Tribute. She wasn’t taking Flicker away to lock him in a prison-book, but from the sprites’ point of view it looked the same. She wanted to promise them she’d bring him back, but how could she? No wonder Pyros wanted us to get moving quickly.

With good-byes completed, Flicker opened the single door that led back out into the tunnels beyond the village. Alice followed and let it crash closed behind her.

A grinding, crackling sound filled the air as soon as they’d rounded the first bend. Flicker stopped and waited, and a moment later Ishi bounded into view, stumpy rocktail wagging and both heads drooling flame. The fire-sprite bent and rubbed the dogthing affectionately.

“Is he coming with us?” Alice said, giving the creature an appraising look.

“Ishi?” Flicker shook his head. “He couldn’t survive on the surface. I can eat anything that will burn, more or less, but he needs molten rock.” He looked at the dogthing and added, “That’s why there’s even fewer of them left than there are of us.”

“Oh.”

“Take care of everyone, Ishi.” Flicker rubbed the dogthing’s muzzles, then pointed the way they had come. Ishi gave a double bark, like a pair of rocks cracking, and trotted off. Flicker gestured and said, “Come on. It’s this way.”

They walked in silence for a while, winding through tunnel after tunnel, always tending slightly upward. Sometimes the tubes connected of their own accord, joining up like tributaries to a river, but more often doorways had been cut between them by long-ago sprites. Here and there, rock-falls had blocked the path, and they had to backtrack and work around, but Flicker’s confidence never wavered.

“Is this all in your memories?” Alice said. “The ones you got from your . . . spark?”

Flicker looked back at her, glowing eyes unreadable. “Pyros told you about that?”

“A little.”

The boy shrugged. “Some of them. I’ve done a lot of exploring on my own too. I told you I’m the only person in our village to have been to the surface.”

“What’s it like?”

“Nothing special. Cold. Dark.”

They walked on for a few heartbeats. The light from Flicker’s hair was bright enough to see by, so Alice hadn’t invoked the devilfish, but the slow churn of the colors made the shadows bend weirdly.

“I remember your world,” Flicker said abruptly. “Almost none of the others can, but I do. It’s so . . . bright.”

“Sometimes,” Alice said.

“And strange. Full of things to eat, but also so wet. I remember rain.” He shivered. “I don’t know how my ancestors stood it.”

“Does water really hurt you?” Alice said.

Flicker looked back at her again. “Not hurt, exactly. Just . . it’s . . . urgh. Disgusting. Does it rain very often?”

“It depends where you are,” Alice said. “Where I live, it rains all the time, in the summer. In the winter, it snows.”

“What’s snow?”