Capri kept quiet, too. Not a word, except to ask me if I’d pull up his hood. Riding with him strapped to my back wasn’t easy. Not on me. Not on the horse. I spent the entire day staring at my bracelet, expecting the gap between us and the leaders to grow as he slowed our pace. But the rankings fluctuated unpredictably. Etzli started with a huge lead, but all her number did was shrink until she vanished from the scoreboard entirely. Your stomach sinks a little. Something horrible must have happened.

Revel stormed out to the lead at first, but Bravos is the steadier rider. I always thought of him as a bruiser without much pacing or technique, but maybe he dated Pippa long enough to learn a thing or two. At one point, I glanced down and the third name had changed. I thought I saw Pippa’s name scrawled there like an inevitability. But a second glance had me blinking. It wasn’t her name. It was mine. I watched the numbers for a while after that, but it must have been a mistake. Pippa’s name never appeared again.

I kept pushing deeper into the course, and the standings fluctuated only slightly:

1. Bravos: 436 paces
2. Revel: 247 paces
3. Adrian

Bravos had an even bigger lead for a while, but his progress stopped right before sunset. It’s not hard to figure out that he caught an early burn. And the whole field is lucky that he did. I’ve never heard of a rider coming back from a lead over five hundred paces. But now?

It’s close enough. Victory is within reach.

I glance over at Capri. He’s lying in the dust and dirt. Looks like hell, but there’s nothing more I can do besides give him food and water. I sit with my back to a rise of cool stone, eyes on the canyon we left behind. The way forward is a departure from the rest of the course. It will run us through the strange desert forests. It’s full of crags and twists and sunstripe trees. The kind of course that demands a lot from a rider and his horse. I was lucky to stay this close to the leaders, but I’m not foolish enough to think it will happen again, not with Capri weighing me down.

He’s as healthy as I can get him. His wounds look fine. Ugly, but not the kind of infections he’ll die from. It’s time to cut the cord. He’s been watching me since we woke up.

“You’re going to leave me,” Capri says aloud. “Aren’t you?”

I glance over at him. “Makes the most sense.”

He nods. The movement is an upgrade from the day before. He might recover.

“You’re just like us,” he says.

“Is that right?”