He let out a sigh, the most condescending of sounds she could imagine. Then he relaxed his hands from their clasp of prayer, let them fall to his side. His head rose to stare straight ahead. Finally, testing her patience—a patience developed by decades of painful practice—he slowly turned toward her and let his gaze find hers.

“We can talk,” he said. “But I want to promise you something.”

“And what is that, exactly?”

He got to his feet, so that now she had to look up at him. Up at his face, an angular stack of brows and cheekbones and jaws, his skull far more prominent than seemed natural.

She let out her own sigh. “What, Mikhail? Seriously. What’s going on?”

“This is my promise,” he replied. “After we talk, and I tell you what I’ve learned, you’ll agree with me that we need to open the Box.”

“Mikhail, enough riddles. Just tell me what the hell is going on.”

He pointed at the sky. At the Heavens.

“He’s back.” A pause. “And others are coming.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Theater of Slumber

Four days had passed since the boat’s arrival. The longest four days of his life. He was there, had watched it creep to shore, had been the first to meet the woman named Kletter. And yet no one deemed him worthy of sharing the slightest bit of news. He was going insane with the absolute, desperate want of information. Anything.

Rumors upon rumors spread across their community like the spray of salty droplets after a massive wave crashes against the shore. She’s crazy, she’s evil, she’s a witch, she’s a nobody, she’s the ancient Ava Paige herself. Not a thing he’d heard so far made an ounce of sense. But that didn’t stop them, four days of frustrating blather.

He thought of himself as a pretty important human. Didn’t everyone? But when it came to the island and the Congress and decisions that mattered, Isaac was a nobody. Barely twenty, and not even a very good blacksmith if he had to be honest. Improving, but kind of sucky. But man, did he love it. He was busily beating a piece of hot iron with something approaching glee when Miyoko came to get his attention. She ended up throwing a bent, discarded nail at his back because apparently she’d called his name several times without a response.

“Hey, what’s up?” He slid the hot piece of metal into a cooling bin—the work-in-progress was supposed to be a spoon but looked more like a paddle. “Did they decide yet?”

She made an impatient twirling gesture for him to finish up already and come outside the Forge.

“Captain Sparks was at the meeting!” he protested. “I’m supposed to run the place until he gets back.”