I place my hand on the stone’s smooth surface and tap my foot around to find a toehold. My foot im mediately slips, and when I’m about to try it again, I hear Eight’s voice far away, above me. He is already at the top, yelling something down at us. Teleportation is even better than I thought. It may even be better than invisibility. I wonder if we can combine them somehow.

‘Just use your telekinesis to float your way up,’ Marina says to me. ‘You get Ella. I’ll get Crayton.’

I follow her advice and we float up. It’s actually much easier than I imagined. Up at the top is Eight’s campsite. Soon we’re sitting around a fire, cooking a vegetable stew in a large pot. The trees overhead form a thick canopy and, with the water below, it’s a perfect spot to hide. Eight’s mud hut is somehow both depressing and ideal at the same time. The walls are uneven and the door is a lopsided oval; but it’s also warm and dry, and it smells of fresh flowers. Inside is a homemade hammock and a small table, and three colorful rugs hanging from the walls.

‘Nice place you’ve got here,’ I say, walking back to the fire. ‘I’ve been on the run so long, I forget what it’s like to have a home. Even a hut.’

‘There is something about this place. There will always be a piece of me that remains here. I’m really going to miss it,’ he says, looking around fondly.

‘So, does that mean you’ll come with us?’ Marina asks.

‘Of course I will. The time has come for us to be together, to work together. Now that Setrákus Ra is here, I have to go with you.’

‘He’s here?’ Crayton asks, suddenly uneasy.

Eight takes his first bite of stew. ‘He arrived a few days ago. He’s been visiting me in my dreams.’

12.

12.

We jumped a freight train in West Virginia. I’ve been trying to sleep, but too many thoughts are swirling around in my mind. I squint as my eyes adjust to the morning sun coming through the slatted door. I’m relieved to see we’re still headed west. That’s all Special Agent Walker said before disappearing: west. So, that’s where we’re going. I try not to think about the possibility that she may have deliberately misled us, and instead focus on how she thought she was about to die and had nothing left to lose, and therefore no reason to lie to me.