Once on the platform, I turn in a quick circle. No movement in the shadows. No hidden threats. The girl faces out toward the desert—it’s how she saw me coming—and I pad toward her back, shocked at how tall she is. At least a head taller than I am, and I’m not short. It’s then I notice that what I mistook for a skirt is really just bindings. Pieces of rope swaying as he struggles. Because it’s a guy tied to the tower. The width of his shoulders; the size of his hands, tied behind his back; the shadow of scruff along the side of his jaw, where his scarf has slipped.

My pulse kicks faster. Baby must sense a change in my demeanor because she finally shuts up.

I edge toward the man and put my blade to his back. He arches, every muscle tensing.

“Where are your friends?”

“No f-friends,” he stammers. “I was robbed two days ago. I just want water and to be cut loose. Please.”

I glance over my shoulder, down to the goat, out toward the horizon. Everything is as it should be, calm, undisturbed. That raid back home has rattled me good, scudded up my judgment and left me fearing everyone. This guy’s no better off than I am: a victim of bad circumstance.

I cut the bindings at his arms, and he brings them to his front, massaging his wrists. I step around him and drop to his feet. These ropes are thicker and will take a bit of sawing.

“Thank you,” he says as I work. “A trader passed by yesterday and didn’t stop.”

“I’ve seen enough bad in the past day to last a lifetime. You’re lucky I feel like doing some good to counter things.”

“That baby yours?” He sounds sad about it.

I glance up. The goggles he wears have been tinted somehow, and though I can tell he’s looking at me, I can’t see his eyes. He flinches. As if looking at me properly has burned him.

“You have to leave,” he says, his voice at a whisper.

I stop sawing at his ankle ropes and stand. “You said you were alone.”

“I lied.”

I don’t know why he’s suddenly warning me. Maybe so I race from the tower and flee into an ambush. I yank his scarf down and put my blade to his throat.

“Please just go. I’m not lying about this. Go!”

There’s a whoosh from above, and I look up to see a pair of boots descending. Their wearer is coming down fast, thanks to a pulley system farther up the tower—the only place I hadn’t checked for enemies. Of course they’d come from the heavens. From the stars.