The second sentence remained hanging in the group, even though it had appeared on the parchment for only a moment. Beneath the names sleeps the guilt. Lyra had written it down from memory three more times, each time with slightly different linework, because she was not sure whether the light had shown an ancient rune, a broken rune or only the shadow of a rune. Garrick had bent over it, muttered, crossed out, redrawn and finally set the quill aside in irritation, because his mind demanded clear forms and the fog had once again given him only half answers. Eve sat apart on an overgrown stone and watched the afternoon grow darker before evening had even begun. The fog stood at the edge of the ruins, not thick enough to enclose them, but close enough to make every thought of safety seem ridiculous. Mira sat with Clara, who had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and still behaved as though warmth could help against whatever had reached into the girl beneath the boundary stone. Finn stayed near them, but no longer entirely behind her. That was new, and Eve noticed that Clara noticed it as well. He had helped Garrick sort the copper wires, had carefully asked about the small measuring contacts and had listened to the explanation, even though Garrick gave it in a mixture of impatience and genuine attention. It was strange how quickly a person could take a new place within a group once someone allowed him to be more than a burden that had to be protected. That was exactly what unsettled Eve. Finn was becoming more visible, and in a world where names could be warm, visibility was not a simple strength. Kael stood at the northern wall, his gaze not fixed on the fog, but on the places where Garren and his people had been moving. Since the return from the forest, no one had openly said that they were being watched, yet they all knew it. Nara had appeared once between two stones, only long enough to give Tara a sign, then vanished again. Marek had not even tried to seem friendly when he checked water from an old cistern and muttered loudly enough for everyone to hear how stupid he found it to travel with people who attracted glowing children, broken names and bad tempered scholars. Garren himself had kept his distance. That was probably the reason Eve had not yet told him exactly what she thought of him. It was easier to save anger for later when the person it belonged to was not standing right in front of you. Even so, that anger grew inside her. She remembered the small moments of the past days, sounds that had suddenly fallen silent, distractions in the fog, signs of light she had taken for coincidence, paths that had unexpectedly been clear. Back then she had believed the city itself had granted them brief mercies, or that the fog had not yet swallowed them for some reason she did not understand. Now she understood that some of those mercies had had hands. Hidden hands. Hands that had helped and at the same time decided what Eve was allowed to know. That did not make the help worthless, but it made it dirty. Lyra slipped the parchment back into her bag and looked over at Mira. “She should sleep.” Clara laughed dryly, but without joy. “She should do many things. Sleep, eat, not speak to old stones, not answer foreign voices, not be stared at by every adult within reach as though she were the lever on a locked door.” Lyra lowered her gaze. “That was not my intention.” Clara looked at her hard. “Intention is a pretty word for people who want to explain afterward why the damage was unfortunately necessary.” Finn looked up at his sister. “Clara.” She turned to him, and the hardness in her face cracked just enough to show the fear underneath. “What?” Finn remained cautious. “She said it was not her intention.” Clara held his gaze. “And you think that is enough?” Finn was silent for a moment. “No, but I think we still have to talk to her because she knows things we do not know.” Clara looked at him, and Eve recognized how deeply that sentence struck her. Not because it was wrong, but because it came from Finn. From her Finn, the boy from the cupboard, the brother she had carried through hunger and ruins, the only person she had convinced herself she could keep out of everything. “You are beginning to sound almost like them,” Clara said quietly. Finn shook his head. “No, I just no longer sound quite so much like someone who waits for you to tell him where he is allowed to go.” For a moment Eve thought Clara would jump to her feet. Instead, she tightened her arm around Mira, as though Finn’s sentence had pushed something out of her reach. Mira looked between the siblings with that silent, attentive gaze that had become more frequent since the boundary stone. She did not only perceive argument. She perceived connections. Perhaps she even saw where they were stretched, where they held, where they might soon tear. Eve did not want to ask her about it. Not everything that could be known should be cut from a child’s face. Garrick cleared his throat and lifted his damaged device. “We should not stay much longer anyway. The runes beneath the stone reacted to our names, and the reaction has not fully faded. If the fog can read the same trace my device measures, then we are sitting here on a signal fire.” Marek, leaning at the edge of the ruin, snorted. “Finally someone says something sensible.” Clara threw him a sharp look. “You are not part of this discussion.” Marek raised his eyebrows. “I am standing in the same ruin, breathing the same bad air and getting eaten by the same darkness if your glowing collection of poor decisions fails. I would say that makes me at least an unfortunate participant.” “Marek,” said Garren, who had finally stepped out of the shadow of the southern wall. His voice was quiet, but it carried enough weight that Marek swallowed the next remark. Garren did not stop at the edge. He came closer slowly, his hands visible, no weapon drawn, his posture neither submissive nor challenging. That almost angered Eve more. He knew how to move into a tense group without giving it a pretext. Nara followed him at some distance, alert and mistrustful, while Tara remained near the broken wall. “We need to talk,” Garren said. Eve stood. “Now you want to talk?” Garren stopped. “Now it is necessary.” Eve took a step forward. “It was not necessary before?” Garren held her gaze. “Before, you probably would have attacked me.” “That still feels tempting at the moment.” Nara shifted her weight, but Garren only lifted his hand slightly, and she stayed where she was. His eyes rested on Eve. “I kept you out of trouble several times.” “No,” Eve said, and her voice was calm, though she felt the heat rising inside her. “You watched us, steered us and used us without us knowing you were there. Sometimes that may have helped us, but you still decided that we did not deserve the truth.” Garren accepted the words without blinking. “Yes.” That simple agreement made Eve angrier than any justification could have. “Is that all?” Garren answered without evasion. “What do you want to hear? That I am sorry? That I would have trusted you if circumstances had been kinder? That I did it out of pure goodness? None of that would be true enough to be useful.” Kael now turned fully toward him. “You tested them.” Garren looked at him, and something cold formed between them at once, not hostility, but recognition. Two people who had survived too long often recognized each other faster than friends could. “Of course I tested them.” Kael remained motionless. “And?” Garren looked at the group. “They make many mistakes.” Finn murmured, “That could have been said more politely.” Marek answered at once, “Politeness usually does not have a particularly high survival rate.” Clara glared at him. “You could try it anyway.” Garren ignored the side voices. “They make mistakes, but they do not run away as soon as others would have to pay for it. That is rare enough.” Eve folded her arms. “How generous of you to classify us as halfway useful.” Garren looked toward Mira. “The child changes the fog.” Clara stood at once. “You do not call her the child as if she were an object in a report.” Garren did not hesitate. “Mira changes the fog.” Clara held his gaze, and Eve saw that the correction was not enough, but that it had been registered. Tara took a step forward. Her voice was gentle, but brittle, as though she had to assert every word against something in the air. “Not only her. The fog around her does not move correctly. It does not withdraw, and it does not attack. It waits until she remembers.” Mira lifted her gaze. “I do not remember.” Tara looked at her sadly. “Perhaps you do not remember yet.” Clara drew in a sharp breath. “Enough.” Garren turned back to Eve. “We know paths that are not on Kael’s maps.” Kael did not smile. “Then they are either very good paths or very bad ones.” Garren answered calmly. “Both.” Kael nodded almost imperceptibly. “That is rarely separable.” Again, that recognition. Eve did not like it. Kael had long since not told her everything, Garren had long since manipulated her, and now these two men stood there as though they could understand one another without much explanation because both had learned to ration truth in pieces. “Why now?” Eve asked. “Why step out now?” Garren looked north. “Because the fog has changed its behavior since Mira answered at the boundary stone. Our old hiding places are losing their effect. Signs that gave protection for years are growing weaker. Paths we believed dead are opening. Others are closing. You are no longer only a group drawing attention. You are a moving center.” Garrick lifted his head. “A resonance center.” Garren looked at him briefly. “Call it what you want. If you move on, the city will change around you. If you go in the wrong place, people will die who do not even know you exist.” Those words struck Eve. That was exactly what Garren had intended, and she hated him for it. “So you want to come with us in order to control us.” Garren did not shake his head. “To steer you when you are blind.” Eve stepped closer. “That is control with a better cloak.” Garren accepted that as well. “Perhaps.” Nara now stepped forward, her eyes fixed on Mira. “And to stop her if she opens something that cannot be closed again.” Clara took a step toward Nara. “Try it.” Nara looked at her without any visible emotion. “I did not say I want to. I said it may become necessary.” Finn half stepped between Clara and Nara, not tall enough to be a real barrier, but determined enough that Eve noticed. “Maybe both of you could stop talking about Mira as if she were either danger or tool.” Nara looked at him. “And what is she, in your opinion?” Finn swallowed. He was pale, but he did not step back. “A child who is afraid and still does more than most of us.” Mira looked at him. The words reached her. Eve saw it in the way her shoulders seemed a little less tense for a moment. Clara saw it too, and again that painful conflict lay in her face. Finn helped, and every act of helping made him more visible. Garren nodded slowly, perhaps not in agreement, but in recognition. “That is true. It changes nothing about the fact that the fog is looking for her.” Eve answered at once. “Then we look for a way to stop it.” Marek laughed quietly. “And exactly that kind of sentence usually gets people in stories buried underground.” Garrick replied dryly, “We have already been halfway there. I found it overrated.” For one tiny moment, the tension loosened, not enough to break, but enough for everyone to breathe again. Then came the first sound. It was a soft ringing, barely audible, as though someone had touched a thin glass plate in the distance. Tara froze. Kael drew his weapon at once. Garren lifted his hand. Nara was already moving. “Do not speak,” Tara said. Her voice was suddenly so serious that even Marek fell silent. The ringing repeated. This time it did not come from the north, but from the ruins themselves, from the remnants of walls, the stones beneath their feet, the empty window openings. Garrick’s device began to hum. The needle did not point north, not at Mira, not at Finn. It slowly turned in a circle. Garrick whispered, “That is new.” Finn murmured, “Please say new is sometimes good.” Garrick looked at the needle. “Not in my profession.” The fog at the edge of the ruin suddenly withdrew. Not much, but visibly. Marek cursed. “I do not like that. When the fog pulls back, it only does so because something else is coming closer.” Eve looked at Kael. “What is this?” Kael shook his head. “Not a creature.” Garren looked at the remnants of the walls. “A trap.” Eve turned to him. “What kind of trap?” Garren answered without taking his gaze from the stones. “The kind that does not catch you by stopping you.” The ringing grew brighter. Mira began to tremble. Clara immediately knelt beside her. “Mira?” The girl looked in confusion toward the collapsed archways of the ruin. “The paths are changing.” Lyra drew the parchment from her bag. The line from the boundary stone glowed faintly, but the second fragment remained gone. Garrick reached for the copper wire. “We need to secure the anchor point. If the paths are shifting, we need a fixed line.” Garren said sharply, “Too late.” The ground beneath them did not shake, the walls did not collapse, and no shadow leapt from the fog. Instead, the ruin changed in a quieter, far worse way. Eve saw the broken archway they had passed through in the morning suddenly no longer stand in the same place. Not moved, not turned. It had simply become wrong. The fire pit now lay closer to the northern wall, though no one had touched it. The old well, which Garren had avoided earlier, suddenly stood half behind Lyra. The stones had not changed their history, but had only decided that their distances were no longer reliable. Clara grabbed Mira. “Finn.” “I am here.” His voice came from the wrong side. Clara spun around. Finn stood only five steps away, but between them now lay a strip of fog that had not been there before. Not dense fog, not an attacker, only a narrow gray tear in the space that separated the air between them. Clara immediately stepped toward it. Kael called, “Do not go through.” She did not stop. Eve grabbed her arm and held her back. “Clara, wait.” Clara half tore herself loose. “He is there.” Eve held her firmly. “I see him.” “Then let me go.” Finn raised both hands. “Clara, I will come to you. I will not go through the gray strip. I will look for a way around.” His voice trembled, but he remained standing. That was important. Eve saw it. Clara did not see it, because she saw only the distance. Mira saw both. The gray strip widened. Nara threw a quick glance to Garren. “Folded path.” Garren nodded grimly. Eve looked at him. “What is a folded path?” Garren answered tersely. “A fog trap. It shifts paths until you believe you only have to take a few steps. Then you walk, and suddenly you are no longer where you were.” Eve forced herself to remain calm. “How do you get out?” Garren looked at Tara. Tara had raised her hands, her fingers feeling through the air without touching anything. “Not with eyes. The eyes lie first.” Garrick growled, “That is a very imprecise instruction.” Marek, who had moved closer to Garren by now, said, “Then die precisely. Or listen to someone who has survived such traps.” Eve felt her anger rising again. “You know this?” Garren looked at her. “Yes.” “And you did not think it necessary to warn us beforehand?” “I did not know it would be triggered here.” Eve did not let go. “But you knew it existed.” Garren remained calm. “There are many things that exist.” “That is not an answer.” “It is the truth.” Another archway shifted. Finn was now farther away, though he had not moved. Clara made a choked sound and tried again to pull free. Eve held her tighter. “Finn, do not move.” Finn nodded, but his gaze jumped to Garrick. “What should I do?” Garrick looked at the device, whose needle no longer rotated but jerked back and forth between Finn and Mira. “Keep speaking.” Finn stared at him. “What?” Garrick worked frantically at the contacts. “Your name created a stable resonance in the chamber. If you speak, perhaps I can find a line.” Clara stared at him. “No.” Garrick did not look at her. “If he goes silent, I lose him on the device.” Finn swallowed. “What should I say?” Garrick held the device with both hands. “Something you know. Something that binds you to yourself.” Finn’s face went pale. Then he looked at Clara across the gray strip. “My name is Finn.” The strip of fog trembled. Clara pressed her lips together. Finn continued speaking, and his voice grew steadier the longer he spoke. “My name is Finn. I am Clara’s brother. I hate overcooked turnips. I once claimed for three days that a broken broom handle was a sword until Clara took it away because I nearly smashed a window with it. I am afraid of deep water, even though I pretend that is not true. I can hold copper wire better now than Garrick expected. And I am coming back, Clara. I am coming back without going through that damned strip.” Clara suddenly went still. Not calm, but still. Tears stood in her eyes, yet she let Eve hold her arm. Garrick’s device gave off a clear tone. “There,” he murmured. “I have the line.” Tara stepped beside him. “Do not follow. Mirror.” Garrick stared at her. “What is that supposed to mean?” Garren answered in her place. “In a folded trap, you do not reach someone by walking toward them. You walk along the place the trap does not expect. Usually it is the direction that feels wrong.” Kael nodded slowly. “Backward to the nearest fixed memory.” Eve looked between them. “The two of you sound frighteningly sure.” Kael said, “I am not sure. I only recognize the principle.” Garren threw him a brief look. “You have escaped one before.” Kael did not answer. That was enough. Eve would ask later. If there was a later. Nara was already moving, not toward Finn, but away from him, toward the western wall. The gray strip did not follow her. Tara closed her eyes and walked slowly with her, one hand extended. “Here is the edge.” Marek tied a dark thread to a rusted hook in the wall. “If all of you die while I am holding a string, I will be personally offended.” Garrick murmured, “Charming to the end.” Finn continued speaking, quieter now, but without breaking off. He told of an old cup Clara had always kept, even though it had a crack. He told of a roof where they had once slept because there had been footsteps in the streets below. He told of a song whose words he had never properly known. Clara listened to every word, and Eve suddenly understood that this enumeration was not only helping Garrick. It was helping Clara. Finn had not vanished as long as he could tell himself. Mira held both hands before her chest and watched him as though every sentence appeared as a line of light in the air. That frightened Eve, but she said nothing. Garrick worked feverishly on his device. “The trap binds through orientation. It uses sightlines and expectation. If all of us change our positions at the same time, it can separate us.” Garren nodded. “That is why no one goes alone.” Eve looked at him. “Are you giving orders now?” Garren held her gaze. “No. I am telling you how to survive.” Eve’s voice sharpened. “That sounds damn similar.” Nara called from the western wall, “If you are finished with your power questions, now would be a good time to get the boy out.” Clara looked at Eve. “Please.” That word from Clara’s mouth was almost worse than any anger. Eve let go of her arm, but stayed close to her. “We are getting him. Not through the strip.” Garren stepped beside Eve. “You and I go west. Kael stays with Mira and Clara. Garrick holds the line. Tara guides us, Nara secures the edge, Marek holds the way back.” Eve glared at him. “I do not take orders from you.” Garren remained unmoving. “Then take the plan and keep hating me later.” Eve breathed out hard. “I will.” “Good.” They set out. Not toward Finn. Away from him. Every step felt wrong. Eve had to fight the urge to turn her head and check whether Finn was still there. Tara walked ahead, slowly, her eyes half closed. Nara moved beside her, barely audible, knife in hand. Garren walked close behind Eve. She felt his presence, calm, heavy, calculating, and she did not want to be grateful to him. The strip of fog in the center of the ruin widened. Finn’s voice wavered. “My name is Finn. I am Clara’s brother. I once lied and said I had not been afraid, even though I was so afraid I felt sick. Clara noticed and said nothing. That was worse than if she had laughed at me.” Clara sobbed quietly. Kael stood beside her, not too close, but close enough to grab her if she charged forward. Mira whispered something Eve did not understand. Lyra wrote signs on a new sheet with a trembling hand, probably from the sheer compulsion to hold something in place while the world lost its locations. Garrick called, “Finn, keep speaking.” Finn’s voice grew thinner. “I do not know what else to say.” Garrick looked at the needle. “Then say what you want.” Finn was silent for a moment. The strip of fog twitched. “I want Clara to sleep one day without checking every door three times first. I want Mira to laugh again without looking afterward to see whether someone can use it against her. I want Eve to get an answer one day that does not sound like punishment. I want Garrick to admit he does not think I am completely useless. I want to know why Kael always looks as though he left himself lying in the fog at some point. I do not want to have to be brave, but I also do not always want to be the one who is rescued.” Garrick froze in the middle of a movement. Clara pressed a hand over her mouth. Eve almost stopped, but Garren briefly touched her elbow. “Keep going.” She hated him for being right. They continued, away from Finn, until Tara suddenly lifted her hand. “Now inward.” Eve looked to the right. There was nothing but a low wall that had just been farther away. Nara sprang onto it, offered Eve her hand and pulled her over the wall’s crown. On the other side, the space was different. The ruin had not shifted back, but its false distance had grown thinner. Finn suddenly no longer stood fifty steps away, but ten. Between him and Eve there was no strip of fog anymore, only a hollow of gray dust. Finn saw her, and for a moment relief broke across his face. Garren said at once, “Do not run.” Finn froze. “I was not going to.” Garren stayed dry. “You were.” Finn swallowed. “Yes.” Eve reached out her hand. “Finn, come slowly. Look at me, not at the ground.” He did. He walked with careful steps, his hands slightly raised as though the air itself might throw him off balance. Behind him, the gray strip drew together, as though the trap realized too late that it had misjudged its prey. Then the fog moved. Not from the strip, but from a corner of the ruin that had been empty a moment before. A figure formed from it, thin, bent, without a clear face, but with arms too long, reaching for Finn. Clara screamed his name. At that exact moment Garrick’s device tore out of the stable resonance, and the needle struck wildly. Finn flinched because his sister’s call hit him harder than any warning. The figure used the moment. Nara threw her knife. It did not hit, but it disturbed the form. Garren shoved Eve forward. “Now.” Eve grabbed Finn’s arm and pulled him to her. The cold hand of the fog figure brushed his coat. He gasped, and for a moment his shadow on the ground grew longer, much longer than it should have been. Then Garren tore a small metal body from his pocket, struck it against the stone and threw it between Finn and the figure. A dull burst of light came from it, not bright, but heavy. The figure lost its contours. Tara called something, Nara pulled Eve and Finn onward, and behind them the gray strip collapsed with a soundless pressure that made Eve’s ears ache. When they reached the others on the far side of the ruin, Clara rushed toward Finn and seized him so fiercely that he could hardly breathe. “You stupid, stupid boy.” Finn’s voice was strained. “I came back.” Clara held him tightly. “You were almost gone.” Finn struggled for breath. “But I am not.” Clara trembled. “That is not an argument.” Finn clung to her. “It is. A fairly good one, actually.” Clara held him even tighter. Eve saw Finn close his eyes and return the embrace, though he seemed both exhausted and hurt. Not physically perhaps, but in a place that did not yet have a name. Mira stood a few steps away and looked at Finn’s shadow. It was normal again. Perhaps. Eve was not sure. Garrick came closer with his damaged device, which was now smoking for good. Finn saw it and tried to turn his head despite Clara’s grip. “Did I break it?” Garrick stared at him. “The device just survived a folded trap, a name anchor and your unsettling tendency toward existential confessions. I will not hold its collapse against it.” Finn breathed weakly. “That means no?” Garrick looked at the smoking device, then at Finn. “That means you helped.” Clara loosened her grip on him a little and gave Garrick a warning look. “Do not turn that into an invitation.” Garrick became serious. “I will not.” Eve turned to Garren. The anger was back, but now it had a new problem. Garren had saved Finn. Nara had saved Finn. Tara had found the edge of the trap. Marek had secured the way back. Without them, Finn might no longer be standing in Clara’s arms. None of that changed the fact that Garren had manipulated them. It only made it harder to simply send him away. “You knew how to get out of this trap,” Eve said. Garren nodded. “Yes.” “And you watched us for days without showing yourselves.” “Yes.” “You set distractions, opened paths, steered us.” “Yes.” Eve stepped closer. “And probably not only to help us.” Garren held her gaze. “No.” Eve stood before him. “Then give me one reason why I should not leave you here.” Nara moved, but Garren lifted his hand again. “Because you need us.” Eve laughed bitterly. “That is not a reason. That is blackmail.” “It is the situation.” “I still might not trust you.” “You should not.” Eve looked at him with contempt. “You really make it easy.” Garren remained calm. “Trust in this city is often only a slower path to death. You do not have to trust me. You only have to acknowledge that I know things that can keep you alive.” Kael stepped in. “He is right.” Eve looked at him sharply. “Of course you would say that.” Kael accepted the accusation. “Because I would have made the same mistake.” Eve stared at him. “Watching us and deciding in the dark when we deserved help?” Kael answered without evasion. “Yes.” That was honest. Too honest to be comfortable. Eve looked between Kael and Garren. “The two of you are truly intolerable.” Garren barely shrugged. “Probably.” Kael said nothing. Marek leaned against a stone some distance away and called, “If the intolerables have been sufficiently evaluated, I would like to mention that this trap was only the beginning. The fog did not try to kill all of us. It tried to separate someone.” Clara still held Finn by the arm. “Whom?” Marek looked at Mira. “Who else?” Tara slowly shook her head. “Not only Mira.” They all looked at her. Tara’s gaze moved to Finn, then to Clara, then to Eve. “The trap reacted to connection. To what is stretched between people. Mira was the center, but not the only line.” Lyra nodded, shaken. “Names and bindings.” Garrick looked down at the smoking remains of his device. “Then Finn’s self naming actually created a counterline.” Clara closed her eyes. “Please do not say counterline when you mean my brother.” Finn placed a hand on her arm. “Clara, I am here.” She looked at him. “You say that as if it is enough.” Finn held her gaze. “For the moment, it has to be enough.” Mira slowly stepped toward them. She looked at Finn. “It did not keep you.” Finn tried to smile. “That sounds good.” Mira remained serious. “It noticed you.” The smile vanished. Clara immediately pulled him behind her, not roughly, but clearly. “Then it will learn that it cannot have him.” Mira looked down. “It learns quickly.” Those words settled heavily over the group. Eve noticed that Mira made herself smaller, as though she felt guilty that the fog was learning. That could not remain. “Mira.” The girl looked up. Eve knelt in front of her. “This is not your fault.” Mira looked toward the border of the fog, which was slowly gathering again between the stones. “But it follows me.” Eve stayed calm. “It follows many things. You, the old guilt, the names, the Nexus, perhaps all of us.” Mira did not seem comforted. “If I were not here, Finn would not almost have vanished.” Clara did not answer. That made it worse. Finn, however, gently freed himself from Clara’s grip and knelt beside Eve. “If you were not here, this trap might still have caught us, only without warning. And if you had not been here, we would know nothing about the stone, the room and the names.” Mira looked at him. “That does not make it better.” Finn said quietly, “No, but it does not make you guilty.” Eve looked at him from the side. He said it simply, without grand gesture, without the wish to seem clever. Perhaps that was exactly why Mira believed him, at least for a moment. Clara saw it too, and Eve knew that this gratitude hurt her. Garren cleared his throat. “We have to leave this place. Fold traps rarely appear alone. Once the fog has distorted the orientation of a place, it can do so again, and the second time it will need less time.” Garrick looked at Eve. “He is right.” Lyra nodded. “And we need to secure the information from the name chamber before the ink or the parchment reacts.” Eve looked around. “Where?” Kael answered first. “Returning to the old mill would be safer than this ruin.” Garren shook his head. “Not anymore. If the fog follows bindings, every place you have already used is dangerous.” Kael looked at him. “And you have a better suggestion?” Garren answered dryly, “Several bad ones.” Marek lifted a hand. “His best suggestions are always only the least deadly.” Nara gave him a tired look. “In our situation, that is a useful category.” Garren pulled a folded map from the pocket of his coat. It was unlike Kael’s maps, less orderly, full of signs, abbreviations, scratch marks and places deliberately painted over. He spread it on a stone. Kael stepped closer, and Eve saw his eyes catch on several points. “These paths are not in the old city plans.” Garren nodded. “Because they were not used by city planners.” Kael studied the lines. “Smugglers’ paths?” “Among other things.” “Escape routes?” “Also.” “Fog paths?” Garren looked at him. “Some.” Kael’s face hardened. “They are unstable.” “Yes.” “Then they are madness.” Garren stayed with his map. “No. Madness would be continuing on the main roads while the fog learns to count our names.” Eve leaned over the map. “Where do they lead?” Garren pointed to a line that wound around several old districts, then turned west and later led north again. “To an abandoned cistern house. From there, there is a hidden path to the old garden ruins. If we want to reach Blackmere Lake eventually without crossing the open fog fields, we need this route.” Kael folded his arms. “I do not know that cistern house.” Garren looked at him. “That is the point.” Eve turned to Kael. “Can you judge whether he is leading us into a trap?” Kael did not answer at once. “He could.” Garren raised an eyebrow. “Helpful.” Kael looked at him. “He could also bring us through areas alive that I avoid because I do not have complete information.” Eve rubbed her eyes. “That is almost praise.” Kael remained dry. “No. Only an assessment.” Nara stepped closer. “We are not offering you friendship. We are offering local knowledge, additional eyes and people who know when not to fight.” Clara looked at her coldly. “And when to stop children if they become dangerous.” Nara held her gaze. “Yes.” Finn said quietly, “That makes it hard to like you.” Nara looked at him. “I am not here to be liked.” Finn nodded. “That shows.” For a moment it looked as though Nara wanted to answer sharply, but then she only snorted. “The boy has teeth.” Clara replied immediately, “And they stay where they are.” Marek murmured, “This family is exhausting.” Clara’s voice sharpened. “This is not a family.” Then she looked at Finn, at Mira, at Eve, and something inside her stopped. “Not like that.” No one asked what she meant. Eve knew anyway. For Clara, family was not warmth, but responsibility, loss, guilt and the duty not to sleep while someone one loved was still breathing. Mira stood silently beside Finn and looked at the map. “If we go with them, we pass by voices.” Garren looked up. “Which voices?” Mira pointed at a place on the map that Garren had not marked. “There.” Garren followed her finger, and for the first time part of his control left his face. “How do you know that?” Mira withdrew her hand. “I do not know.” Tara stepped closer and looked at the place. “The old gathering yard.” Garren nodded slowly. “We avoid it.” Eve asked, “Why?” Marek laughed without sound. “Because some places do not immediately do you the favor of looking deadly.” Tara answered more softly. “People used to disappear there before the fog grew thick. Not many. Enough that the elders would not let fires burn there.” Lyra looked at the map. “A place with old bindings?” Garren did not fold the map. “Perhaps. Perhaps also only a place where the ground is bad and people invented foolish stories to keep children away.” Kael looked at him. “You do not believe that.” Garren answered tersely. “No.” Eve breathed in slowly. She knew what came next. Another route. Another bad choice. Again people who gave their knowledge only in pieces because whole truths were supposedly too heavy. She looked at Clara, who was watching Finn and Mira. She looked at Garrick, who despite the danger was already thinking about how to repair and improve his device. She looked at Lyra, whose eyes were full of fear and recognition. She looked at Kael and Garren, two men with half maps and whole scars. She wanted to trust no one. But she no longer had a world in which mistrust alone was enough. “You come with us,” she finally said to Garren. Clara spun around. “Eve.” “Not because I trust him.” Garren nodded, as if he had expected nothing else. Eve pointed at him. “You do not go ahead without Kael seeing the route. You do not vanish without warning. You do not set distractions without telling us. You do not secretly decide who among us is saved and who is not.” Marek opened his mouth, but Nara jabbed an elbow into his side. Garren held Eve’s gaze. “Agreed, as far as the situation allows.” Eve stepped so close to him that Nara tensed. “No. That was not a negotiating sentence.” Garren looked at her for a long time. Then he nodded. “Agreed.” Kael made a quiet sound that might almost have been approval. Eve turned to him. “And you.” Kael raised his eyebrows. “Me?” Eve held his gaze. “Half truths kill us as surely as traps. If you know something about Garren, these paths, folded traps or the broken name, you say it before we are standing with both feet in the fog.” Kael was silent. Eve waited. Finally he said, “Agreed.” Eve gave a soft snort. “I do not fully believe you.” Kael answered calmly. “You should not.” “I have come to hate that sentence.” Finn carefully raised his hand. “Me too.” Mira said softly, “The fog too.” Everyone looked at her. The girl seemed surprised by her own words. Lyra asked, “What do you mean?” Mira looked into the fog that now hung again at the edge of the ruin. “It likes it when no one fully believes. Then the names stay loose.” Lyra went pale. Garrick whispered, “Mistrust weakens binding.” Garren looked at his map. “Then our new little traveling group will be a feast laid out for the fog.” Clara drew Mira close. “You truly are unbearable.” Marek inclined his head slightly. “I hear that often.” Eve looked around. “Then we change that. Not the unbearable part, we will apparently have to live with that. But the loose names. Before we set out, we say who we are.” Kael looked at her as if she had made a dangerous suggestion. “Eve.” Eve remained firm. “Finn held himself in the trap by saying who he was. If the fog loosens bindings through doubt, then we give it fewer loose ends.” Lyra nodded slowly. “That could work. Not as protection against everything, but as stabilization.” Garrick looked at his smoking device. “A simple self anchoring.” Clara looked unhappy, but she did not contradict it at once. Garren folded his arms. “Saying names aloud in the fog can be dangerous.” Eve looked at him. “Nothing about this plan is clean. But I have had enough of the fog treating our names only as prey.” Finn stepped beside her. “I will begin.” Clara looked at him in alarm, but this time she held herself back. Finn drew a deep breath. “My name is Finn. I am Clara’s brother, but not only that. I am afraid, and I am going with you anyway.” Clara closed her eyes. Mira looked at him, and her face softened. Garrick cleared his throat. “My name is Garrick. I build things that sometimes work, sometimes explode and occasionally do both at the same time. I will try to reduce the latter in the future.” Finn whispered, “That was almost touching.” Garrick ignored him. Lyra followed quietly. “My name is Lyra. I preserve what others wanted forgotten, and I fear that I believed for too long that preservation alone was enough.” Kael stood still longer than was comfortable. “My name is Kael. I have survived more of the fog than I deserved and kept less of myself than I wanted.” Eve looked at him, but she did not ask. Not yet. Clara held Mira with one hand and Finn with her eyes. “My name is Clara. I protect what is left to me, even when I sometimes forget that people are not possessions.” Finn looked at her, and something between them changed, not healed, not resolved, but truer than before. Mira whispered, “My name is Mira. I do not want to be the key.” The sentence cut into Eve. No one answered at once. Then Eve knelt before her. “Then you are not the key. You are Mira.” The girl looked at her, and Eve hoped this sentence was strong enough, though she knew the world would soon test it. Garren was next. “My name is Garren. I acted in the dark because I saw too many die in the light. That does not make me innocent.” Nara said, “My name is Nara. I trust more slowly than others die, and I will not apologize for that.” Marek twisted his face, but said, “My name is Marek. I expect the worst because I have been right too often.” Tara lifted her hand from the wall. “My name is Tara. I hear places others have forgotten, and I wish they would speak more softly.” Now everyone looked at Eve. She felt the red cloth at her throat. She thought of Lysa. She thought of the ditch, of the water, of the question whether memory counted if it was never spoken. “My name is Eve,” she said. Her voice remained firm, though something trembled inside her. “I search for answers, even though I fear they are worse than the questions. And I carry a name with me that I did not say aloud for too long.” Mira looked at her. Eve breathed in. “Lysa.” The fog at the edge of the ruin moved. Not attacking. Not fleeing. Only listening. Clara looked at Eve, and for the first time there was not only resistance in her gaze. Perhaps she did not understand everything, but she understood what it cost to bring a name out of a locked room inside yourself. Garrick lowered his gaze. Kael turned half away, and Eve knew that there was also a name inside him that was not ready. The fog withdrew by the width of a finger. It was not much. Perhaps it was nothing. But everyone saw it. Garren folded the map. “Then we go before it changes its mind.” They packed faster than Eve had expected. Not harmoniously, not trustingly, but with a new sobriety. Nara showed Clara how to wrap the blanket more tightly around Mira without pinning her arms down. Clara accepted the correction with visible reluctance, but said nothing. Marek helped Garrick carry a crate of spare parts and complained about the weight at such length that after a while Finn dryly remarked that Marek was apparently capable of forming a binding to something after all, as long as it was made of metal and insulted him. Garrick did not laugh, but his mouth twitched. Tara spoke quietly with Lyra about places missing from maps, and Kael compared his map with Garren’s, with both men growing equally tense every time one of them recognized a marking the other did not know. Eve watched all of it and felt that this was no union born of trust. It was a knot made of necessity, mistrust, guilt, fear and a few thin threads of genuine care. Perhaps that was enough. Perhaps it was the only thing people had to set against the fog. When they left the ruin, Garren did not go ahead. He walked beside Eve, a little apart, with the map in his hand. Kael led the front line, but he kept glancing back whenever Garren indicated a direction. Nara and Tara moved on the left, Marek on the right. Garrick and Lyra stayed in the middle, Finn with them, Mira between Clara and Eve. No one spoke much. The fog did not retreat, but it did not attack either. It accompanied them. That was almost worse. After a while, Garren said quietly without looking at Eve, “You are right to be angry.” Eve looked ahead. “I do not need your permission.” “That was not permission.” “What was it then?” Garren walked a few steps before he answered. “An observation.” She was silent. Garren continued walking before he spoke again. “I will probably do things again that you do not like.” Eve grew colder. “Then I will probably hate you again.” “I can accept that.” Eve did not stop, but her voice sharpened. “No, Garren. You can live with it. That is not the same.” He looked at her briefly. Then he nodded slowly, as though she had struck him in a place beneath his armor that was not yet entirely numb. “No. It is not.” Ahead of them, the path dipped into flatter ground where old stones protruded from the earth and gray grass grew between the cracks. Tara lifted her hand. “Quieter from here.” Garren confirmed it with a sign. Kael did the same for his side of the group. Clara took Finn’s wrist, not firmly enough to pull him, but firmly enough to feel him. Finn allowed it. Mira walked between them and looked into the fog as though reading something there that no one else could see. Eve thought of the sentence beneath the names, of the guilt, of Garren, of Kael, of her own spoken name and the name of her sister. She knew this new community was fragile. Not all who acted in the dark were enemies. Garren had proved that today. But not all who helped were reliable. He had proved that as well. Above them, the sky hung gray and heavy. Behind them, the ruin vanished in the fog. Ahead of them waited paths Kael did not know and places Garren entered only reluctantly. Eve drew her cloak tighter around herself and walked on while the fog moved soundlessly alongside the path on both sides. For the first time in a long while, their group had grown larger, and for the first time in a long while, that did not make her feel safer.