Lucky for them indeed, Rector thought, when a rhythmic bluster of faint background noise became loud enough to catch his attention. With the mask rubbing against his hair, making static sounds against his ears, it was hard to say at first, but eventually—yes—he detected the draw and puff of something breathing. And it wasn’t one of his fellow party members, he was fully certain of that.

He stopped without noticing he’d stopped. He stood in his tracks like an animal aware of a predator, like a small thing wanting to become smaller for fear of a big thing.

Everyone looked at him.

Rector held up a finger, pointing at nothing but the gray-green sky beyond the Blight. He tried to ask if they heard the noise, too, if they knew where it was coming from, and was it close—was it as close as it felt? But when he opened his mouth, it was too dry to speak.

Angeline backed up against him, readying her net. Over her shoulder, she said to him, “I hear him, too, Red.”

He pushed himself against her. Knowing that something was coming for him yet again, he felt better with her beside him.

“Stay calm,” she urged. She passed her net to Houjin, who didn’t quite know what to do with it except to hold it ready. She pulled a wrapped, fresh fish out of her pack. It must’ve weighed ten pounds, Rector thought wildly—it could’ve fed a family of four, or half a dozen orphans in a Catholic home outside the wall. Why hadn’t they ever gone fishing to feed the kids? Did nobody in the church know how?

Frantic, disjointed thoughts scattered through his head, tumbling in all directions as his fear stirred them up and shook them.

“He wants me,” he breathed.

“Red, my boy … he doesn’t know what he wants.”

The fish was still on a line as thick as a cable, with a great metal hook fastened through its mouth, jabbing through its cheek. If there’d ever been any blood, it was gone now. And Rector didn’t know what fish blood looked like, anyway, or if they even had blood … and now his mind was racing so wildly that the thoughts came faster and faster, each upon the heels of the last one. He could not remember having ever thought so quickly or so clearly about nothing at all of any importance.

He wanted a hit of sap worse than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. That’d slow his mind down, wouldn’t it? Sap would fix it. It’d temper his fluttering heart, drag his thoughts down, keep him calm. Keep him ready for any kind of action that required more thought than running and screaming, in case running and screaming weren’t enough.