“Found the renovations,” she said.

I stood on my toes, and followed her line of sight. The barn doors stood wide open, but there were no farming implements or animals inside. Instead, mounds of loose earth were piled up next to the building, and the ground inside sloped steeply downwards beyond the door.

“I wonder what she’s trying to dig up,” Millie muttered.

I could not see much of the pit, but if the excavated dirt was anything to go by, it ran deep. Enormous steel panels lay stacked beside the entrance, shining in the sun.

“Maybe she means to bury something.” I did a quick count of the number of panels beside the barn. At least enough to cover the floor of the building. “Something she doesn’t want found?”

Millie shook her head. “Then this is far too conspicuous. If your Reverend had bodies to hide, she’d be better off throwing them over the Edge.”

As I stared, the vision emerged from the barn. Despite the distance between us, I could hear him breathing. His skin was stained with mud, like he had crawled out of the ground. His eyes found mine, and for a few seconds, he just stared at me. I balled my hands into fists.

He turned away and began rubbing himself against the wall.

“I think we’re done here,” I said, my voice flat.

We kept to the perimeter wall until we reached the road. Millie noticed I was shaking, and touched the small of my back.

Although I shared most things with her, I would never speak about this vision, or the fact that the man bore a striking resemblance to Declan Lars.

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

We reached Ceyrun as the sky darkened. Dusty workers queued at the gates, and an Acolyte checked their names off her roster one by one. At the roadside, an ox cart waited for indentured labourers to climb aboard. The convicts would be taken to lodges in the Berai province—their home until the completion of their sentences.

Millie had not said a word since we left Verje’s estate. I was miserable, guilty, and increasingly anxious in the wake of her silence. This was unlike her; she was naturally expressive and carelessly sociable, but now her face was closed to me. Should I say sorry? Should I try to make conversation? Every topic that came to mind was either pathetically trivial or hideously self-involved, and while Millie had every right to be angry, I still wished that she would talk to me.

As a result, I was a little taken aback when she stopped at the corner of Swallow Road and apologized.

“What are you saying sorry for?”

Civilians passed us; we stood like rocks in a river. A grumbling man moved from one streetlamp to the next, lighting them.