I don’t know Jai well enough to give him more than a thank-you and a quick hug, but the other warriors share a longer goodbye. Rivers build canyons, and being of the same cohort is a bond that runs just as deep. If this were Vera or one of my friends, I’m not sure I’d ever be able to let go.

We press forward. Jai watches us go, surveying the nearby trees for a vantage point. My last look at the warrior is him scaling a pine that’s thick with needles. Leaving yet another one of her own seems to light a fire in Io, and the sparks carry to the rest of us. Jai is willing to die for this cause—surely I can run a little longer.

Mist swirls between the hills and valleys. Clouds heavy with rain move in from the north. Io pauses to look at them, her breath labored.

“Just one day left,” she says. “With that storm and no food.”

My shoulders drop. We won’t make it.

Droplets of rain pelt a collection of boulders nearby. The water rolls over us, making tiny sounds as it hits our armor. On any other day, I probably would have cried seeing and feeling the weather snuff out whatever hope we have left, but I’m empty and exhausted. We all are.

A sound cuts through the rain. A sound that, as of a few days ago, I know well.

“The train,” Seth says. He jogs in the direction it’s coming from. A minute later, he returns, waving his hand like, Come on. “There are tracks close by. There’s an outpost a half-mile away. The train will stop as it passes.”

Io shakes her head slowly, cursing under her breath. “Skies keep us. We take the damned train.”

Our commanders go first, staying low as the forest starts to thin. Io gives a hold signal, and I crouch, the ferns brushing against my cheeks as the smell of mud and half-rotted plants meets my nose. Ox kneels down, too, close enough that I reach out and put a hand on his arm. He gives me a smile, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I can’t believe you kept that from me,” he says quietly. “That you deserted.”

“If I’d told you, then you’d be complicit in the secret,” I whisper back.

“You told Callen.”

“It just slipped out,” I say. “I promise.”

“We’re moving.” He puts some distance between us, and I don’t try to close it.

Focus, I remind myself. There will be plenty of time to try to make it right with Ox later.