The machine seemed to be picking up speed. They felt the bursts and pulses of energy shed from its lower edges, and with each explosion they were pushed higher. Light simmered around the machine’s lower edges. And with each gush of motion the machine itself was changing. The ribs had thickened as some dull gray coating grew around them, pulled in from nothing. The spaces between the ribs began to glow with countless points of light. Kosar had once been caught in a storm of fireflies, but this was even brighter. Soon it was bright as daylight within the gray ribs, and then lighter still, so that Kosar had to squeeze his eyes closed. It lasted for only a few heartbeats. When the light faded and he looked again, there was only the vague background illumination left from the pulse down below. And he saw what the light had made. Between each rib, for the height of a tall man, a fleshy skin stretched across. Even now veins formed on its surface and within, flooding it with blood from nowhere, and magic was at work so close, so near, that if he so desired he could have reached out and touched it.

Their sense of velocity increased. Kosar looked around at the others—Hope, wide-eyed; Trey, hanging on to the ground for dear life; Alishia and Rafe, prone, the movements of their limbs perhaps due to the motion of the machine, perhaps not—and he knew that he had to look over the edge. He had never been scared of heights or the unknown, but what terrified him most now was just what he did know. He crawled to the skinlike edging between the ribs, knelt up and looked over.

Fires had erupted across the ground. Some of them were small, others seemed to have spread and a few of them still moved. They lit up most of the small valley and the dying things it contained. It was spotted with dead Monks. He could make out the larger machines in the firelight, most of them still now, limbs slumped down, one of them accepting punishment from a group of Monks without defending itself. Their purpose fulfilled, these machines were dead again.

There was no sign of the hawks.

The machine gushed another blast of light, blinding Kosar and sending him reeling back. The roar was immense and accompanied by another burst of speed, thrusting them up and up until, suddenly, the sun found them again. The heat felt good on his skin. To the west the horizon was a smudge of yellow. If they rose forever, perhaps the sun would never set.

No hawks, he thought. Of course not. They’d have no reason to continue the battle once we were away with Rafe.

“What do you see?” Hope asked.

Kosar looked over the side again. It was strange looking down into night from a position of daylight. He wondered how high they had come.

“Kosar?” Trey prompted.