“We did, but for the right reason.” I stand taller, raise my voice so that everyone along the wall can hear me. “Tell Kara the Prime I have been to the Verdant and I have seen the future. Tell her I sailed across the wastes and back because I know how to beat the General.”

The Reaper and Saph look at each other, then disappear from their posts. The lights along the other watch points vanish also.

The night edges in, painfully silent.

“They won’t really leave us out here,” I say to Asher, “will they?”

His expression is uncertain, and just as I begin to fear that I’ve misjudged everything, there’s a creak of hinges, the yawn of worn wood.

Powder Town’s door opens to greet us.

Chapter Thirty-Eight

The Prime calls a meeting with her Trinity.

Harlie is hauled off to get medical attention from someone in the prosperity pillar while Asher and I are left under Saph’s watchful eye. She brings us to Cleo’s, ties us to chairs, and paces the room, muttering to herself about our stupid, traitorous asses and how we shouldn’t be given second chances. Third chances, on Asher’s behalf. The real irony is that Reed—the person she would think to be the true threat if she knew his Loyalist history—simply leans against a wall, shrugging off her interrogation.

“Who are you?” she demands. “When did you meet up with these two? Who is the old woman you came in with?”

“I’ll answer questions when Delta and Asher get to do the same,” Reed says. “Or when the Prime sees us. Whichever comes first.”

I’m not sure how long we sit, but my shoulders are aching in their sockets and the moon is bright in the sky when the Reaper comes to retrieve us.

“Is this where we attend our welcome party?” Asher asks. “You’ve been so hospitable so far.”

“Shut up,” the Reaper says, and nudges him in the back with her rifle.

We slip from the hut and into the night. It may be late, but the Powder Town streets are crowded with onlookers.

“There she is,” someone says. “The gods touched.”

“She found the Verdant.”

“She’ll save us all!”

“Bringer of Life!” another shouts. “Green Goddess!”

“How lush was it?”

“When can we go there?”

I keep my head down. This plan seemed foolproof when it was just the four of us at Eden—me and Asher and Harlie and Reed. But now, with all these hopeful eyes on me, the stakes weigh heavy on my conscience. They are praising me now, but if I fail them, they will hate me. Despise me. Wish me dead.

I won’t be their Bringer of Life, I’ll be their bearer of lies.

I won’t be a goddess, just a fraud. A deceiver.