If I tell Yorl about seeing Muro, he’ll ask what Muro said. He’d press and press me, and I wouldn’t be able to resist him. I trust him. I would tell him; I know I would. I’d tell Yorl every last thing about the Tree of Souls, and how Muro implied it might’ve chosen me to put it back together.

But I can’t let him know that, can I?

It must be a poem, a story. His path, one way. My path, the other.

I pat him on the shoulder, and we watch the island float away from us. Even as we raise anchor and lower the sails and start to drift away, his green eyes hungrily take in every inch of Rel’donas, every grain of sand of the black volcanic island devoured by his gaze.

“You’ll be back,” I say, certain.

“You don’t know that,” he scoffs. “No one knows that.”

I look out past Rel’donas, at the gray horizon peeking through the mist, and laugh a little, shaking my head.

“I do, Ironspeaker. I do.”

25

25

THE WOLF
WHO WILL
EAT THE WORLD

It doesn’t take long for a handful of bored half-children, half-adults to find the very cool giant metal man in the cargo bay.

“They packed you a present!” Fione chimes to Yorl, stepping delicately around the matronic laid out on the wood, as if sleeping. It takes up nearly the entire floor of the bay, arms and legs as thick as tree trunks splayed out and gleaming in the white mercury light.

“Do you even know how to control this thing?” Malachite grunts, dubious. Yorl jumps with catlike alacrity onto the matronic’s inert body, kneeling down on its chest to look at the copper metal gears there.

“In theory,” the celeon agrees. “I’m still a season away from my piloting test, but I’ve logged a month of practice. Enough to know how to make it stand and lift a box.”

“That’s all we’ll need from it,” Lucien says, dark eyes roving over the matronic with curious awe. “I gather that—at the very least—it’s going to be an extremely large, extremely shiny distraction for the valkerax to gnaw on.”

“And you know how much we love gnawing,” I agree cheerily.

Yorl jumps nimbly down from the matronic. “That reminds me. I should set another batch of sedatives to simmer for you.”

“We can’t be drugging me every time Varia shows up,” I say.

“So you want to rampage around?” Malachite shoots.

“So you want to fight the final battle all by yourself?” I fire back.

He ignores me and looks to Yorl. “Maybe brew something to keep her awake. If she falls asleep, Varia will find us again like she did on the island.”

“Mal,” I whine. “You’re being mean.”

“Yeah, well.” He folds his pale arms over his chest. “You’re being too laid-back about all this.”