When I ported to the Guard Station, the man with the scanner was already coming forward.

"Not me," I quickly said. "I found a child, but I'm pretty sure he has a tracker on him. Can I port you there instead? I have enough energy to bounce if needed, and I'd rather not leave him alone for long."

The man stopped with a confused frown. "A child?"

At the same time, another asked, "Where was this?"

"Middle of a forest. I left a hunter with him, but no one else was nearby," I replied. "I figured it was better to take the scanner there rather than risk having airships show up here, especially after Veredyl."

They winced at the name.

"Can you take two?" Another man asked, grabbing a handful of arrows.

I pretended to hesitate. "Yes, but if there's no immediate danger, I'd prefer to rest for at least ten minutes before bringing you back here. The boy is quite scared, so it'll take you a bit to earn his trust."

"That works for me," the man with the scanner said, coming over and resting a hand on my shoulder.

As soon as the other man was ready, I ported them to the forest, appearing three paces from the child. The boy squeaked at our sudden arrival and hugged his knees tighter.

"His name is Mason," I told them.

Brielle relaxed slightly and came to stand by me, still keeping a close eye on our surroundings. I kept one hand on the crystal while the two men began talking to the boy. Like every other "guard" taking a shift at the Guard Station, these two were dressed like an average middle-aged villager.

The man with the scanner began using the device from where he stood. A flashing red light appeared.

"Keep watch," the man told his armed companion. He knelt down, edging closer to the boy on his knees, telling the child, "Let's check your clothing. You have a bug hiding somewhere."

The boy stared at the flashing light, leaning forward as his curiosity started to overcome his fear.

Noticing the boy's growing fascination with the device, the man said, "The light is pointing to something. What do you say we find it and see what it is?"

The child bit his lip, glancing between the device and the man who looked more like a tolerant uncle than anything else. After a few seconds, the child scooted a bit closer. The man turned the device back and forth as the red light moved smoothly along the curved front to point at the same spot, letting him home in on the back of the boy's shirt.

"It's wedged into the seam," the man commented. "Give me a sec' to get it out."

I kept a close eye on the surrounding area as he fiddled with the shirt.

"Got it."

A small, brown seed—almost the exact size and shape of a grain of rice—lay in his palm. I stared at the first tracker bead I'd ever seen. Something that small could have led large airships to us. A chill ran down my spine. Without the scanner, we would have never found it.

The guard set the tracker on a rock to the side as the boy leaned closer to see the scanner and the tiny object it pointed to. With a wary look around, the man got up and pointed the scanner at me. The red light continued to point at the tracker, ignoring me even though I was closer.

"You're clear," he said. "It'll be safer to rest at the Guard Station. How soon can you port us out?"

Hiding the true extent of my porting abilities from strangers was a nuisance. If other villages realized just how strong my porting skills were, they'd be trying to convince me to join them a lot more. Some of that convincing could be a bit more forceful than was polite.

Even the assumption that my skills were average got more attention than I liked, notably from the men. Even though I wanted someone to hold close and—I hid a wince as the memory of Chase's smile surfaced and slashed through me. I just wasn't ready yet.

When the guard raised an eyebrow, I quickly gathered my straying thoughts. "If I didn't have enough strength to bounce, I wouldn't have brought you out here," I told him truthfully. Then I twisted the truth. "But porting this soon will put me near my limits, so you'll be stuck with me for a while. You're right though; it will be safer over there, especially with that tracker bead right here."

"You're welcome to hang out at the Guard Station for as long as you'd like," he replied.

Brielle quietly said, "The sooner we leave, the better. I still think there's something nearby, although I haven't seen anything."

The guard held a hand out to the boy and said, "Come on, bud. We'll take you to a cool outlook on the side of a mountain."

The boy took his hand, and the man gently pulled him to his feet. As much as I wanted to hold out my hand, such a thing was discouraged for porters. If our passengers got attacked or startled, there was a chance they could pull us away from the crystal.

By holding onto my shoulders or upper arms, I had two free hands and more arm reach if I was knocked off balance. That extra split second or two might be the difference between me porting everyone to safety or the entire group being lost.

The men held onto my shoulders, and a glimpse of movement in the distance made me tense up as a dark brown Saursune slunk out of the bushes. It wore an armband nearly the same color as its skin. Brielle's eyes widened as we finally saw our stalker.

My heart skipped a beat as I hastily murmured, "Guard Station."

I couldn't pull my eyes away from the Saursune as it sat on its haunches and watched us leave. It didn't reach for any of the devices on its armband.

I sagged to my knees, more in relief than in exhaustion. Brielle and the man with the bow quickly caught my elbow in case I was fainting. Once Brielle was sure I was stable, she let go but remained beside me. Those who had stayed behind were already coming to see the child, who was now clinging to the man with the scanner.

"Took a tracker off him," the man with the scanner told them.

I shifted so I was sitting cross-legged instead of on my knees. "Did you see the Saursune appear right as I was porting?"

All heads turned to face me. Brielle nodded somberly.

"Where?" asked the man with the bow.

"To our right, about two hundred paces away. Had one of those armbands."

And its scale coloration just so happened to match the glimpses we'd seen during my six-hour hike. Chills crept down my spine as the implications sunk in.

Brielle frowned. "If that was what followed us, then it was watching the entire time we were by the boy."

I nodded, although the guards had no idea of the full extent of her comment.

A woman twisted her lips. "They know we have a scanner now."

"At least they won't be showing up here," the man with the scanner replied, patting the shaking child on the back. He knelt down. "Which village are you from?"

The boy started crying again, burying his face in the man's pant leg.

"I couldn't get anything out of him," I commented.

The archer scratched his head. "Anyone recognize him?"

Head shakes came from everyone present.

"Pretty hard to take him home when we don't know where that is," the archer commented as he walked over to a slab of stone that served as a bench and sat down.

The woman gave him a look. "If he had a tracker bead on him, I have other suspicions. No one takes a child out of a village unless an airship is dropping, and I can think of one particular village that had a visit yesterday."

The boy cried harder at her words, adding further weight to her speculation.

"Would someone at the Oasis recognize him?" I asked. What did people do when they found a lost child? I'd never heard of such a situation before. Whenever we found bodies of hunters, we took the description to the Oasis, where they compared them to people who had disappeared recently. If he was from Veredyl, someone at the Oasis was bound to know where the survivors were.

"Do you mind taking him once you've rested?" the woman asked me.

"I can take him," the old porter in the corner said, getting stiffly to his feet. Weylan asked me, "Do you mind lingering for fifteen minutes? I shouldn't be much longer than that. This bunch would be safe enough without a porter for a while, but I'd like to minimize that time."

"After porting three times? I'll be here at least that long." I gave him a wry grin. "For some reason, villagers get a bit distressed when a porter passes out upon arrival."

He chuckled and began talking to the boy. It took more than a few minutes for the old man to convince the child to take his wrinkled hand. He wasted no time porting him to the Oasis.

"So, the boy was just by a crystal when you arrived?" the woman asked. "Any idea how he got out there?"

I frowned slightly. "No one was there when we arrived. Brielle and I went to plant a shard and returned to find him there. He's way too young to port, even if he has the gene."

Saying it aloud only reinforced how weird this situation was. The glimpse of brown I'd seen about an hour into my hike matched the Saursune's scales, and now that I thought about it, it was the same shade as the one I'd seen at the Orange Flower crystal. The two locations weren't that terribly far apart. Possibly a day's hike for a human. Less for a Saursune.

Our discussion wandered in circles without coming up with any new ideas or possible reasons. All of us were certain the Saursune had a hand in the child's appearance, especially with the tracker and apple cores.

"Well, we should be getting back, or our village will start to worry," I said, standing up and stretching. Weylan hadn't returned yet, but well over fifteen minutes had passed, so he wouldn't be much longer. Brielle followed me to the crystal.

"Take care," the woman said.

"Thanks. You too." I brushed my hand across the crystal. "Home."

No porters were present as Grant ambled over. "How did it go?"

He knew we didn't find the crystal we'd gone looking for—not when it took us roughly seven hours to return. Without outside witnesses, I didn't have to put on an act and pretend to be tired, so I was able to untie the carry net from my waist and pass it to a villager.

"Do you want the short answer or the long answer?" When he gave me a long look, I shook my head. "You might want to take a seat."

A villager scuttled off, hastening her steps to return in time to hear the gossip firsthand. Grant sat beside me and Brielle on a rock and listened closely as we told him everything, from the first glimpses that we initially thought were a rabbit, to the elderly porter taking the child to the Oasis. I also included all the theories those at the Guard Station had come up with, as well as my own. His frown deepened with every sentence, yet he didn't interrupt or ask questions.

He was silent for quite some time after we finished, eventually saying, "I think you're right. There's a solid chance the Saursunes plucked him out of Veredyl and stuck a tracker on him, then tried to find a porting group who might take him. You're probably the only one who wandered away from the crystal long enough for them to put him there unseen. That Saursune was definitely tracking your movements."

"That's the only logical explanation I could come up with," I said. "We didn't tell the guards about it following us the entire hike. We made it sound like something was trailing us the last while."

"It hid well," Brielle added. "That by itself made me suspect it was a Saursune, especially over that kind of distance. I'm now wondering if some of the animals that ran across our path were a subtle attempt to scare us back to the crystal."

Her words reminded me of how long it had followed us and how easily it could have killed us if it hadn't been waiting for us to take the child. Once the tracker appeared in a village, the airships would have descended on their new targets.

Grant mulled that over. "I'll have to ask Merryl to take me to the Oasis when she returns. If the child was from Veredyl, they should know by then."

I nodded. "We have a couple of hours until the porters start coming back. Do you want me to check more villages for shards?"

"Please, and maybe stop at that swamp on your way back and see if you can find a snake or two. Even more of that moss will work."

The polite request was a reminder that we'd been gone all day and hadn't brought much food back. People might start grumbling, especially with the rationing. Our original plans to collect more greens on our way back had dissipated with our stalker. If I could bring back meat, all would be forgiven.

As soon as I had rested enough to satisfy Grant, I headed for the long-abandoned villages to check for any shards. With all the porting I planned to do, Brielle remained in the village.

The first crystal didn't have any shards, so I kept going, trying to remember all of the overrun locations. I barely waited five minutes between the first few ports, something Grant would have grumbled about if he ever found out. After the fifth port, I was feeling a bit winded and took longer breaks. I investigated the caves while waiting but didn't find any notes or wall drawings that might be related to the crystals.

At the seventh village, I found a shard. I decided to visit the swamp before I got too tired. After that, I could check more villages and see how many ports I could manage.

Taking a deep breath of hot desert air, I rested my hand on the crystal. My words were reluctant. "Snake Swamp."

The world around me hazed, and the dry heat was replaced by damp air and the buzzing of bugs. No other groups were here, not that I could blame them. My eyes scanned the weeds and mud as I grabbed a stick and began sliding it across the ground as I slowly advanced, purposefully picking areas along the water's edge and spots with soft soil.

My nerves felt jittery as I waited for a snake to lunge out of hiding—hopefully striking the stick and not my leg. I knew more than a few people who had died from snake bites.

I edged forward, worried the stick might annoy it on the first pass, then for it to take exception to my feet.

One big snake was all I needed. Just one. Two would be better, but with my success so far, all I'd be bringing back was bug bites. I kept going, desperate to bring back some sort of food.

My stick splashed as it skimmed the edge of the algae-filled water, and the nearby surface erupted as a snake struck at the stick, missing, then opening its mouth to show the white interior.

It was nearly impossible to see its body beneath the water. These things were camouflaged far too well! But I knew where it was now. I pushed the long stick under the mud and flicked it onto firmer ground before dispatching it like Mark had shown me. It wasn't as big as the one he caught, but it was still longer than my forearm and had a surprisingly wide girth for something that size.

With excitement speeding my steps, I began picking my way back to the crystal. Movement in the leaf litter ahead alerted me to the presence of another snake coming out of the water to warm up on one of the few spots the sun could reach. I edged closer and bagged that snake as well.

I now had two snakes! I felt like dancing but didn't trust the soft ground that seemed to be floating on top of the water. I swatted a few more mosquitoes as I returned to the crystal and ported out of the dreary swamp.

The desert was a welcome relief from the bugs and humidity. I checked more abandoned villages, but not all of the crystals were in the shelter of cliffs. Before long, I was overly warm and sweaty.

As much as I wanted to keep going, the porting strain had passed the point of mild discomfort and radiated down my arms and legs, leaving my muscles shaky. Apart from the event the other day, it had been years since my legs last gave out from porting strain, but I was getting rather close to that point.

Did I dare try one more place? While debating if I should do something I knew I probably shouldn't do, I tallied up how many villages I'd gone to. Once I added my earlier trips with the child, it came to twenty-two ports.

It matched my previous daily record, but I had never managed so many ports in one afternoon before, let alone pretty much back-to-back. No wonder I was near my limits.

Remembering that I still had that nasty water cart to port, I decided to call it a day. I also wasn't sure how many more abandoned villages were left to check. I'd have to get Grant to pull the list since I was undoubtedly forgetting a few. Once I was reminded of their existence, I could get there.

After resting long enough that I wouldn't look too exhausted, I picked up the snakes and approached the crystal. The spires refracted bluish-green rainbows onto the sand, and I admired the sight as I rested my free hand on top. The feeling of light shimmering through my veins was a familiar reassurance.

Taking a deep breath, I braced my legs and said, "Home."