Travis and Harry continue to murmur together, Travis's light head tilted toward Harry's dark one as they whisper, trying to determine what to do next. The rain throws off the Unconsecrated's ability to sense us—the air heavy with water, our scent dulled. Some have wandered away from the fence on either side, slipping back into the Forest. It's a welcome reprieve from the crushing sound of their moans, even though if the wind changes I can still hear the last gasps of the battle in the village just down the path.

The Unconsecrated are a determined foe that never sleeps. I know that the villagers must take advantage of the rain for their attack—the scent of human flesh deadened in the water-soaked air making it harder for the Unconsecrated to find them.

Every now and then Harry or Travis will raise his voice and the Unconsecrated will stir out in the Forest. Each time Cass hisses for them to be quiet and once, when one of the Unconsecrated curls his fingers through the fence behind her, rust flakes drifting to the ground, she begins to whimper.

I want to place my arm around her but the space here is too narrow, our bodies too awkwardly arranged with Jacob in her lap.

“There is an end to the Forest, Cass,” I tell her, trying to comfort her. “There's an Outside—

there's more out there.”

“So what?” she says, her voice quivering.

“Don't you want to know what's on the other side?” I ask her. “To see the ocean? To know that there is more? To find a place that isn't touched by all this?” I wave my arms at a thin Unconsecrated man scraping at the fence but the night is so dark I doubt she can see me.

“The ocean has always been your dream, Mary, not mine.” She pauses for a moment and suddenly I feel a hand on my cheek. I flinch, not expecting it, but she keeps her chilled flesh against me. The rain has caused her fingertips to wrinkle.

“It's the only way for us to make it,” I say. “For Jacob to have a chance at a life.”

“Our place is in the village. Jacob's place is with his parents,” she says.

I want to shake her but instead keep my fingers in the fur of Argos's back.

“Don't you see? Everything has changed,” I say. “Jacob's parents may not have even survived.

Nothing will be the same.”

She moves her hand from my cheek to cover my mouth. “I don't want to hear such things,” she says, her voice even and serious. “Don't you see that believing the village is gone means that everyone we have ever known is dead? I won't give up that easily on them. And neither should you.”