Free The Girl of Ink & Stars by Kiran Millwood Hargrave

the compass, peering at it through the gloom. Despite fearing for Lupe, I could not ignore that I was in the Forgotten Territories at last. I would make a map Da would be proud of.
    Every hundred strides the horses took, I marked a line on the soft leather pad I held in my palm, and every time thecompass indicated a change in direction I scored under these lines with an arrow showing the new bearings, consulting the stars the way Da taught me. This was map-making at its most basic, but it was clear the others would not stop and wait for me to take more accurate measurements. I would just have to rely on memory when it came to drawing up the map. That was how I did it with Lupe on our treasure hunts through Gromera’s narrow streets.
    My hand was at my throat before I could stop it, feeling for the locket through my tunic. Marquez narrowed his eyes and I clasped the reins. Maybe it had not been the best idea to bring it with me.
    None of us spoke for a while. The Governor’s shoulders were set, and he hardly moved with the lilt of his horse. He obviously wanted to go faster, but the darkness and the narrow path made it impossible.
    After a few miles the horses started to move more cautiously, shaking their heads and whinnying softly. The men drove them forward, digging the spurs on their stirrups into the animals’ sides. My horse stopped completely until Pablo hit it sharply on the hindquarters.
    It was a few more miles before any of us realized what was wrong. Finally Marquez spoke up.
    â€˜What’s happened to the trees?’
    We pulled our horses to a stop. The surrounding trees did not look alive. The leaves were like lace, criss-crossing blackly over tangles of dead branches. I squinted at one,holding my hand behind a leaf. My skin showed through, a lighter dark, webbed by the leaf’s veins. Up close, the trunks looked like rock. As though the forest had been fossilized.
    Forest fires were nothing new on Joya. Da said this small death was needed; that the trees grew back greener, stronger, gave more fruit. Even the scrubland that backed Gromera occasionally smoked and burnt.
    But this?
    This was different. The leaves hung on their stalks, skeletal and black, yet still attached. The broken bushes oozed black sap, as if the trees were feeding off darkness instead of water.
    A light breeze ran over my exposed neck, a smell hooking into my nostrils. Something sharper than smoke … It reminded me of the scent that had filled Pablo’s room after the fireworks.
    What was it Lupe had said? Something from Asia…
    â€˜Sulphur?’ Governor Adori spoke the word quietly, almost to himself, but in the dead air of the night it reached us all.
    â€˜Boy, come here.’
    I glanced across at Pablo, but he shook his head. Governor Adori was looking straight at me. I nervously nudged the mare towards his horse.
    â€˜That map you have, the old one … Does it suggest this… change?’
    Without a torch nearby, the inside of the satchel should have been impossible to see, but the wood-light, the piece ofDa’s broken walking stick, was shining softly through the thin fabric of my rolled-up dress. As I made to pull out the worn map of the Forgotten Territories, thick fingers closed roughly around my wrist.
    Marquez had dismounted, his face illuminated by the glow from the bag. ‘That… What’s that?’ Without waiting for an answer, he reached into the satchel. He quickly touched the fragment, as if testing it for heat, then pulled it out, sending maps and instruments falling to the forest floor.
    As he held up the glowing wood, its pale light was cast further and the men shrank back. The Governor dismounted, dropping heavily to the ground.
    Swinging my leg clumsily over the mare, I half-fell to retrieve the papers and tools before they were trampled by hooves or the Governor’s boots.
    I crouched down, silently cursing myself for allowing the fragment to be