Malaiki crushed some leaves in her hands and rubbed them against my lifeless left shoulder. I flinched but inhaled deeply the sweet yet pungent fragrance of the herbs. After putting water on the fire and mixing in leaves, she pressed a cool, wet rag against my forehead, then gave me a cup of senaba. When the leaves had boiled, she dipped a towel in the water and packed the hot towel on my shoulder.

Meanwhile, just thirty feet away, Victoria washed and prepared Quon’s body, and ten feet beyond her David dug a shallow grave, using a trifold shovel from his pack.

“The GuideBook promises suffering,” Shad said, apparently in response to my words several minutes earlier. “It also promises comfort and relief. But most of that comes in the next world. Here we are but aliens and strangers and pilgrims. We’re not citizens of this world.”

I could feel my flesh burning as he quoted from the GuideBook, “In the new world there will be no more crying or pain.”

“Quon was in pain,” I said. “And I’m in pain!”

“As am I—because we are not yet in the new world.” He shrugged, as if it were that simple.

“The King could have stopped Quon from suffering,” I said, “saved him from dying. Why didn’t he? Does he lack power? Or … does he lack love?”

Shad looked at me, eyes watering, then said in a firm voice, “He lacks neither. The TravelGuide tells us so.”

“He picks a strange way to show love,” I said. “If I had the power, I’d never let a friend die.”

“Are you better than the King, then?” Shad said, pacing, his voice raised. “Would you have Quon live forever in a world like this? He lives now in a far better place, the one for which he was made.”

“If the King is all-powerful, doesn’t that make him Quon’s killer, as surely as if he’d thrown the stones himself?”

“And if he did bring about Quon’s death, was not Quon his to do with as he pleased? Quon was not his own—he was bought with a price, the shed blood of the Sovereign. He knew this. You must learn it too!”

Without thinking, I reached to my belt, fingering the knife I’d taken from Fistface. Quickly I withdrew my hand.

“I miss him already,” Malaiki said, sobbing, removing her healing hands from my throbbing shoulder.

“We’ll see him again,” Shad said, as if that made everything all right. “It’s not the end of our relationship, only an interruption.” He stared at me—I hated his words of cold comfort. “If you had the power, Nick, would you take Quon from the unspeakable joy he now experiences?”

“Yes, I would!” I shouted. “I don’t care what you say. It’s a waste.”