Ark would have expected deformed creatures born of ancient pollution, not this little snub-nosed, wide-eyed beauty, taking fright and vanishing on lithe legs into the twilit forest. He was hungry for the view, enraptured by a marching army of skyscraping trunks vanishing into the distance. Between them, the land seemed lush and healthy. Rays of evening light filtered through from far above, like exploring fingers.

And there, tucked like a bird’s nest into the huge curl of a root, was a cottage, cobbled together from stone and moss. A single swirl of smoke curled from the leaning chimney. Any second now, the door would open. But it didn’t. Was this one of the houses of the mud-pirates? How could they live so far from the sky? If only curiosity could knock and gain entrance, but the box rose too quickly, stealing his view.

Gradually he was carried farther and farther away from the ground. The motion made him feel queasy. Was it only two days since he’d fled from the palace, slipping like a slug from the guards? The problem of what to do loomed large. As the box ascended, his homesickness began to abate. At a mile’s height, branches began to snake out horizontally from the trunk, and these were adorned with the familiar additions of ropeways, scaffolding, plumbing pipes, and the messy business of Dendran civilization, held together with the iron that was smelted from the pile of stuff beneath his backside. It was familiar, safe.

As the box climbed higher, it swayed perilously close to an empty branchway. Ark had no time to even think as he bent his legs and leapt. Twigs alive! he mouthed as he landed in a heap on solid wood once again. He rolled over and stood up, looking around to make sure he wasn’t observed. Feeling the wood beneath his feet again filled him with hope. And when he realized where he was, he felt that the Goddess was surely with him. The iron ore’s journey had taken him not just up but westward as the series of cogs and giant wheels thrust the crushed rocks and Ark’s container one step nearer the smelting districts. Home was only a half-hour walk. He wanted to kneel down and kiss the bark in gratitude.

As the dusk settled and shadows lengthened across the branchways, his sense of freedom vanished. Nothing had changed. His house was probably being watched. And what did he have to tell his mother? That he’d failed to get to the King? Maybe he should head straight to the castle. The clocking-off bells rang out through the forest, and the woodways would soon be filling up with tired Dendrans rushing to get home.