Mira Ashveil spread six sealed invitations on the rustic wood bench outside the trading post and knew none of them would ever be delivered. Each one carried her offer to a different tribe: join a caravan guild, share the wells, split the profits, stop bleeding each other over salt. She had spent two months writing them. She had spent two years dreaming them. And she still had no one she trusted to carry a single sheet across open sand. The last courier she hired had sold her route to the Vulture clan for the price of a melting banana split at the market stall behind her. She had watched him eat it while her camels were stolen. Her cousin Clotilde had warned her about him. Clotilde had also warned her that a woman with no tribe could not broker peace between eight of them. Mira pressed her thumb against the wax on the top letter until it dented. The sun was climbing. The invitations needed to leave today or the new-moon council would pass without her. A boy skidded to a stop in front of the bench on a battered board. He was maybe eleven, sunburned, chewing a sun-bleached lollipop stick down to splinters. He pointed at the sealed letters, then at himself, then made a rolling motion with his hand. He did not speak. Mira realized he had not spoken once in the three weeks she had seen him haunting the trading post. "You want to run these?" she asked. He nodded. He held up four fingers, then eight, then tapped his chest twice. Four days. Eight stops. Guaranteed. She almost laughed. Then she watched him. He had not looked at the coin pouch on her hip. He had looked at the seals. He had counted them without moving his lips. A boy who could not or would not speak could not be bribed into gossip, could not be broken under questioning, could not sell her route over a bowl of ice cream. He was already invisible to every adult in the square. "What's your name?" He shrugged. He pulled a scrap of charcoal from his pocket and wrote on the bench slat: NICO. Mira slid the six letters into a leather tube. She added a seventh, addressed to Clotilde, telling her cousin what she was about to do and asking her to send word if the boy did not return by the eighth day. She handed the tube to Nico. She did not pay him. She told him payment came when he came back. He tucked the tube under his shirt, kicked his board around, and was gone before the wax cooled on the seventh seal. Mira sat on the bench and watched the empty street where he had been. She had a courier now. She had also just handed a mute stranger every name of every leader she needed alive. The council was eleven days away.