She pushed her palms out in front of her, not liking the stone-like quality his eyes held. “But I don’t have to mention I met you. I’ll only tell them about us—I mean, my friends and I. My knot.”

A loaded moment passed as he surveyed her and she tried to decipher him.

Atlas shifted his gaze to look behind her.

He’s lonely. The unbidden thought sprang from nowhere. Yet, he didn’t seem eager for company.

Atlas was a mystery Romy couldn’t solve. She lowered her palms. “Look, you stay here if you want. But I’m not stopping until nightfall.”

She strode forwards a few metres to make her point and glanced back casually—as if her stomach weren’t twisting at the thought of being alone again. “You coming?” she asked.

Romy soldiered on without waiting for his reply, straight-backed. Even so, her ears were strained behind her, and her speed was deliberately slow.

She ignored the relieved buckling of her legs, moments later, at the sound of his following footsteps.

* * *

Atlas steadfastly refused to let her see the ocean before morning. He didn’t give her a reason not to. But maybe the ocean sucked you in at night, or crocodiles swarmed the beach. The book of the man lost at sea loomed in her mind. Romy only conceded because she wouldn’t be able to search for Knot 27 with the light gone. She didn’t want to miss them out of stupidity.

For now, she was happy to play in the sand. Romy knew she was greatly amusing the large man across from her, but he didn’t say anything or openly laugh. The LI-924 silica tiles on their ships, heat regulators capable of withstanding great changes in temperature, were made from sand—obviously a very different type of sand.

“What will you do if you can’t find your friends?” Atlas asked.

Romy blinked at the sand running between her fingers. “I will find my knot. They’re alive.”

“What if you find the wreckage and they’re all dead?” he asked softly.

For a few moments a weight compressed her chest so fully, no air was able to enter her lungs. Why does he keep saying these things?

“Shush, Rosemary. Breathe.” Atlas’s warm hand circled her back.

Her heart broke. That was what Deimos said before they crashed. She couldn’t stand it anymore.

She whirled on him. “Do you know, Atlas? Have you seen them? Is that why you keep saying such horrible things? Are they all—?” Romy couldn’t say it.

Her anger morphed into hopeless tears, and she gulped large mouthfuls of air as sobs wracked her body.

He pulled her close. “Stop. No, I haven’t seen anything. It’s okay.”

She tried to pull away. “Then why do you sound so sure they’re gone?”