Traveling along the molten lake’s shore with only Jika felt like we had stepped from the depths of the Ever Dark into a waking dream. The lake glowed brightly on our left through fog like a thousand glow stones that had been melted down while refusing to go out. In contrast, the land to our right might have been the more familiar forests and open spaces, but the fog turned them into murky threats that could be hiding anything. We didn’t have Tike’s expertise or our normal indicators to know if a place could be trusted or not. We didn’t even have spears. The one I had been sharing with Prevna had gone with her and Kuma had the other that had survived the trip to the village. After all, if everything had gone as Prevna wanted Jika and I would be tucked safe in the village right now. Perhaps, at the start of our exploration, we could have pressed the men for more spears but I didn’t trust that they wouldn’t hand me something from a chopped down tree.

Exhaustion dragged on both of us and we had to keep a handful of feet from the edge of the lake to make sure we didn’t accidentally fall head first into it when yawns or gritty eyes distracted us. However, we also couldn’t go too far from the lake in case we got turned around and lost it. The fog might have been thinner and the lava brighter out here than in Steamer’s Fall but the fog was still plenty good at obscuring everything around us. So we had to scramble down ledges and climb back up again when the shore abruptly changed height instead of searching out an easier pathway.

We crossed large swathes of burned land that had nothing left but gray ash. Nothing but open space where there should have been trees and underbrush, soot that stuck to our shoes and anything else it could reach with a breeze. No doubt the remnants of the fire dancers’ work. The odd thing was that occasionally there would be a puff of grass that stuck up in the middle of the ash like the dancers had forgot to touch it. Just as disturbing was the harsh line between what had burned and what hadn’t, where the trees and grasses right next to the scorched path didn’t even have burn marks.

Part of me yearned to follow the path, see where they went and possibly learn why they annually set everything in their way on fire, but we didn’t have the time.

The light still wasn’t strong but some part of my mind whispered that exhaustion pulling more and more strongly on my eyelids wasn’t just the natural strain of staying up way too long or a strenuous hike. The fog was starting to have an effect.

I couldn’t sleep, not yet, but at the same time I needed to with such a slow growing desperation that it felt like it had been my idea all along. I found myself starting to look for the comfiest spots to lay down: a nook between two roots, under a large fern, a patch of thick grass. When I caught myself after I stumbled over a rock I could have easily stepped around because my eyes had been closed for a handful of blissful moments I knew we weren’t going to make it. The lake was too vast and the fog’s invitation too strong for two people who had neglected to sleep, especially with the way Jika was weaving back and forth in front of me. I couldn’t even tell how far we had come or how far we had to go. Perhaps the village’s outpost would be over the next hill, but more than likely we’d be passed out before we ever made it there.

My fingers found the pouch of the experimental mixture I had made.

We did have one final bid to try to make it to our destination. Though I had been limited to only make enough for one person because of the number of seeds I started with. I poured the mixture into my half full waterskin and then shook the contents together. Jika turned at the noise, swaying slightly as she rubbed her eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Making our last resort.” I hesitated just before I touched the waterskin to my lips. “If I look like I’m dying, don’t worry. I’ll be fine.”

Then I drank a large sip of the mixture, just enough to test it without drinking so much that it’d ruin the mixture’s potency. It tasted sweet and ashy and bitter, and I struggled briefly not to gag.

Jika stared at me in horror as I waited to see what would happen. At first there didn’t seem to be a change just like when we had drank the resistance mixture Malady had made and then the villagers’ more potent version. But we had been awake and alert then so I didn’t take that as a good sign.

Just when I was really starting to worry that I had made nothing more than a bad tasting drink, I felt a buzzing sort of spark in my belly that grew into a restless energy accompanied by the feeling that I suddenly more aware than I had been before. It didn’t get rid of the exhaustion, not completely, but I could focus on the buzzing awareness more than the lure of easy sleep.

I thrust my waterskin at Jika. “Drink this. All of it.”

She held up her hands defensively. “But—”

I pressed it even closer to her. “Drink it. It’ll wake you up.”

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I could tell she wanted to protest more but she was too tired to get the words off her tongue. Not everyone had the same resiliency. Then again, this was hardly the first time I had been awake for a long time. There were the times we had to change our sleep schedule when the tribe went into Flickermark and all nighters tending to patients. That time I had been frozen…

I shuddered and shoved the waterskin at Jika one last time. She reluctantly took it and drank. After one gulp she grimaced and held it away from her.

I stared her down. “All of it. Or you’re asking for the fog to get you.”

“What about you?” she asked, as she tried to hand the waterskin back to me.

“I’ll be fine.” I crossed my arms so I couldn’t take the waterskin back.

Jika grimaced again but she choked down the rest of the mixture. I did take the empty waterskin back then. She bent over, hands on her knees, as she breathed deeply and tried not to throw everything she just drank back up. Then I saw a shudder travel up her body and she bolt upright, eyes wide.

I stepped closer, worried at how strong her reaction was compared to mine. “What is it?”

“I could run forever,” she said, eyes focused somewhere over my shoulder.

I caught her wrist just before she bolted. We both went down as our limbs tangled together and I had to fight my instinctive desire to scramble away. If she went running off in the wrong direction we’d both be doomed.

Instead, I pinned her legs beneath me and asked, “Are you alright? Did the mixture make you feel bad anywhere?”

Her gaze caught mine and I could tell that her eyes were much more dilated than they should be. “I’m more awake than I’ve ever been. I don’t even notice the tiredness anymore. I could just run and run and run.”

A stray thought slipped into my mind as I looked down at the way she was nearly shaking with the need to move and I felt the same spark of buzzing energy in my belly: maybe this was what the grounder grass was for. Something to settle or focus the energy and alertness the other plants provided.

My own exhaustion still tugged at me, however. One sip wasn’t enough to override that like Jika’s portion had.

“Great.” I pointed in the direction we had been headed. “Then you are going to run along the shore until you reach the village. Then you can let them know where to find me.”

Jika shifted like she was going to spring up right then before she frowned. “But what about you? You can’t stay out here.”

I moved off her legs. “I can’t keep up with you now. I’m still tired. So that’s why you are going to run to the village and let them know to find me along the fire lake’s shore. I’ll survive.”

Her frowned deepened. “We shouldn’t split up.”

“No,” I agreed, “but we have to. If you go we both will make it. If you insist on staying with me then neither of us will. You’ll get tired again before we make it there since I’ll fall asleep and you’ll have to drag me or leave me then. So you should go now so we don’t waste time we don’t have.”

I could tell she was struggling to keep herself from moving, running like the mixture demanded she do to burn off the sudden energy coursing through her. One hand gripped the grass like she was using it to anchor herself there. “Splitting up has ruined everything so far. I’m not doing it again.”

“Fine.” I hated giving in, but we were wasting time and one way or another she’d have to abandon me eventually. This way at least she’d have a bit more time to save herself when I inevitably was overrun by the fog’s effect.

We got up and Jika led the way again, pulling further and further ahead until she looked back to check on me. I forced myself to push my shorter legs to go as quick they could so I wouldn’t slow her down.

It didn’t take me long to realize I had made a horrible mistake. The fog was still there, feeding into my exhaustion, begging me to give in and rest even as the spark of restlessness I had gotten from the mixture tugged at me to move and think and pay attention to everything around me. And with both tugging at me I couldn’t focus fully on either so I was stuck one moment cracking my face open with a yawn and the next trying calculate how many leaves were on a bush even as I had to remind myself to keep following after Jika. And then moving was easy, the restless spark liked that, but brought more potential nap spots into focus and the urge to sleep in one of them rose. Back and forth between two extremes, over and over while Jika had the gall to practically skip in front of me.

Somewhere along the way I started to notice faces in the fog around us. Faces that disappeared as soon as I turned to look at them. Was this some new kind of monster in the fog? Some kind of ambush attack?

“Jika,” I hissed, and she turned back to look at me. “There’s something there.”

She quickly took a few steps closer to me. “What is it? I don’t see anything.”

“Faces. In the fog. You don’t see them?”

She scanned our surroundings and shook her head. “There’s nothing there.”

Except there was a face, and I recognized that those eyes now. That expression. Her favorite look of disappointment.

Another appeared out of my eye with her first look of disappointment. And then another. The faces were everywhere and I could feel the memories pressing on me, pulling at me. Suddenly, nearly forcing themselves free from where I kept them locked away after the strain my mind had been put under the past week.

I knew what would happen if I stayed awake and I…just couldn’t. Not after keeping most of them at bay for so long. I couldn’t face them all at once, pulled into a dozen different torments.

That little spark wanted to keep me awake, but it was fading and it was just a spark. I could overwhelm it. I couldn’t stay awake for this. I wasn’t sure I’d even be able to pull myself back out of the memories with the state I was in.

I forced myself to focus on Jika. “Never mind. Seeing things. I’ll be fine. Keep going. Find the village.”

Then I turned the last bit of my focus on that desperate desire to sleep that had been weighing on me, making my limbs heavy, dragging my eyelids closed, promising sweet oblivion. As soon as I stopped trying to resist it the feeling welled up like a wave cresting before it crashed back down.

Then there was only darkness.

No faces.

Nothing.