where are the bugs?” Noah asked. 

Dara handed him a pouch of dead dealer bugs and Fia stifled a smile. 

“This is it?” said Noah. “Didn’t you get more?” 

“You asked for three dozen,” Dara said. 

Noah looked at him puzzled. 

Dara clicked his tongue. “Err—I think I may have hallucinated the size a bit.”

Fia’s mouth dropped open. 

Noah pulled open the pouch and they all leaned in to take a look. Akira burst out laughing.

Dara gave an embarrassed smile. “I guess my memory was tainted by the toxin. But they are as dangerous as I remembered at least, Fia can attest to that.”

“Yeah right! Do you take us for idiots?” Andrik said. “You made it up so you could take Fia with you.”

Dara shot him a tired look. “Yes, Andrik, because I’m fourteen. Do you even hear yourself when you talk?” 

Fia bit her lips. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do. She looked at Pekka who stood on the side looking bored. She finally understood the man. 

“It’s true isn’t it?” Andrik said. 

“That’s enough, Andrik,” Noah said. 

Andrik scoffed and went into one of the rooms, banging the door behind him. 

“Are you still planning to leave?” Akira asked Dara. 

“No,” Dara said. “I’m sorry I overreacted to a misunderstanding and then dragged you all into it. The fault was completely at my end. I already apologized to Fia. I hope we can all move past it.”

Fia rolled her eyes in her mind. 

“No worries,” Noah said with a relieved grin. “You two have a complicated history. We can’t blame you.” He registered Akira’s wide-eyed don’t-say-it look only after he had spoken.

Fia frowned. Dara had managed to gain some sympathy despite taking full blame. His face wasn’t built to be distrusted and he’d spent fifty-seven years learning to use—misuse—it.

“I’m going to get a refill,” Pekka said, holding an empty flask, and walked off in the direction of the other houses. 

“I’ll go write some of these things down,” Noah said heading in and Akira followed him.

Dara leaned in close to Fia and whispered, “Guess I win after all.” She pushed him away and he grinned.  

She grabbed his arm and dragged him off the veranda away from the door.

“You lied again!” she said.

“White lies!” he said. “How could I not? I couldn’t tell them I was so petty or that none of them saw through my blatant lies. Not everyone gets a confession, Fia.”

“You are the worst.” 

“Don’t be so greedy. You get my services for the rest of the trip, you can’t have it all.”

“You seem to be doing well having it all. Why can’t I?” 

“They’re your friends, they will brush off your flaws without a second thought. Mine would be harder to overlook. Plus you already have one attack dog trained just for me, can’t you let the others be nice at least?”

“Watch it, Dara. The one you’re calling an attack dog means a lot to me.” 

“I know. If only you would occasionally defend me in front of him, too.” 

“I do.” 

He paused, eyes lighting up like the groom’s house before the wedding. Fia’s eyebrows wrinkled. Nothing good was going through that mind.  

“You do!” he said and leaned in. “Because I may be a piece of work but I’m your piece of work.”

He was quoting her from that day in Carnation when she stopped Andrik from fighting him. She realized her words didn’t quite come out right even then and knew better than to think Dara didn’t notice. But she wasn’t sure if it was anger or caution on his part to let it slide that day.

“Did you get any internal injuries from sitting on that one for so long?” she said.

“A burst spleen. But don’t change the subject. I told you only looking was free. To think you could own me.” He clicked his tongue. “You really need to reign in that imagination.” 

Fia narrowed her eyes and reached for his side. He jumped away with a soft gasp before turning completely impassive. She chuckled, walking back to the veranda triumphantly. Dara watched her disappear into the annexe. A smile crept on his face as soon as the door clicked. 

“Are you sure you’re not fourteen?” Pekka said, walking past him. Dara grinned and Pekka frowned. “Stop. Your teeth are blinding me.” 

They stopped at the stairs to the veranda. “In hindsight,” said Dara, “I am not proud of what I did.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just ask her out?”

Dara shot him a look. “I’m not into her… And what if I did? Then what?”

“She might have said yes.”

“Might have? When has anyone ever said no to me?”

Pekka grunted. “Don’t ever say that to anyone. You sound obnoxious.”

“It’s not me they like, and there’s only so far I can go before I can no longer hide it. You think I couldn’t have simply talked her out of it in Carnation? But it’s exhausting and it’s infuriating. At least now she knows exactly what I’m—what I’m capable of.” 

“Well… She seems okay with it.”

Dara smiled. “It seems so. Do you think Raija will come?“

“I hope not.“

Inside, the small room, Akira, Fia, Noah and Andrik sat in a circle on the floor, surrounded by hay stacks. Dead dealer bugs and notes on venom extraction lay forgotten in the centre as Noah continued to scribble the new details he’d gotten from Fia into his notebook.

“Pay up!” Akira said to Noah. “She convinced him to stay.”

“I was sure he wouldn’t give in this time,” said Noah. “You’re a witch, Fia.”

Fia held her hand out. “We agreed I get a twenty percent cut for effort either way.” Better to not tell them he didn’t need convincing.

Akira counted Fia’s share. “So how was it? Flying with Dara.”

“It was okay.” Fia dropped the coins into her pouch. “I’m sold on night travel. The desert was so peaceful.”

“It’s peaceful if you have wings and night vision,” Noah said.

Fia gave him a puzzled look. 

“You don’t know he can see in the dark?” Noah said.

“Really?” said Fia. “How do you know?” 

“How do you not?” said Noah. “I suspected it even in the burrows back at the training. He saw better when he was farther from the torches.”

“Honestly, Fia,” said Akira. “Even I can tell, and I’m not ashamed to say I’m the dullest knife in the drawer. But I have to admit, I didn’t realize it at the training camp.” 

“Did you ask him?” Fia asked.

“Yes, a few years ago,” Noah said. “He told me he can see better than most but not that well. I thought he was being modest.” 

Fia nodded. “Did you know?” she asked Andrik. 

Andrik frowned. “Oh you want my opinion now, do you?” 

Cheeky laughs were not the reaction he was hoping for, but it was the one he got. 

“Oh, come on, Andrik,” Fia said. “Just a few more days. It’ll be over soon.”

Sitting on the veranda’s chair, Dara’s eyes stared at nothing in particular on the floorboards in front of him. Pekka gave him a sidelong glance. The voices from the room were making dinner plans now.