Akuji fake lunges at Vidhan and he sidesteps her in a blur of speed. He laughs and then comes and leans against the tree and looks down at us.

“Ready to go?” he says.

And I feel it then. The burn of Malik’s name tattooed on my heart.

31

“Pathways,” Vidhan says, jerking his thumb somewhere over his shoulder. “I was takin a piss back there and saw ’em. Not far to go.”

I recall something Malik told me, a long time ago in Lūna.

There are pathways. Gateways from one world to the next.

We find them. Keep them safe and free.

But when I squint in the direction Vidhan’s pointing, I see nothing.

Vidhan laughs and shakes his head. “Mate! Ya still bloody haven’t read that chapter on Falling, have ya?”

“You tell me when I’ve had the time, Vidhan.”

“Falling,” Malik says, standing, using the tree as leverage, “doesn’t happen for no reason. When you first Fall, the pathways are invisible, but afterwards you begin to see them. And when that happens, you’ll never unsee them. They’re like the Northern Lights—they come and go, never in exactly the same place. And they move, like air currents. And, like currents, we feel them pull.”

I grab hold of his extended hand and he jerks me to my feet.

“Come,” he says, “and you’ll see.”

Malik stands with his arms at his side. He closes his eyes and tilts his face to the sky. Akuji and Vidhan do the same. We’re standing in the middle of the field. All around us, the stalks lie flattened. A single flake of ash whirls down from somewhere far above and lands on Malik’s cheek. He brushes it away absently and when he opens his dark eyes, they burn with intensity.

“There!” he says, pointing above.

I follow his gaze.

The Ares sky is apocalyptic, the colour of rusted metal…and it’s empty. A faraway bank of storm clouds, that’s all. And a crimson smudge of rain.

Do you see it? Malik’s voice blooms into my head.

“I don’t see anything,” I say, scanning the sky.

“A shimmering,” he says aloud. “Like heat waves.”

“It’s freezing!”

“Look with your mind,” he counters. “Close your eyes and feel them.”

So, I stand the same way he does, arms to my side. And I close my eyes.

I concentrate on the velvety darkness behind my eyelids.

Nothing.

Then, a change. Suddenly, I feel a density in the air—a weight—tugging and swirling around me. And it’s not the wind. I begin to realise I’m able, if I concentrate, to isolate—to feel—each particle of air, vibrating and moving. Pulling.

“Now look,” Malik says. “Open your eyes and see.”

I flick them open.

And I see.