I step through to find the Oracle where I left her yesterday. Her pale hair is still knotted atop her head, but her clothes are different. Today she wears a faded top tucked into a skirt of many layers, some so sheer that lower sections of fabric bleed through like a sunset.

“Delta of Dead River. You’ve thought of something?”

“Show it to no one,” I recite. “Unless you trust them with your own life, keep it hidden. Always. That was the only rule of the map, the full rule. I thought maybe the exact wording might help.”

“Sit.” She nods at the chair. “Let’s break this down together.”

Reed leaves us to the task. I lose track of time as the Oracle scribbles in her dirt tray and wipes it clear and scribbles again. She mumbles and studies and asks me to repeat the rule multiple times, but throughout it all, her brow remains creased. Eventually she adds a few drops of water to her tray to keep the dirt from drying out. I watch the soil suck up the liquid, my mouth watering. I almost ask the Oracle for a drink—it seems unlikely that water she uses in this manner would be drugged—but I am afraid the question will look suspicious. I don’t want her to mention anything to Reed, so I bite my lip and try to ignore the scratching in my throat.

“Why do you help him—the General?” I ask, finally breaking the silence.

She glances at me sternly. She can’t be far into her twenties, but I feel like a child under her scrutinizing gaze. “Know this, Delta: we are all prisoners here in Bedrock. It is not lost on me that my imprisonment brings more privilege and comfort than those who work the fields. But everyone who was brought to Bedrock has been robbed of their choices. I was brought here as a child. My father stayed because he saw shelter and water and food.”

“And you?”

She glances at the curtained door and drops her voice to a whisper. “I stay because I see that the General’s resources are fading. I am provided with less water than I was years ago. The rations have grown smaller. Most may not have noticed, but I see the truth, especially in the water that flows over the Backbone. It was wider in my childhood, the falls broad and beautiful. Now its volume has lessened, and not merely because of the upper dam. His paradise is truly on borrowed time. If I cannot read this map, if the gods are not timely in their return and we do not find the Verdant soon, we will all perish. Everyone within Bedrock. And only a few men here deserve that fate. I refuse to doom everyone for the sins of a handful.”