His buddies chuckle up front. It’s dead silent in these wastes—nothing but the creak of the wheels and their occasional grunts as they drag the wagon over a stubborn rut—and our voices have carried. Apparently they’ve never caught a sale that has history with one of them, and this is amusing.

“How’d you know it was me?” I ask Asher quietly.

“The scar above your eye.”

He put it there when we were wrestling one summer. A hard tackle, my head striking a sharp rock. Ma said I was lucky it wasn’t worse, that I could have died if I’d fallen differently. I wear that luck daily now, in the form of a pale scar that bisects my right brow.

I catch Asher watching me. His eyes seem huge, his jaw slack. For the briefest moment he looks like a version of the boy I once knew. It makes the relief I felt at West Tower come surging back. Then he frowns, and the magic is lost. He’s just someone who’s conned me.

“What are you playing at, Asher? You trying to make me feel like we share something? That you’re not carting me off to be sold?”

“No, I just . . .” He sighs and looks away. “I’ve been looking for you—for the pack—since I got out.”

I pause, turning this unexpected answer over in my mind. “How long’s that been?”

“Six moons.”

“Where were you before?”

His throat bobs as he swallows, but he refuses to make eye contact.

“Who are your buddies?”

Again, he stays quiet.

I glance through the cage and into the heavens. The Gods’ Star shines to the north, mocking me with its brilliance. As the seasons change, the other stars rotate around it, reminding us that every fate, every path, is tied back to our gods. This was true before they deserted us. It will be true even if they never return. Like my lodestone, the Gods’ Star shows the way north. The problem is we’re moving away from it. The wagon isn’t tracking north toward Powder Town, but almost due east.

“Asher, where are we going?”

“Don’t answer that,” one of the men snaps from the front.

“Where the hell are you taking me?”

“Tell her to shut up before I make her,” the other says.

“Shut up, Delta.” Asher’s voice is callous and firm. It could be an act, a way to keep the men happy. But it could also be who Asher is now. Like he said, I don’t know him anymore.