Then I noticed the wares slung over his steed, the state of his attire. Fancy Old World goggles like mine, but threadbare, fingerless gloves. Pale wool shirt, scarf, and leather vest, all beaten and patched. Old World rifle, but modified to shoot black powder because the Old World ammunition is long gone. If he was a god, he wouldn’t need to modify anything.

“Is the trap full?” he asked.

I pulled my knife and held the blade in his direction.

He smiled. “I take it that means yes.”

“You can’t have any,” I managed, shocked that I sounded somewhat brave. He was grown, towering over me. Forty years or so, maybe older. It was hard to tell with his goggles and scarf obscuring most of his face, but I didn’t doubt that he could gut me in the blink of an eye. “It’s been two weeks since this trap’s been full, and the catch is mine.”

“I know. I’ve been watching.”

“It’s my catch,” I repeated sternly, even though my skin was crawling.

“Perhaps it can be mine, for a trade.” He pulled the lodestone from the breast pocket of his vest and showed me the indentation, telling me how it worked.

“That’s worth more than a quail. More than twenty,” I said, eyeing the stone suspiciously.

“It will point north always,” he insisted. “Even in the silent storms.”

“No one in their right mind would want to trade a thing like that.”

He shrugged. “Don’t need it where I’m going.”

“You’re lying,” I said. “It doesn’t work, or you wouldn’t give it up.”

“It works, trust me.”

“Why should I trust a mangy old trader who’s been spying on my traps?”

“Because I know your destiny, Delta.” I went rigid. Maybe he’d overheard my name as I left camp—he’d been spying, after all—but I gripped my knife harder. “I know your destiny, and I know mine. The stars tell it. You are meant to have this lodestone, and I am meant to find another.”

“The stars don’t say things like that. They don’t speak of individual people, just the earth’s greater fate.”

“They speak of everything, if you know how to read them properly. If you have the right map.” His eyes cut into me, deep and piercing and gray. My back felt as hot as coals.

Suddenly I wanted him gone.

“Toss over the stone,” I instructed. He did. I squeezed it in the palm of my hand. It felt icy cold despite having been in his vest pocket, and when I held it out, the indentation pointed north, as he promised it would. If it continued to do so during silent storms, I’d be making out like a bandit. If it didn’t, it was no loss. I’d catch another quail in time, and at least he’d have moved on.