The wagon turns in a wide arc. The back wheels skid across the dirt, trying to keep up with the front. When the wind can no longer fill the sails, our speed is cut drastically and my work at the brake becomes easier. I squeeze tighter, listen to the wheels lock firm. By the time we’re angled into the headwind, Asher has completely dropped the mainsail.

The wind wagon slows to a crawl.

Asher pants, the ropes still wrapped around his palms. Harlie steps away from the tiller, laughing as we roll to a stop. “It works,” she gasps. “It scudding works!”

We look at each other in amazement, then raise the sails. It takes nearly twice as long to return to Harlie’s Hope, because we’re now sailing against a headwind and have to zigzag to keep wind in our sails at all, but we return—and brake—without issue.

“Tomorrow?” I say, glancing north.

“Yes,” Harlie agrees, “but she needs a name first. All good boats have one.”

“Gods Touched,” Reed proposes. It’s the first thing he’s said all morning—one of the few things he’s said since the day he told me we shared blood. Now, as he stands with a hand against the side rail looking out across the wastes, there’s a spark to his eyes. Hope. Faith.

He thinks this might work. He wants it to.

And this name choice . . .

Does it mean he is still loyal to a man who wears a pendant of stars and believes only the gods touched will save us? Or does it prove that Reed has faith in something larger than the General, that he wants this boat to deliver all of us from our suffering?

“I like it,” Asher says, and he looks mad about it—annoyed that he agrees with Reed on something.

“The Gods Touched,” Harlie says, gazing up the mast. “She’ll find the way when no one else has, because she’s touched by the gods.”

A few weeks earlier I’d have hated the name. But now I like the idea of our wind wagon being blessed by the gods. They’ve abandoned us, but I’m starting to wonder if they may return after all. Because if the map is real and readable, all the rumors about the Verdant must be too. The gods will reappear and grant us the power to control the Verdant’s borders. Power to keep the General out of it forever. And our gods touched vessel will make this moment possible.

Come dawn, we’re ready.