Lucian watched the door of the cabin, his heart beating faster. Lucian rapped three times, then took several steps back. He waited a good thirty seconds. Part of him wanted to turn and go. Perhaps even most of him.

  But curiosity got the better of him.

  “Hello?” Lucian called. "Is anyone home?”

  There was still no answer. Lucian looked at Linus and Plato. Linus shrugged, while Plato nodded toward the door.

  Lucian turned the knob and pushed in, revealing a dark interior lit only by the embers of the hearth. Lucian couldn’t see into the dark corner, where the bed was. Was there someone lying under the blanket?

  “Hello?”

  The form didn’t move. Either it was asleep, or . . .

  Linus touched Lucian’s shoulder, making him jump.

  “Sorry. I can check if you want.”

  Lucian let him pass, feeling sick to his stomach. Linus walked to the bed and turned the body face up. It was hard to tell who it was in the darkness, but the form was male, and the face was young.

  “Suicide,” Linus said. “Ground is too frozen to bury him . . .”

  Suicide? Lucian made himself go closer, even if it was the last thing he wanted to do. He looked down at the face and recognized the exile.

  “Marcus,” he said. The realization was like a punch to the gut.

  “You knew him?” Linus asked.

  “He was in my Trial group.” He shook his head. “We must have been just a few hours late. The fire is down to coals.” Had they come straight here, Marcus might have found something to live for. What a terrible waste. “Could it have been an accident?”

  Plato knelt on the floor, picking up a shockspear lying by the bedside. “This was no accident. Applied to the base of the skull, most likely, with a simple Dynamistic stream. A death as painless as it is quick.”

  Lucian shuddered. “He was newer than me, but he handled himself well regardless. Why in the Worlds would he have been sent here?”

  Of course, the Transcends could have exiled him for any number of reasons. It didn’t necessarily have to be about his Trial performance. Whatever the case, Marcus was no longer alive to tell the story.

  “There’s not much we can do,” Linus said. “We can go through his supplies, take what we need, and stash the rest nearby in case they send someone else soon. The body we’ll have to burn.”

  “He wasn’t a fray,” Lucian said. “At least, he wasn’t a month ago.”

  Had it been so long since he had arrived on the Isle of Madness? The thought seemed unreal.

  Lucian remembered how he had considered the same choice Marcus had made. The only thing that saved Lucian was seeing the steam of the springs in the distance. Surely, Marcus saw that same steam. He might have even tried to get out of the valley, but couldn’t. Perhaps the sheer effort of burning his way across the snow-filled landscape had pushed him past the point of no return.

  Lucian felt a chill, knowing that it could have been him.

  “I doubt we have the fuel that will make a fire that burns hot enough,” Plato said.

  “I say we leave it for later,” Linus said. “It’s cold enough to keep. We can bury it in the grove south of the springs. With the others.”

  The others? How many had these two buried over the years? Lucian didn’t understand how they could talk about Marcus that way. Presumably, he had a family and others who loved him. Somewhere. What would the Transcends tell them about their son? The cold, hard truth, most likely. Or even more probable, nothing at all. That would be just like them.

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  Lucian shook his head. “I don’t see what else we can do.”

  Linus took Marcus’s shockspear, collapsing and pocketing it. “We can never have enough of these. Great for fishing.”

  “More canned food, too,” Plato said, rifling through Marcus’s pack. “You think you can carry this, Lucian?”

  “He was one of us,” Lucian said. “An exile. And you would dishonor him like this?” Linus and Plato stopped what they were doing. “Maybe you didn’t know him, but he was one of us.”

  At least each had the grace to look a little guilty.

  Plato was the first to respond. “When you’ve seen so much death, you become desensitized to it.”

  “I don’t care what you call it,” Lucian said. “Just . . . have more respect.”

  Lucian walked out of the cabin. He couldn’t stand being in there another moment.

  About five minutes later, the two older men emerged. Plato didn’t ask Lucian to carry Marcus’s stuff.

  Lucian looked at Linus. “Do we have time to head north?”

  Linus shook his head. “We’ll have to use one of the other cabins.”

  They took the cabin opposite Marcus’s and hunkered down for the night. Soon enough, they had a fire going, with some of Marcus’s canned food cooking over the hearth. They spoke not a word. Lucian couldn’t emerge from his gloom. He kept thinking of Marcus’s dead body, still lying in the dark cabin. He could only have been dead a few hours. It was almost too cruel to believe.

  After eating, they each settled down in their own corner. Plato won the toss to get the cot. The other cabins were in such poor state that they couldn’t be used, and they didn't have the fuel for multiple fires, anyway. Linus and Lucian took up positions near the hearth; despite the stink, it was better than being cold.

  And it was in that manner, with the cold wind howling outside and unwelcome thoughts running through his mind, that Lucian fell into a fitful sleep.

  When Linus woke Lucian, Plato was making breakfast over the fire. They ate quickly, and within minutes were heading out the door without a single word being spoken.

  They set off north, the auroras and starlight their only illumination. The long night would last for tens of hours. It was so cold that every intake of breath shocked Lucian’s lungs. He covered his mouth with a scarf to protect his face from the dry, frigid air.

  They left the valley, heading for the northern hills they had left behind the day before. They spent the greater part of the night scaling the ridge. Linus and Plato moved so quickly that Lucian had trouble keeping up.

  The wind picked up as they neared the top. When they crested the ridge, the cold gusts were painful in their intensity. In the distance, Lucian could make out the vast ice sheet, several kilometers wide, stretching from horizon to horizon. The sheer scale of that wall took his breath away. It was a cold, desolate wonder, infused with the rainbow reflection of the dancing lights above.

  All that was left before the ice cap was several kilometers of flat, gray tundra.

  “We call the area north of the mountains the Wastes,” Plato said. “As inhospitable as inhospitable can be.”

  Lucian could only wonder what to expect as he followed the slope downward. Thankfully, it was not as sheer as the southern face, so it only took an hour of walking and sliding to make it to the bottom. There was no life Lucian could see. No lichen, nor rock crabs, nor any of the tough life that eked out an existence south of the mountains. He might as well have been walking across the bare surface of an asteroid or comet, from the clarity of the sky and the frozen barrenness of the landscape. A dusting of dry snow swirled upon the flat, frozen ground, carrying sleet from the ice cap to the north.

  For as many layers as Lucian was wearing, it wasn’t enough. They could not survive out here for long. They needed a fire, and Lucian couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering.

  “Almost there,” Linus said. “Don’t get frostbite yet!”

  “I’m glad for the extra padding!” Plato said, patting his belly.

  His words were almost eaten by the wind. Lucian didn’t have the heart to respond. To think there was such a place as Miami, with sultry air and hot beaches, seemed the height of fantasy. He tried to imagine himself there right now. If he’d had his magic, it would have been a simple thing to stream a heat shield, just long enough to warm up. That possibility no longer existed.

  Lucian spied a deviation in the land ahead, a slight depression that wasn’t visible until they were almost upon it. The ground sloped downward and dropped off steeply.

  Below them was the opening of a cave, what Lucian supposed to be its destination.

  They hurried down the slope and entered the yawning mouth. Ice crystals clung to every surface. It was almost too dark to see, but at least there was no wind here. Linus and Plato went straight to the end of the cave, seeming to know their way despite the darkness. At the back stood a pile of corded lichen, leaning against the ice-encased wall.

  “Grab four good-sized ones, Lucian,” Linus said.

  Lucian did as he was asked, setting the lichen down in a small nook that would trap the heat. Within moments, Plato had a blaze going with his flint, and they were warming their hands and feet before it.

  To Lucian, it was heavenly. It was life.

  But for all its warmth, the fire was not enough. Linus added another two lichen logs, and the fire burned brighter and hotter. They cooked their dinner, some of Marcus’s canned food. Linus announced they would head deeper into the caves once they had some rest.

  Lucian had trouble sleeping, even if the nook had warmed enough to be somewhat comfortable. The wind sounded like the wail of a banshee. What was the point of even being here?

  He supposed he would find out soon enough.