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“Bloody hell, Vysh. You look terrible. Here, sit down. Drink some water.”

“I’ve drunk plenty of water. I’m not a moron. I knew I had to collect it before it started raining.”

“Good for you. What about food?”

“I ate the tin of meat.” She looked shamefaced. “I know, I should have kept some of it.”

“You shouldn’t have eaten it at all. Here. I have a leftover leg of… whatever the fuck this thing is.”

Kara pulled out the meat she’d roasted earlier. Vysh stared at it in astonishment, then fell on it ravenously.

“How did you find this?” she said, chewing furiously.

“I didn’t find it. I caught it. All the tools for a snare are in the rucksack.”

“Zift.I didn’t even think of that. Though to be fair, even if I had, I don’t know how to set a snare.” Her shoulders drooped forlornly. “I’m useless. I can’t even find a xantha sphere. And I used to be so good at it when I was a hatchling.”

“About that.” Kara opened her rucksack. Vysh’s eyes widened as she saw Kara’s prize.

“Fountain of Zandarr. How did you find it?”

“With this.”

She retrieved the handheld and showed her the map. Vysh’s jaw dropped.

“Vannla’s Sword. Of course. We’re all wearing GPS trackers. You’re so clever, Kara. Are the red markers the spheres?”

“Yes. And the black ones are us.” The subconscious alarm sounded again. Kara frowned at the map, and finally realized what the problem was. Vysh said it first.

“That’s weird. Where’s Layahn’s marker?”

The dot numbered ‘1’ was no longer showing. The hair rose on the back of Kara’s neck.

Even if Layahn was injured or dead, her tracker would still show her location. The fact that it no longer appeared on the map could only mean one thing.

She’d taken her bracelet off and destroyed it.

If she’d done that, it meant she’d figured out how to recalibrate the map and didn’t want her location showing up on it.

Which in turn led to an unsettling conclusion. Layahn could see where everyone else was, but no-one could see whereshewas.

Fuck.

Kara opened her mouth to tell Vysh the bad news when something smashed into her skull from behind. Stunned, she fell forward, landing on her hands and knees.

Groggily, she looked up. Layahn was holding a laser-blade to Vysh’s throat, smirking triumphantly.

“Took me a while to figure out,” she said. “But you’re not the only one with technical know-how.”

“What the fuck are you doing? You’re supposed to be hunting a sphere, not us.”

“Wrong. I don’t need to find a sphere. I just need to find someone who already has one.”

“You piece ofzift,” snarled Vysh. “That’s cheating.”

She tried to twist away but Layahn tightened her hold, bringing the laser-blade so close to her throat it almost singed her skin. Vysh swore but stopped moving. Layahn grinned unpleasantly.

“No rules, remember? Now give me your rucksack.”