Cleo snores from behind the curtain that separates the bed mats from the living area, and we freeze.

We stand there a moment, looking at each other, dazed by what has just happened.

“This plan still scares me,” he whispers after a moment.

“It scares me too,” I admit. “But I’ve been scared since I left Dead River. Sometimes I think I’ve been scared my whole life. I’m tired of it, Asher. I’m ready for a change.”

“Let’s not be scared together,” he says. “After this is all over.”

“Okay.”

He kisses my forehead again, tugs me toward the bed mats.

We curl up together, his arm around my middle. It’s like that night in Burning Ground, but I don’t move away. Maybe there are worse things in life than needing someone. Maybe the needing is all that keeps us human.

Reed sets out with the Reaper early the next morning. He regards me for a long beat before slipping through the gate, a hand on his chest in farewell. I touch my lodestone in return.

Maybe someday we’ll understand why our father left, instead of helping. Maybe I’ll have real answers instead of mere theories. But until then I will be grateful to have my pack growing rather than shrinking. It’s like Zuly said, after all. Life and death is the way of things. Sometimes we lose. Sometimes we gain, and I hope I’ve gained well.

Construction on the wind wagons begins immediately. The Tender pulls a large group of her pillar to work on the job, and a flurry of activity fills the Powder Town clearing.

The Gods Touched is unloaded and the mag-rifles and ammo cases are stored in the defense barracks. Meanwhile, trees are felled from the foothills, sails are sewn, and rickshaws sacrifice wheels to the cause of building a fleet. Once proper construction begins, it’s a sight to be seen—hundreds of women and a few dozen men laboring beneath the sun, sawing and nailing and knotting rope.

The Tender oversees everything, and I help on the Prime’s orders; she wants me working on the brake systems, not harvesting sulfur. Asher, however, reports to Bronx the Chemist and is sent to work on the saltpeter beds. By the time we both make it to Cleo’s in the evening, we’re too tired to do anything but collapse onto our bed mats. We sleep beside each other, though, our limbs entangled. Sometimes I wake with his mouth nestled into the crook of my neck, and I lie there a moment, a smile on my lips.

When Harlie emerges into the sunlight without a headache on the third day of construction, she wobbles up to one of the half-built wind wagons and immediately starts critiquing everything. I hear a few women grumble, but the Tender nods kindly and thanks her for her feedback.