Rain had washed the road from the map, but Liora kept walking. Ahead, between the trees, a light glittered that did not belong to morning.
The orchard appeared without a gate or wall. Every branch carried fruit as clear as blown glass, and every fruit held a tiny moving sky.
She opened her empty atlas. A silver line drew itself across the page, leading deeper between the trees, where someone had written her name in rainwater.
Liora knew better than to follow a map she had not made. She followed it anyway.