I wouldn’t want to be traveling these wastes without it, but I also know it’s the type of tech someone would kill for. It finds north no matter the weather, pointing true even in the worst of the gods-sent silent storms. Not even the Old World tech does that.

I button my jacket at my throat, wrap my scarf over my nose.

Then I’m trudging south again.

We come upon the Old Coast as the sun begins to sink behind the horizon. I slow to a standstill, taking it in for the first time. Flint’s descriptions are accurate. It’s like the wastes—just as endless, just as desolate—but witnessing it with my own eyes is harrowing.

The ground dips before me—the remnants of a shoreline—and I have to run to keep from getting clipped in the back of my ankles by the dragger. Once I’m on the dried ocean bed itself, things are easy for the first time since we left Dead River. No scrub to slow me down. No ruts to claw at the dragger. The ocean bed is hard-packed rock, a cobweb of cracked dirt. I’ll make good time.

I confirm my heading with the lodestone again, then check on Indie. Her usually bronze skin is sallow, and despite the sweat on her brow, she feels cold.

“Hey, can you drink?” I ask.

She mutters something in response, which I take to be a yes. I tip the waterskin toward her mouth, and half the liquid dribbles uselessly down her chin.

“How much . . .” Her eyes flutter.

“Farther?” I glance out across the ocean bed. If I squint, I can make out a lump the height of my thumb in the distance. That’ll be the oil rig Flint spoke of, Zuly’s watch-pack. “Little over three clicks? Four at most.”

Indie’s head lolls, and her eyes fall shut.

“Just hang on. We’re almost there.”

I take off at a jog, the dragger strap burning my chest and torso. My feet are chapped now too, sweat having put blisters on my heels. I press on, ignoring the sting, my eyes pinned to the lump on the horizon. Soon it’s not so much of a lump, but a small grave marker, a large boulder, then a hut on wide stilts. I pull a pale flag from my rucksack and hold it overhead. Flint said a white flag announces that you mean no harm, but with each step I can’t help but feel that I’m waving a target and shouting, Aim here!