‘It’s okay, Ella. They helped you see that attack before any of us could. We may not know their full power, but you seem to be doing just fine with them.’

‘I guess so. I wonder if there’s anything more I can get them to do.’

‘What have you seen as we’ve been walking?’ Six asks.

‘Trees, trees and more trees,’ Ella says. ‘I keep waiting for something to happen, or to see something unusual. I wish I knew for sure this meant there is nothing for me to see.’ I can tell she is frustrated with herself, not the glasses.

With the small branch in my hand, I bend a large tree over to create shade on the boulders. ‘Well, keep trying.’

Ella holds the dark glasses up to the light. As she turns them over it’s almost as though I can read her thoughts, thanking me for making her feel like she’s part of the team, doing some good.

I look over at Six, who has stretched out on the ground. ‘What about you, Six?’ I ask. ‘You want to check out anything in my Chest?’

She stands, yawns and looks up the path. ‘I’m okay, I think. Maybe later.’

‘Sure,’ I say. I walk down to the stream and splash water on my face and on the back of my neck. Just as I’m about to take a drink, Commander Sharma wades out of the stream and says it’s time to go. We all get ready to continue up the mountain. I grab my Chest and balance its weight on my hip.

Immediately, the trail becomes much steeper. It’s also surprisingly slick and absent of rocks, as if this path had been recently washed clear by a storm. We’re all having difficulty keeping our footing. Crayton tries running to gain some momentum, but he slips and falls in the dirt.

‘This is impossible,’ he says, standing up and brushing himself off. ‘We’re going to need to cut through the forest to gain any kind of traction.’

‘Out of the question,’ the commander says, his arms out like a tightrope walker. ‘We will not conquer our obstacles by running away from them. Speed does not matter, just that we do not stop.’

‘It doesn’t matter how slowly we go? This message brought to you from the guy who says very strange things happen at nightfall,’ Six snorts. ‘I think you need to tell us how much further we have to go, and if it’s longer than three hours on foot, then I say we enter the forest and forgo these obstacles,’ she says, staring him down.

I look at the small branch in my hand and an idea comes to me. I concentrate on the trees around us, lowering branches in from both sides. Suddenly we have a way to pull ourselves up wards, rope climbing the Lorien way. ‘How about this?’ I ask.