The desert sands grew to a tarnished orange as they sped through the air. A faint acrid scent filled the air and the sun seemed to brighten. Even with the wind whipping past them, Angel could feel it starting to get uncomfortably warm.

“What’s going on?” Vanessa called over the howling air.

“It’s just the center of the Barren,” Angel replied. “The surroundings here are much less hospitable. It’s annoying, but there’s nothing to worry about from it. The thing we have to keep an eye out for are the monsters. They’re everywhere.”

However, to Angel’s surprise, the next hours of their trip went by with almost no problem whatsoever. As the sun started to lower towards the edge of the horizon, the temperature dropped like a comet.

A powerful chill plucked at Angel’s extremities and slashed at his eyes. He let up on the speed, slowing to a stop. Cowl and Vanessa followed suit as they arrived at the top of a large dune.

“Stopping for the night?” Vanessa guessed.

“Yep,” Angel replied, his teeth chattering slightly. His arm felt like a glowing beacon in the evening light, but there wasn’t much to be done about that.

“Are you sure it’s safe?” Vanessa asked. “Couldn’t Silver be right behind us?”

“It’s incredibly unlikely,” Angel replied, shaking his head. “The desert is big, and the Great Catacomb spat us out in a different spot than where we’d entered. He moves faster than we do with his chopper, but it’ll take him at least a bit of time to find us.”

He pulled his blanket out and sat down on top of it. He popped a panel open in his arm, revealing the empty spot where the grappling hook had gone. Vanessa slipped over behind Angel to watch him work.

“Have you practiced with the Tinkerer’s tools since you got out of the catacomb?” Angel asked.

“Yes. I can draw shapes pretty well now, but I didn’t know what to do next and Cowl wasn’t sure either.”

“Of course Cowl didn’t know,” Angel said, taking out his scribe, the motor that the merchant had sold him, and the spool with the grappling hook still attached to it. “He’s a Hunter, not a Tinkerer.”

“You aren’t a Tinkerer either,” Vanessa pointed out.

“I had special training.” Angel ran the scribe along the grappling hook’s thin rope, using metal to stitch back up some of the slight tears that had appeared in it. Once he’d finished, he coiled it back around the spool and set about connecting it to the new motor. “If you’re drawing shapes, the next thing you need to learn are patterns.”

“Well, I’m ready when you are.”

“Maybe tomorrow,” Angel said, carefully placing the grappling attachment within his arm. Several joints clicked down over it, locking the device back into place. Angel closed the plate and flexed his arm. He pointed it at the sand and the grappling hook whizzed out, punching into the ground. It retracted back into his palm with a high pitched whine. “And what have you been up to, Cowl?”

“Just watching the girl,” Cowl said, his voice crackling. “Not much else to do. Can’t complain about that.”

Angel grunted and turned away from the Hunter. He set about filling his new canisters with magic. Once he’d finished, he wrapped his blanket around himself. The chill was starting to bite into his flesh. “Are you taking first watch?”

“I can. It’s not like I’m going to get any rest with that night light attached to your arm.”

“You’ve got a mask,” Angel said. “I think you’ll live.”

He turned over, ending the conversation. Angel could hear Vanessa getting ready to sleep herself, but his attention was focused on Cowl. It wasn’t that the man had done anything suspicious recently. In fact, he’d been nothing but useful since they’d met. The message from the Hunter’s Guild could have just been a fluke. However, Angel’s gut told him otherwise and he hadn’t lived this long by ignoring it.

Angel cast his thoughts back to when they’d first met. It had been in the Hunter’s guild. There hadn’t been anything particularly off about Cowl at the meeting. Aside from his strange choice of attire, the man seemed to be a normal Hunter.

The next time they’d interacted was outside the city, and they’d been together ever since. Angel’s frown deepened. Then he paused. When Cowl had first met them, his sword had blood on it and he’d mentioned taking care of the fake guard.

Cowl had even straight up said that he had been trailing Angel. But what was the point of that? For all the Hunter knew, it was just a normal job. If he’d somehow known who Angel was escorting, he supposed it might have made sense. However, there shouldn’t have been a way for the Hunter to know who Vanessa was, so there was no reason to follow him.

Angel’s skin prickled with goosebumps. Cowl wasn’t after Vanessa at all. That was why he’d protected the girl. Cowl was after him – or more accurately, the relic. That was why he’d been so obsessed with Angel’s belongings. He didn’t know where it was and, if Angel hadn’t brought it with him, Cowl would need to be in his good graces to figure out where it was.

He fought the urge to leap to his feet. As long as Cowl didn’t know that Angel was onto him, he could formulate a plan. Running away with Vanessa would only result in a direct confrontation with Cowl, and he didn’t fancy his chances there.

Angel gritted his teeth. He could wait for his watch and try to slip away, but something told him that Cowl would be ready for that. He needed a bigger distraction. He thought for a few moments before a thought struck him and a faint grin tugged at the edge of his lips.

The bandit groups. It wouldn’t be too hard to locate one with the amount of magic and heat that barges used. If he could somehow get Cowl caught up fighting them, there was a way out. Unfortunately, that meant sleeping through the night with an enemy at the watch.

It wasn’t easy. Angel tossed and turned throughout the night, barely able to get much sleep as thoughts racked through his head. When Cowl woke him for his watch, he barely managed to keep a straight face.

Angel no longer had the sentry to take his place during the watch, so he had to do it himself. He kept a close eye on Cowl, well aware that there was almost no chance that the man would do much right now.

He flipped his eyepiece down and examined the desert, searching for any traces of magic. It didn’t take him long to pick up the faint glimmer of something in the distance. Angel kept an eye on it throughout the night.

When morning came and the day started to warm up once more, Angel nudged Vanessa awake. Cowl arose on his own and the three packed up, quickly eating a small meal. Once they’d finished, they set off once again.

All three of them were oddly quiet as Angel steered them straight towards the magical source, desperately hoping it was the barge and not a huge monster.

“You’re quiet today,” Cowl observed.

“I’m thinking,” Angel replied, hiding the flash of worry. Cowl was too damn perceptive.

“Odd time to pick up a new hobby.”

“Very funny,” Angel said, rolling his eyes despite the situation.

A little over an hour passed, still with little interference from the desert. The situation had officially gone from ‘lucky’ to ‘unsettling’. There was no reason for the monsters to be leaving them alone like this.

Angel opened his mouth to comment on it, but a faint hum reached his ears and stopped the words before they could emerge. His blood ran cold and he looked up. A chopper hung in the cloudless sky above them, closing the gap at a rapid rate.

“Buried gods,” Angel swore as the flying vehicle’s shadow passed over them. “They’re tracking us.”

He lowered his eyepiece and glanced in the direction of what he hoped to be the bandit barge. The light was significantly brighter. It was much closer now, possibly even heading in their direction.

“What do we do?” Vanessa asked, grabbing her gauntlet and moving closer to Angel.

“No point running. They’re faster than we are,” Angel said, allowing his board to slide to a stop. He slung it back over his shoulder and grabbed a canister, placing it into the slot in his arm.

Ropes flew out from the chopper and bandits slid down around them. Silver was the last to fall. His wide brimmed hat flapped in the wind and he landed easily on his feet, an almost apologetic expression on his tanned face.

“Angel. I must say, your last escape was quite impressive,” Silver said, inclining his head. “Unfortunately, I fear that this is the end of the road. You’ve got something that I want.”