Green aurora smudged the dark. Awa sped toward these shimmering undulations. “I don’t know her name. The conjure woman who lives beyond the light bridge.”

Djola quivered. For two years, whenever Samina’s favorite lights wavered in the sky he’d refused to look. He’d brew an almost lethal sleeping potion, don a blindfold, and hide in a hole. Tonight he was transfixed. The moon was red on its outer edge and more blade than wound, a weapon hacking at Djola’s heart. The aurora pulsed, and his left hand throbbed against the mesh glove; his right eye oozed pus. Spirit debt for Xhalan Xhala.

“Your thoughts are heavy.” Awa drizzled honey into his mouth. Haloed by the aurora, she looked like a demon of old. “I have you. And Fannie guards our breath bodies. Don’t worry.” The sweet taste and her graceful wind dance soothed him. A thousand thousand bees, gossamer wings roaring, hot stingers sparking, surrounded them. Faceted eyes reflected green iridescence and red moonlight. “She calls us.”

“Who? Tell me,” Djola pleaded.

“I think you know who.” Awa had carried them through luminous clouds to—

“Smokeland.” Djola had avoided crossing the border-void since he turned Pezarrat’s fleet to pearls. Samina might see his actions as revenge. He had never dared to smoke-walk without drinking a seed and silk potion. “Stop!” A gelatinous creature exploded, showering them with muck. He pawed slime from his face. “My spirit debt, Hezram will—” The void seeped through his skin, engulfing betrayal, anguish, regret, cloaking even hidden caches of joy. “Hezram, he will find … He…”

“What?” Awa said.

Djola forgot that he had anything to say.

“We can’t linger.” She pulled them into a whirlwind of smoke and poison dust.

Djola resisted, bashing her with silver-mesh fists and booted feet. Void-smoke made it hard to breathe, hard to fight or think. As he got tangled in himself, only one thing remained clear: he should never leave the border realm.

“Hold to your feelings.” Awa gripped him to the bone. Her good arm was muscled and strong, too strong for his dull resistance. “We make the void and we can unmake it.” Bee hearts glittered around her face as they escaped the whirlwind. “See?”

They drifted over land shrouded in shadows. Anguish returned, a mountain, a deluge. “Sugar on dung.” Djola felt flimsy, yet as heavy as a broken promise. “We’re carrying too much weight for Smokeland.” A tendril of border-void chased after them. “Cowards couldn’t bear a return to the everyday—too many possibilities frightened them. Trying to eliminate harsh futures, they conjured the border-void and got trapped in their own spells.”

“The void is lost possibilities?”

“Or stolen ones.”

Awa soared on toward a distant blue horizon, Djola trailing behind her like a banner. “Yari never said people conjured the void.”