Then Hava was safe on solid ground, and suddenly Giddon’s heart started pounding. It was time for his own climb back up the cliff. What if now, after all he’d done, he made a mistake? What if, with the team’s arms at their tiredest, the sheet rope at its most tattered and strained, and his own fingers bleeding and stiff with cold, he slipped, and fell? Giddon didn’t want to die. He had work to do. He had happiness to feel. He was a baby; his life had begun anew only a few days ago.

Giddon turned and pushed himself up, walked back into the cave, to distract himself from these thoughts. There was no way to get back onto solid ground without passing through his fear. He would think about the others, who believed he was strong enough to climb back. One, in particular, who wanted him back badly. What a gift, that she wanted him back that way.

Giddon took in the cave one last time. A stalactite near him reached down toward a stalagmite, the two almost meeting in the middle to form a pillar. It was cold in this cavern, stark and strange. What had Lovisa said—that Ferla’s father had used to send Ferla here for punishments? How long had Katu wasted away in here? It seemed impossible that such a place should exist, or that any person should ever discover it. Inhumane that anyone should use it to discipline children. From where he stood, he could see the broken barrels, jars, and chests that must have been stacked in the storehouse a few hours ago. How peculiar to see the results of an explosion from below. “Wow,” he said. The word echoed back to him, soft and deep.

And then he saw a few of those metal eggs, scattered near the edges of the fallen supplies. He studied them; he committed them, and the damage they’d done, to memory. He knew that he was looking at a terrible evil. And though he hadn’t responded to Hava earlier, he understood some things about what it meant. The exploding eggs were an invention that, once invented, couldn’t be un-invented. They were made from a fuel that lived in Bitterblue’s mountains. Hava possessed the plans to make them. And Bitterblue was a queen, with a kingdom to defend, surrounded by militaristic nations like Estill. What would happen to the world, once everyone knew what Benni Cavenda had made with zilfium?

Now Giddon knew he would get to the top of the cliff, because he wasn’t going to leave Bitterblue to find the answer to that question alone.

—