1 The breeze that wafts by me is deceptive. It carries the scent of burning sage, a scent we associate with happy occasions, like marriage ceremonies and harvest festivals. Marron believes the herb will lift our mood and help us all forget we’re living in a cave. Like that’s possible. The sage does not mask the reek of illness and brackish water. It does nothing against the cold in here. Cold that is bone-cracking. Skin-splitting. Nor does the sage have any effect on the darkness, darkness so complete it sucks you under like a riptide, pressing the air out of your lungs and teasing nightmares from your imagination. The sage does not keep me from seeing stone walls everywhere I look, rough and gouged surfaces, like meat clawed from an animal. There is no forgetting where we are. No amount of good smell can take my mind off this cold, stale grave, or the Aether that’s put us here by destroying the world outside. I look around me, at the Dweller cavern where I am stuck helping Molly. This place is the most desperate of all. “Help me,” someone rasps behind me. “Water,” moans another voice off in the shadows. The sounds of the Dwellers wheezing and moaning have not ceased since I arrived. They are sick. Every one of them