The air is so dry it crackles, drowning out the moans of the Unconsecrated.

We are trapped, fatally so. Beyond us is nothing—the wide stretch of village below with puddles of Unconsecrated. Behind us is the fire, slowly eating its way down the long platforms.

Every now and again flames drop like liquid onto the Unconsecrated, which become walking furnaces lighting each other ablaze, spreading the inferno to the structures in the village.

“Maybe the flames will kill them all and then we can escape,” Cass says, her chin resting on Jacob's convulsing body.

The men don't answer. Instead, they stand frozen, as if action would be too risky. I can already see blisters spreading across Jed's right arm.

Our world is filled with heat and light and finally Travis says so softly that his words are almost drowned, “One of us will have to get through them. One of us will have to go to the path to tie off the rope. We have to get off the platforms and onto that path.” Cass squeezes Jacob, slipping her hands over his ears as Jed and Harry nod.

“And it can't be you,” Harry says to Travis, “because of your leg.” I roll his words around in my head, searching for the accusation, but I don't find it.

“I could go,” I whisper. I wait for their objections, pray for them, and after too many heartbeats they come. Simple, straightforward.

“No, you won't go,” they say. “It will be one of us.”

Jed and Harry don't look at each other as they contemplate which one of them will sacrifice himself for the rest of us.

“I can at least get the rope,” Travis mumbles as he hobbles back down the platform, back toward the fire that grows ever closer.

Jed places his arm over Harry's shoulder and Harry places his arm around Jed's waist and they walk a distance away, bending their heads together.

They look as if they're in prayer and I wonder if this is all my fault because I stopped believing in God so many months ago. I wonder if I gave up my belief in the ocean, if I gave up Travis, if I gave up everything that stood in the way of me and God—if I could save us.

If I could save them.

Travis slips around Jed and Harry huddled together and kneels awkwardly at the edge of the platform closest to the Forest of Hands and Teeth and the path that could be our salvation.

I crawl over next to him and help him tie the knots.

“I don't understand how this will work,” I tell him, my fingers shaking and fumbling.

“It will work the same way it worked to get us over here. But someone will have to be on the other side to tie off the rope,” he says.

He places his hands over mine, the feeling so warm and familiar. “Those days back there, in the house. That is my world. That is my truth,” he says. “That is my ocean.” In his eyes I can see the jumble of words that roll through his heart and when he opens his mouth he says only, “I wish I could have kept you safe.” He trails his finger across my lips and then stands to take the rope to Harry and Jed, to prepare them for the crossing.