The main road stopped them at the first intersection. Not a roadblock, not a person — just the fact that the intersection was a T-junction and Aryan did not know which direction led toward the highway and had gone right, and right had led them along a secondary road that ran parallel to the ravine edge for six kilometres before dead-ending at what appeared to be an abandoned pump station at the Chambal riverbank.
He turned the Innova around. Drove back. Took the left. The left road was better — paved, signs of recent use — but it climbed into the plateau above the ravines and then curved back, and fifteen minutes of driving brought them to an elevated section where they could see the ravine system spread below them in the late afternoon light, the beehad extending in every direction as far as visibility allowed.
Priya had her phone up, searching for signal. Kabir was doing the same. Tanya had gone very quiet, which was the most alarming change — Tanya's default state was narration, the running commentary of someone whose job was to make everything verbal, and her silence had the quality of a system that had shut down because it was running something heavy.
