I can still smell it—that awful intestine stink. I can feel its claws and its hooks digging into me. A part of me wishes it wasn’t dead. Wants to go back and find it, to watch it suffer. A smarter part—the survivor—wants never to see a Reaper again.

I stab the sword into the ground and haul myself up out of the chair.

Immediately, the ground lurches beneath me. I stumble into Malik and he tries to take my elbow, but I pull away. I’m tired of being helped. I rest my hands on my knees and wait for the spinning to pass.

“You were delirious in the night,” Malik says, watching me.

“Everything hurts,” I say, stretching upright.

“It will,” he says. “Mind if I take a look at your back?”

I turn around and feel his cold fingers roll up the edge of my hoodie. Gently, he peels up my shirt. The air hits my exposed skin and I get goose bumps.

“What’s it look like back there?”

He lets my shirt fall. “It’ll heal,” he says. “But it’ll take a few days at least. We’ll have to stay here. To recover. And to train.”

I pull my hood down and step up to the rip in the side of the plane’s hull. Outside, in the moonlight, through bent metal shards, I see a graveyard of planes and between them, huddled around fires, in ponchos, fugitive figures.

“Hermits,” Malik says at my shoulder. “Don’t worry. You can trust ’em. I’ve been here many times before. They got the best medicines going. The one you’ll meet, AM-41, he took a slug out my leg once. Hardly left a scar.”

“They’re with the Collective?” I ask.

Malik shrugs. “They’re mostly on our side. When they can be bothered.”

“I thought I dreamt them,” I say.

“They’re real,” he says. “Normals drove them out of the cities, claiming like should live with like.” He shakes his head. “Different world, same old hate. But they’re the right sort to hide something important.” Then he shakes his head and his eyes darken. “I’ve known AM-41 for years but even I had no idea he had the Wraith until Gabe told me. Hermits know how to keep a secret.”

I shiver and say nothing. Sword at my hip, I return to the fire.

Then there’s a blast of cold air and the dirt spins.

I look up to see Akuji and Vidhan, caked in dust and filthy, enter through the hole in the fuselage, carrying firewood bundled in their arms.

Behind them—in shadow—a tall, outlandish figure.

A hermit.