“Slopes upwards,” said Osan.

I lifted my head. The sky over the mountains had turned orange. “What?”

“We’re walking uphill. That’s good; we must nearly be at the end of it.”

“Thank the Eater,” muttered Millie. She pulled her foot out of the mud with a scowl.

My own feet were ice-cold and aching, but the weight on my shoulders lightened. Osan was right. We had been gradually climbing for a while; I had just been too fixed on the ground in front of me to notice.

Despite our fatigue, we moved faster. The ground dried, and the reeds were replaced by scrub, then small trees. A few stars winked in the pale evening sky.

“Up there,” said Millie. “There’s a building.”

Along the ridge of the hill, a dark square stood silhouetted against the sky. I sagged with relief. I was so tired that I could hardly stand; the idea of shelter and warmth and rest was almost enough to bring tears to my eyes.

“Go on.” Osan gave me a small push. “I’ll see if I can find anything to make a fire.”

I hesitated.

“It’s fine,” he said, sensing my unease. “I won’t stray again. Go.”

I followed Millie up the hill. For the first time, the path split—one way led up to the house, and the other snaked away over the verge. I struggled up the final rise and gasped. A vast lake, dark and glittering, gleamed with the last rays of sunlight. Further along the water’s edge lay a wide beach dotted with sun-bleached trees, all long dead.

I squinted against the light. I could have sworn I saw larger ripples peeling away from the shore.

“It’s not a lake.” Millie gazed over the water, her expression thoughtful. “It’s a reservoir.”

The stone building sat beside the path, right on the waterline. Thick moss coated the walls, black and slimy where the stones met the water, fuzzy and green higher up. The roof was entirely gone, open to the air, and the entrance had collapsed.

“A boathouse?” I suggested.

“It looks ancient. I wonder when someone was last here.” She turned to study the marsh stretching into the distance behind us. “It makes you wonder what all of this looked like before.”

Sunlit hills, green spreading forests, soil so fertile and rich that plants overran each other, the melody of water over rocks, and a city that glowed, flowers of every shade, every colour. I said nothing. The memory hung over the present like a honeyed glaze.

“At any rate, Celane won’t be able to travel any further before morning.” Millie nodded to herself. “No one would dare cross that marsh at night.”