But that’s it. Everywhere else there’s a whole lot of nothing. Dry ocean beds, sweltering desert, or worse—Burning Ground, where liquid bubbles to the surface, so hot it can kill you. Flint says the earth will warn you of it. You can see the steam rising and the wastes themselves shifting into wild colors—orange and rust and sometimes even a blue brighter than the sky. But I still have nightmares of taking missteps in that dangerous land.

Not that I’ve ever headed toward it before. Not until today.

You have to get to West Tower first, and then Powder Town, I tell myself. No sense worrying about what lies beyond.

I take it one step at a time. One foot in front of the other. One dry-mouthed sip from the waterskin to every feeding session for Baby. By the time West Tower comes into view, I’m drenched in sweat and the sun is setting.

Like Zuly’s rig, West Tower has a platform that can be reached by ladders, but that’s where the similarities end. Instead of a hut on stilts, this is a spike on a platform. The structure is impossibly tall, reaching up into the sky as if it means to stab it. I can’t even guess at how the thing was built. Everything about the Old World puzzles me.

Still, it will do fine for the night. I can climb to the rusted platform and sleep with some shelter over my head. At my first thought of rest, Baby, of course, begins crying.

“I swear to the gods you are lucky I don’t desert you,” I grumble at her.

She wails louder.

“Oh, shut it. We’ll eat after I climb.”

That’s when a voice croaks out, “Help.”

I freeze, squinting through the twilight.

“Up here! Help! Please.”

I scan the tower until I find a figure on the eastern edge, secured to a section of metal that extends into the sky. A skirt waves along the girl’s shins. The rest of her is in shadow, too difficult to make out in the sun.

Trap! my brain shouts. But looking out across the desert, I can’t find a single puff of dust or any other movement that might suggest a raiding party is closing in on their bait.

“Please,” the girl says again. Her voice, low and parched, cracks on the word. Her throat is surely caked with dust. “Please. I need water.”

The girl goes on begging and Baby goes on crying, and the truth remains the same: I need a place to sleep. It’s on West Tower or in the open. I leave the goat and dragger, draw my bone knife, and scurry up the ladder, with Baby still wailing in the sling.