Kiddu pulls up the rug and they look down the hole. It’s too dark to see any­thing.

Gil whis­pers to Kiddu.

Gil turns to the main sanc­tu­ary again. They’re not chant­ing any­more, but they’re still bow­ing, press­ing their fore­heads into the sand—everyone except Hat­van. He’s star­ing right at the rug in Kiddu’s hands.

Sud­denly, Hat­van jumps up and quickly strides over. He has one of his hands in his robe, as if ready to draw some hid­den weapon hang­ing from his belt.

Hat­van leans over the hole, peer­ing down. By now, the oth­ers have mean­dered into the small room.

Hat­van turns Dron­aja, and Dron­aja turns to Jaruna. The mys­tic nods, and the unspo­ken affir­ma­tion fil­ters down the chain of com­mand, caus­ing Hat­van to spring up, grab the rope lad­der, and toss it down.

A few sec­onds later, a tall native in a tan robe emerges from the hole. He is com­pletely out of breath and has to kneel as he climbs into the room. His eyes widen as he spots Jaruna, and he bows low to the ground, still pant­ing.

Yod­hana stops, his mouth agape—he’s just spot­ted Gil and Kiddu.

He stares at them for a moment. But only a moment—then he con­tin­ues on with what he was say­ing as if they weren’t there.

He starts walk­ing into the Temple’s main sanc­tu­ary, along with the oth­ers. Gil and Kiddu linger in the alcove, feel­ing quite out of place. Every­one ignores them any­way.

Gil turns to Kiddu, hop­ing to strike up a quiet con­ver­sa­tion.

But she is star­ing unapolo­get­i­cally at Yod­hana.

He nudges her, and she breaks from her stare as if from a spell.

She looks at him with fear in her eyes.

Before Gil can stop her, she runs into the main room, break­ing who knows how many native rules of deco­rum and mod­esty—

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