“She’ll have mine,” Ana replied. She and Robb hurried down the ramp of the Dossier to the docks, and onward to the far gate at the edge of the city.

Elara squatted outside the wall, almost invisible to the naked eye. When she saw them, she got to her feet and gave a wave. “Did you get the provisions?”

Ana offered out a rucksack.

Elara grabbed it and rifled through it for a can of peaches and popped it open. She turned down the dirt road and began to eat. “Oh man, I was starving. Thanks, Princess.”

“You do know I’m not—”

“A princess, yeah. No one followed you, did they?” She glanced behind them to make sure. Ana and Robb shook their heads, no. “Good, good. Come on—it’s a long trip down into the valley, but at least it’s not raining right now. That would suck.”

“But who exactly are we going to meet?” Robb asked as Elara paused and turned back away from them. “I mean, you didn’t tell us anything, and we’re not just going to follow you to follow you.”

Elara ate another slice of peach and started down the path again, and almost helplessly they had to follow. “Long story short, my parents were archeologists. They wanted to study the ark down in the valley.” She pointed down the mountainside, toward the enormous bone-like carcass reaching out of the tree line. “So they did, even though it was forbidden, and the elders in the city didn’t much like that. They exiled my parents—and me—from Zenteli, and stripped away our last names.”

“Why can’t we take a skysailer down into the valley, though? Why do we have to—” In classic Robb fashion, he tripped over a tree root to exemplify his point. He caught himself and jerked upright again, coolly smoothing down his shirt. “Why do we have to walk?”

Elara pointed a half-eaten slice of peach up to the top of the wall. “Because you see those guard towers? It’s someone’s duty to watch over the ark and make sure no one gets close, and with all the Messiers swarming and shrines burning, they’re definitely on high alert. The ark’s basically holy remains, after all. The last of our history.” She rolled her eyes and tossed the rest of the peach into her mouth. “It’s just rotting down there in the valley. Our entire people’s history is sitting in that ark, and instead of trying to learn about it, we just watch as time eats it away.”

Ana tugged at the collar of her coat and glanced at the canopy of the trees above her. She really didn’t much like nature. All the dirt, and bugs, and humidity. “Why did your parents get in trouble for studying it?”

“The ship’s been unstable since we crashed here a thousand-odd years ago. The elderberries up in that cushy Spire are scared that if we mess with it too much, it’ll go boom and take with it the history stored in its databases. But if we don’t even try to access that history—learn it—isn’t it already, you know, kaboom?”