“No.”
Anger flares hot enough to stand on. “Don’t put this on me.”
“I am not.”
“That is exactly what you’re doing.”
“I can tell you what I sense beneath the ground. You can tell me whether the route can be survived. Both are needed.”
I look away.
The shade line has moved. Enough that we have perhaps sixty breaths before this ledge becomes more memory than protection. Kavor waits. Again.
Always waiting when it would be easier if he didn’t. I pull the map free. My hands are steady. Good. Steady is something.
I unfold the section near the quiet place. The third expected sign sits close to it. Too close. Old records mark sound distortion. A missing child. Penr’s lie. A cooling draft where none should have been. The basin rim bends toward it through broken ribs and shallow shelves. There is a route.
It’s not safe. It is possible. Those are different.
“What do you need from the third site?” I ask.
“To know if the absence repeats.”
“It will.”
His gaze sharpens. “You think so?”
“I think whatever happened to the first two happened for a reason. Third site may show the pattern better.”
“And?”
“And if we return now, Council argues for half a day while heat gets worse and the ground keeps doing whatever this is.”
“Yes.”
“And if we go, we might find something useful, or we might die in a place everyone already named quiet because even sound doesn’t trust it.”
“Yes.”
I stare at the map. The line of route waits beneath my fingers. A thin thing. A stupid thing. A way forward.
“Then we go,” I say.
Kavor doesn’t answer immediately. I look up. His eyes are fixed on me, but it doesn’t look like approval or pleasure. There’s something heavier in them.
“You are certain?” he asks.
“No.”
“Good.”
I blink. “Good?”
“Certain people are careless.”
“I hate when you make sense.”
“You have said so.”
