Chapter 15 · The Road That Turns Back

They walked west for three hours and came back to the temple.

Cole knew because the ash was still warm where the wall used to be. He knelt and pressed his good hand into it. Heat seeped through his palm. The rocks he'd blasted were right there, same scatter pattern, same char.

"No." Ivy's voice cracked. "We didn't turn around. I watched the stars the whole time."

"Stars don't mean anything here." The Taker stood at the edge of the clearing, head tilted like it was listening. "I told you. East loops. West loops. The territory folds."

Cole stood. His burned hand throbbed, blood still sticky between his fingers. "You said west was the way out."

"I said it was the only direction that might lead somewhere."

"That's not the same thing."

The Taker shrugged.

Ivy turned in a slow circle, scanning the ground. Her face was bone-white in the red moonlight. "My footprints. They're still going west. Past the temple. They don't loop."

Cole looked. She was right. The glow-marks of her death-walk stretched into the trees on the far side of the ruin, threading between the twisted trunks. Straight as a ruler.

"So we follow those," he said.