Maybe the gods didn’t desert us. Maybe they’ve been testing us, just like Ma always claimed, but we’ve been going about it all wrong. We’ve been praying to the stars and working the land, trying to prove that we are worthy of a green earth when we should have been working to find this. EDEN.

Maybe this is a doorway to the gods.

“Stay right there,” Asher says. “We’re coming, too. Soon as we move another few rocks.”

Some time later, after a bit of a scare when rocks went tumbling on their side and I feared one of them would be swept away in the fall, Asher’s face appears through the widened gap. Reed comes after him and then Harlie.

“You don’t want to stay with the wagon?” I ask.

“Storm’s almost on us,” she says. “Better to be inside. Hopefully she doesn’t get too banged up in the winds.”

We descend the pile of rocks carefully, making our way toward the door. There’s a wheel protruding from it, perfectly round, like the opening of an Old World jar. Asher touches it, pauses. “I think you should do it,” he says to me.

I shake my head. “Together.”

The wheel is cool beneath my palm, firm. It reminds me of scrap metal or the side of Zuly’s tanker, but it’s smooth, barely rusted. When we try to turn it, it won’t budge. “Help with this,” I say, motioning for Reed. It takes the three of us to get the thing turning. Metal groans on the other side of the door. There’s a click and an echo. It sounds like a secret being whispered.

“Now,” I say. “Pull now.”

We open the door about three boot lengths before it hits the base of the rubble pile. There will be no opening it farther. But it’s wide enough for passage.

I cross the threshold cautiously, hold out the candle.

There’s a set of stairs leading down into darkness.

It’s the opposite of everything I expect. Instead of brilliant rivers and teeming green and calm skies beneath a radiant sun, there’s just this stairwell. Leading into the ground. Behind a locked door.

Nothing could grow in here.

But the secrecy of it makes my heart beat wildly. We are close. The Verdant waits at the bottom of this staircase. The gods would never take so many precautions unless they were protecting something truly vital.

I worry, briefly, if they will let me reach it. If my lack of faith is a thing they can sense, will they keep the truth from me? I glance at Asher, glad he’s here. His faith is so enormous, it should be enough for both of us.

I lead the way down the stairwell. There’s another door at the bottom. Again, we work a wheel. It groans. The door opens, and we step into more darkness.