“No.” I pushed her away. “I’m not leaving you. I can’t lose everyone!”

She smiled, her eyes shining. “You promised to save Finn, remember? It’s not goodbye. I’ll be right here when it’s over.”

She was lying; they were both lying. I felt like I was suffocating. I had not come all this way only to abandon them now. Osan grasped my forearms.

“If you choose not to pay the debt, that’s fine,” he whispered. He drew me close for a second. “But you need to run, all right? For Finn, for Kamillian, for me. Run, Just El.”

He let me go.

“You can do this,” said Millie. “Go.”

“It’s not goodbye,” I said, backing away. “Promise me it’s not goodbye.”

She nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”

I turned, my heart breaking, and ran down the hill. I could hear Cats, their coarse braying calls ringing out in the silence. Stones skittered over the ground around me; I almost tripped, but caught myself and stumbled on.

Make it count, Elfreda, whispered Cyde.

The path curved sharply, drawing a red slash through the narrow valley. On either side the rocks stood like an honour guard, and the dark orange soil grew powdery, rising up in clouds of dust each time my feet hit the ground. I could hear Millie and Osan’s voices behind me; they had reached the valley floor.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. Stay safe.

The Star’s consciousness flickered inside me, and the landscape stuttered as visions rippled through it. A sea of black blossoms burst open from the grass, then wilted in seconds and evaporated like smoke. With a crack, the path split in two. My foot caught on the edge of the fissure and I was sent sprawling.

From the top of the reservoir, a shout rang out. I had been spotted.

I picked myself up. Run. The ground trembled like an enormous creature disturbed from its sleep. Out of the cracked path, a seething mass of termites surged to the surface. Their bodies crunched under my feet, and still more kept appearing, emerging from the ground as the cracks branched and grew wider, pouring over one another in a furious river. From deep below, I heard a plaintive keening sound.

Adrenaline powered me forward, and I pushed myself to run even faster. Ahead of me, where the fissure gaped open widest, a white hand emerged from the ground.

I did not stop. The termites swarmed ankle-deep, biting, vicious, their tiny mandibles tearing at my calves. The pale hand gripped the side of the fissure and levered itself upwards. Drawing closer, I could see that it was composed entirely of buzzing locusts with chalk-coloured wings. Another hand groped through to the surface, crushing the termites in its path. Then the headless torso appeared, followed by legs and twitching feet. A grotesque parody of a body. The creature took a step forward, and its chest split open to reveal crimson ribs like teeth, stretching outwards to devour me.