Evin turned back to his friend. “Well, yes, we don’t know much about her yet,” he said as they veered their course to walk around a cluster of trees. “But I say we should use her help as long as we can. Her magic will come in handy in a fight.”

Jorick opened his mouth to speak but once again tripped over his feet. He grabbed onto Evin’s arm to steady himself. “Sorry,” he muttered as he righted himself and resumed following the blue trail through the grass. “Anyway, I just don’t trust magic. Spending your whole life by yourself, reading books to learn how to control things you shouldn’t be able to control … it’s just creepy, that’s all.”

Evin smirked. “What do you trust, then?”

Jorick patted the sword at his side. “Steel. Man-made, perfectly natural steel. Like my dad always says, a man is … whoa!”

Once more Jorick stumbled over his feet. This time, there was no catching himself. Jorick pinwheeled his arms as he tried to regain his balance, letting the food sack fall to the ground. But it was no use. He lurched forward and fell face first into the dirt.

“Everything all right up there?”

Evin looked over his shoulder to see Betilivatis stopped behind them, her hand held high in the air and a smile on her face. Seeing Evin staring at her, she shot her hand to her side and adjusted her look to one of concern.

Spitting dirt and grass from between his lips, Jorick sat up and looked back, face red with embarrassment. “Yeah,” he said. “Just clumsy I guess.”

“Well, be more careful,” Betilivatis said as she resumed following the trail. As she passed Jorick where he sat in the grass brushing the dirt off his shirt, she glanced down at him over her nose. “Wouldn’t want you falling and accidentally impaling yourself on that trusty, man-made, perfectly natural steel sword.”

With that, Betilivatis walked on, the bits of blue dust continuing to swirl into her satchel as she passed.

Jorick got to his feet and picked up the food sack. “See,” he muttered to Evin as the two boys followed Betilivatis and her magic trail. “Creepy.”

Evin watched Bet forge ahead. “Yes,” he agreed. “She’s definitely strange.”

The trio reached the trail’s end as the sun began its westward descent behind the great white wall. What they found was another set of ruins, even older than those at Curston. A small river cut a path through the middle of the ruins, from east to west. The water crested and formed waterfalls over buildings that had collapsed into the riverbed.

As the last bits of blue sand disappeared into Betilivatis’s vial, the girl put her hands on her hips, pursed her lips, and surveyed the crumbling pillars and churning water before them.