She hesitated, the shadowed look in her eyes reminding him of their argument. “I’m fine,” she said, a little too brightly. She tipped her head. “But Soren might need some help.”

Perry saw him and laughed. Soren had gutted his bag, emptying all its contents. Supplies spilled everywhere around him, and he was looking through a pair of binoculars, searching the distance.

“Perry, due east,” Brooke called from behind them.

He searched the low hills there. A Hover like the one that had taken Talon skimmed over the plateau.

Soren shot to his feet in excitement. “That’s a Dragonwing. Fastest Hover in existence.”

“It’s circling,” Brooke said. “It’s following a specific route around the Komodo.”

“A patrol,” Perry agreed.

They kept up their surveillance into the afternoon as massive thunderheads moved in, clotting the sky. The patrol followed the same route every two hours. Armed with that information, they returned to the Belswan and gathered in the cargo hold to discuss their options.

“We can’t outrun a Dragonwing,” Soren said. He rapped his knuckles twice on the metal floor of the Belswan. “Not with this slug.”

At the center of their circle was a light stick from the Belswan’s supplies. Perry turned the dial down to limit its brightness. In less than five minutes, the glaring light had given him a headache.

“A Dragonwing is built to do two things,” Soren continued. “One, catch anything it wants, and two, destroy it. If they’re running patrols, then they’re ready for us. At the very least it means they haven’t forgotten we’re out here. There’s no way we can get close without drawing them into a fight. If that happens, we’re done for. We’d be annihilated. Wouldn’t we, Jup?”

Jupiter startled, surprised to hear his name. Then he nodded. “Definitely. Very annihilated.”

“Twig and I got close,” Roar said. He stood away from the group, alone by the open bay doors, his dark clothes blending into the darkness. “It’s not hard to do on foot.”

A gust of cool air blew into the Hover. It smelled more like rain by the hour.

“You want to go on foot?” Soren said. “All right, we could try that. We could run up and throw spears at the Komodo’s steel walls. Wait. Do you guys have any of those catapult things? Those are champ.”

Roar shrugged—he couldn’t care less about Soren’s comment—but Aria winced.

Perry remembered her making similar biting comments when they’d first met. That felt like a long while ago, though it’d only been half a year.

“What do you recommend, Soren?” he said tightly. He had far less tolerance for Soren than Aria did.