Soon they began walking to the vehicles—down the pathway they went. One opened a door, another; soon they were closing them, starting the engines, the two men astride the cycles, the sedan backing up along the dirt. Once turned around, they went away orderly to the main road. Mary watched the last bumper slip out of sight. Prophet, Will’s invention, had worked.

•  •  •

You’re reading his letters to you.”

Mary looked up at Will. She was sitting in a ruined hall, farthest in, flashlight on Frank’s last missive. They were so far from the main road, there was no harm in talking. Plus, they’d run off the goblins for sure.

She put down the letter.

“I miss him.”

He was near, standing over her.

“Can I?” The light was on Frank’s page.

“Why?” she asked.

He sat down. Okay, she’d misunderstood. He’d been asking if he could sit. He put his flashlight at the arch over them. Now they had a cathedral.

“Felt good, didn’t it?”

“Today? Oh. Yeah. Yeah, it did.” In Mary’s hands, Prophet had sent a signal to a satellite, and a satellite had sent the Iranians signals that sounded like voices they knew. The voices told them to go away. And they did.

“You were good.”

She dropped her head so he couldn’t see he’d made her happy.

“Done it enough times,” she downplayed.

“Training,” he said. “Not in-country.”

“It just worked.”

“No, it didn’t. You got it to.”

“Like you couldn’t have.”

“Not the point.”

“Thanks. Thanks, but …”

“But what?”

“I wasn’t so calm once, almost cost me.”

“Seems to me you saved two men on that mountain. The other man—no one could have saved.”

It was just after sunset. She pulled the flashlight back farther from Frank’s letter so she could see Will’s face. She couldn’t read it. She heard something in his words—the tone—what was it?

“My crash,” she said.

He moved his face away to look up at the old hall’s steps and where they led—the arched opening and, beyond it, the dark-violet sky.

“That,” he said. With his face turned, she could just hear him.

“I still don’t know—”

“Malfunction,” he said.

“—what happened.”

“Why won’t you—”

“—let you read it?!” Her voice was raised.

“No, no,” he said. He’d turned back to face her. He looked—could it be?—abashed. “No, Mary, I respect that.”

She floated down slowly to a nicer mood. “For that—I—I thank you.”

“He was your wingman.” Will said it so fast. She’d counted on a long pause.

“Had my back,” she said, a little too quickly—hoping to match his snap delivery—and then she was in trouble, for first ever with Will she sensed the back of her throat smaller, her eyes dampening.

“You ended up having his.”