We stopped in a large plaza in the center of the village. It looked like a giant seashell, with all the roads and buildings spiraling out from the fountain in the center. Clustered around the fountain were dozens of long tables and benches, big enough to seat at least twenty people apiece. Tall trees with thick, sturdy trunks surrounded the clearing, their branches twining together like woven copper. Sunlight trickled between the leaves, creating a dappled pattern of light on the ground.

“This is our main meeting area,” said the man who had been holding my arm. “The weekly forum is tomorrow morning—you’ll need to be here for that.” He glanced at Marin. “Anything else?”

“No,” Marin said. “I’ll take them to”—she glanced over at me and smirked—“the Liberator.”

I bristled, then stood straighter, my shoulders squared. I wasn’t about to let this woman mock me. But she didn’t back down. Her green eyes locked with mine for a long moment, then she said, “Follow me.”

She led us down another spiraling road. Isaak came up beside me as we walked and, in a low voice, said, “This doesn’t exactly seem like a hive of murderous terrorists.”

“It’s just a facade,” I replied.

“Where do you think Gitrin and Ceilos are?”

“In a prison, no doubt.” I thought about the prison in Hope Renewed, in the highest level of the pyramid. It didn’t hold many people. It didn’t have to. Criminals were usually quickly re-educated with a System protocol, or—if they were too great of a threat—euthanized. I didn’t see any tall buildings here in Elytherios, but there had to be a prison somewhere. Every city had a prison.

Marin stopped in a small, triangular-shaped clearing between three buildings. I looked around in confusion. There was no one here except two plivoi—well, workers, anyway; I didn’t know what they called them here in Elytherios. One of them, an elderly man with age-bleached skin, was on the top of a ladder, fiddling with a large piece of glass that hung from the gnarled branches of a tree. The other was a woman. I couldn’t see her face—she had her back to us, holding the ladder steady.

“Degiim, Eos,” Marin called. “There’s someone here to see you.”

The man twisted the glass into position. There was a bright glare for a moment as the glass swung down, and then it was still. Light radiated gently off it, and I realized that this was where the sunlight was coming from: mirrors.

With the mirror secured tightly, the man turned, looking down at Marin, then at Isaak and me. He frowned. “Who are these people?” he said, climbing down from the ladder with surprising agility for someone his age.

I stepped forward. “I am Kyrin Nadin of Hope Renewed citidome. I’m here to see the Liberator.”