“Careful enough to show respect,” Beko said. “There's nothing to say we're facing a fight.”

Nomi let Beko hold her up this time, and they walked away, leaning against each other. Noon and Rhiana went ahead, glancing back several times at the gruesome fetus-tree, and Nomi saw true exhaustion in their features for the first time. We need to rest, she thought, or we'll be making mistakes. But as they walked, she felt her sense of wonder extend to Beko—the idea that they were seeing things never before seen by Noreelan eyes. With such discoveries to make, sleep was the last thing she wanted.

IT FELT LIKE forever since the sun had touched their skins. They walked toward where it was setting, and Nomi relished the warmth, and thought of that high, dark cliff that the sun barely kissed. It soothed her cooled bones and calmed her cramped muscles.

They followed the line of the cliff for a while, and her vision was still split between land and cloud. It reminded her of those parchment pages, and the line on each sheet that Ramus had said described the Great Divide. She was on the other side now, the side where words and images were drawn, away from the blankness beyond the cliff wall.

When the bizarre tree was out of sight behind them they turned south and headed for what Nomi thought of as inland. They passed several more trees, but these were still growing, and bearing natural fruits. She had never seen anything like them: spindly branches, silvery bark, small husky fruits with spiked skins to protect them from birds and other predators. Their route took them into a natural hollow in the side of a hill, and here they decided to camp. Beko, Rhiana and Noon gathered a few steps from Nomi and talked in hushed tones, looking around and never once glancing her way.

When Beko came back to her, his face was grim.

“What's wrong?” Nomi asked.

“Worried,” he said, and he sat beside her without elaborating.

“Well?” she asked after a pause.

“It's a new world,” Beko said. There was fear in his voice now instead of wonder. “We're spending our first night out in the open, we're all beyond exhaustion and we have no idea who or what is out there. And that tree . . .”

“It doesn't mean they're dangerous.”

Beko glared at her.

Nomi shrugged. “Could have been stillborn. A religious thing, a superstition.” Beko drew a short knife and a sharpening stone and began to work, meticulous and slow. “I can't help remembering the bodies we saw down on the cliff.”

“They could have fallen.”

“Or maybe some were pushed.”

He continued sharpening his weapons, and Nomi found the sound soporific. She leaned her head against Beko's shoulder, and he nestled down a little to make her more comfortable.

“What about us?” she asked, half-asleep and less afraid of his answer.