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Sometimes the landlocked city was so hot that the air dragged through Finn's lungs with each breath and even though they were miles from water, it made him feel like he was drowning. Tonight was one of those nights, and the cloying stink of smoke from the pyres made it worse. He loosened his shirt at the neck, breathing more deeply, trying to push down the fear rising within him as he led the Mapwalkers deeper into the city.
Twisted metal lay in piles against sandbags covered in dust from destroyed buildings, the faint smell of buried corpses beneath. Trees grew in the rubble at the side of cracked roads, their leaves mottled black with disease but Finn heard the coo of a pigeon as they passed, evidence of life in the ruins. Soft voices came from one of the skeletal buildings behind i
