HOWL CONTINUES TO STAY VERY much alive, but I don’t give in to the fruit. Even if hard crackers have begun to feel like cement piling up in my stomach, biting into an apple feels like some sort of disloyalty to the City. To Tai-ge.
Walking is a slow affair, with rests for me to concentrate on something other than my ribs attempting to poke holes out my abdomen. Howl can’t keep still when we’re stopped, sometimes pulling up plants with barky-looking roots to eat boiled with dinner, something I do allow, though it makes me look twice at that single line scarred into his hand, wondering how the Chairman’s son knows tubers from onions from bloodsucking leeches. He must have been preparing to leave for a long time, figuring out how to survive Outside so he’d be ready.
My cuts and bruises start to disappear, the days slipping by like sand through my spread fingers, mesmerizing and uniform. The cold doesn’t bite the way it did up high on the mountain, but it lurks in the open sky and the shorter days, waiting to bare its teeth. Before many days have passed, every tree we walk by starts to look the same, every burr caught in my hair just another task for our chats around the fire at night as Howl tells me stories about other constellations, other worlds, everything except his own life back in the City.
It must be hard for him, too—leaving. I can see traces of something trapped beneath the easy smile that splits his face in two as we walk away from his home and mine. But questions don’t go over well. Whatever it is that made him run—that made him help me—stays cloaked, hidden by his mask of smiles, jokes, and stories.
And it isn’t so hard to understand. I have my own pain to hide, each step away from the City feeling like a betrayal of something sacred, of the things I knew and loved. I keep track of the days religiously, marking off one week, then two, trying to measure Howl’s estimate of walking to this mountain place in a month against our progress toward the blue peak in the distance. It distracts me from wondering what Tai-ge is thinking, doing. The ring I found makes an ugly rust stain on my pinkie, but I leave it there, scratching an ugly circle on the corroded surface, like the City seal.
It feels like a link to him, as if I can toy with it the way he did with his, turning it around and around and imagining he is doing the same. Every day the metal looks rustier, grainer, scraping against my skin. Is that what Tai-ge thinks of me, now that I’m gone? Has his mother managed to convince him I’m as awful and ugly as this old, rusted ring? A sad substitution for the real thing. Never a friend, much less a . . . whatever it was that my traitor brand made impossible.
Going back, even to explain, could be death for both of us. I have to look forward.
Unfortunately, forward is an unchanging view of the back of Howl’s head.
The land levels out around us, the river swelling to a huge glassy sheet. We stay close to the water, following the curve of the mountain range south. When the clouds thin, the rounded tops appear, hulking beasts painted over with a child’s watercolor set in grays and greens. Once, Howl points out the ghostly silhouette of a building clinging to a bald mountainside, sharply peaked roof gold against gray. A forgotten temple of some god who died along with the rest of this land.
The bag of Mantis feels too light every time I take it out, as if the pills are slipping out behind me in a trail leading back to the City. In another week or more, we’ll be . . . somewhere, though I don’t let myself think more than that. Is it the same “somewhere” my mother went after she tried to kill me?
But I’ll be alive. Not attempting to swallow clods of dirt whole, or carving my initials in Howl’s skin. Is that enough? That I’ve finally earned my four stars, but I’ll be alive to wear them?
The trees, the nighttime fires made from Junis (a wood that hardly smokes), the river, Howl’s long-legged pace, waking up with frost in my hair—it all hardens into a shield against the knot of homesickness and regret twisted up inside my chest. I feel as though I’m part of a machine: walk, sleep, eat, forget.
Until early one morning, Howl stops.
I peer around him into the trees, and my breath catches in my throat. We’ve found people. A pile of them.
Howl nudges the closest man over with a muddy boot, separating him from the pile. The body resists, frozen and fighting to remain a haphazard part of the heap. The man’s eyes are glazed over with frost, City seal etched out in his brown leather jerkin beneath all the dried blood.
Memories of boots crunching through bones and rotted flesh dance through my mind, so I decide to sit and watch Howl search the dead men’s packs for useful items. At least until my stomach calms down.
As he rummages, the body separate from the rest watches me. The index fingers on both his hands end in blackened stumps, his mouth a frozen crevasse, gaping open in a grimace of ice and blood. Would you have killed me too? he asks. Just like your mother. Killing everyone else to make sure you live. You don’t even know why it’s a choice between you and me.
My eyes lock with the dead man’s, horror-struck as they film over with black foam. Are you here to kill me too? The inky black trails trickle toward his mouth, death grimace twisting into a sneer. Quit acting like a poor, abandoned child. It’s in your blood. Kill me.
A hand on my shoulder sends a jolt of electricity through my body. “Sev?” the voice snakes through the haze, but cold seeps up through my coat, frosting my ears shut, the dead soldier’s icy fingers trying to find my throat.
“Sev?” The voice is louder. Yelling. The blackened face resolves into a pair of brown eyes. “Sev! What’s wrong?”
My shoulders lift from the ground and crash back down. How did I end up lying on the ground? I can’t fight the soldier’s iron grip bruising my arms. Water splashes across my face and the dark eyes become a face. Howl. Holding me down.
“Get off me!” I yell, jerking away from him.
Howl lets go, surprised. “You started shaking and fell over.” He raises my chin with one finger, appraising. “Are you sick?”
“No! I saw . . .”
“You saw what?” When I don’t answer, Howl sits back on his heels, eyebrows creasing in toward each other. “This is the third time this has happened since we’ve been out here. Not including that first night in the wine cellar.” He pushes a flustered hand through his hair. “How could you . . .” But then he takes a deep breath and starts over. “Are you taking Mantis like you are supposed to?”
I feel my face flush. “You hand it to me every morning and night. And watch me swallow.”
“Then what is going on?”
I take a deep breath. “I . . . see things. It happened back in the City a lot. Never this bad before. Except . . . except for the bottles.” I feel so ashamed. Dirty. Something is wrong with me, and I can’t talk about it. Not when a dead man was just speaking to me. “It hasn’t hurt you yet, so—”
“I’m not worried about you hurting me; I’m worried about you hurting yourself. What do you mean, you ‘see things’?” Howl unzips my pack, digging until he finds the plastic package of Mantis Dr. Yang gave me. He doesn’t seem to mind that I just told him I’ve been hallucinating. He just eyes the bottle thoughtfully. “Does it hurt?”
My mind struggles to find a way to deny what Howl has uncovered, to pull the secret back inside of me, where it will be safe, but nothing comes.
I don’t remember hallucinations happening at all before my sister, Aya, died, about two years ago. The week after I saw her shot down, I started having frighteningly real dreams. Dreams that woke me up screaming, dreams that didn’t go away even after I opened my eyes. It started happening more and more, until I was almost too frightened to go to sleep. Then came the daydreams, dark, twisted versions of reality, like the monster at the Aihu Bridge.
I shake my head, not sure if it is a response to Howl’s question or just an attempt to stop the world from spinning around me. “Just trying to keep you on your toes. Unpredictability: Boys love it. At least that’s what the nuns always said in our late-night girly talks. What did you find?”
His lips harden to a tight line, and for a moment I think he won’t drop it. But when he finally speaks, his voice is soft. “Nothing. They’ve all been picked clean.”
“Who would be out here killing Reds? I mean, if there’s no such thing as Kamar, like you say.”
Howl shrugs. “It’s no-man’s-land from here to the mountain.” He says it as if it’s a name, not just one of the many mountains we’ve walked over. “Most Outsiders stay clear. There were only Reds in the pile, though, so it must have been an ambush. Are you okay? You look terrible.”
I smooth a hand over my braided hair, picking out a few dead leaves and brushing the dirt from my back. “Better than they do.”
Howl glances toward the lifeless soldiers. “Not by much.” He puts the package of Mantis into his own pack and pulls out a bottle marked with Mantis’s characters. “I’m going to have you switch to these, okay?”
“You’ve had more Mantis this whole time?” A thread of annoyance cuts at my throat. “I’ve been so worried we’d run out. . . .” And why would it matter which Mantis I take? They’re all the same little green pills.
He pulls out three more bottles, stuffing them all into my pack. “And now you don’t have to worry anymore. You can carry it, if you want. Less weight in my pack.” He zips my pack closed and uncurls from his crouch next to me.
“The mountain . . .” I say it as if that’s the name of the place, the way he did, taking the hand he offers to help me up. “Did they do this?”
“So they are the people we’re fighting. I mean, the people the City is fighting.”
“Yes.” Howl’s face shuts tight, wariness cloaking his open smile as it always does when I ask too many questions.
“So, even if they don’t call themselves Kamar, how is going to them not betraying the City?”
“Because . . .” Howl can’t seem to let go of the word, drawing it out long as if while he’s still saying it, he won’t have to actually explain anything. “You haven’t been out here long enough to understand yet. Come on, we need to get moving. Less than a week to the Mountain, and I don’t want to run into trouble.”
“Could these Mountain people—the ones who killed these Seconds—be close?” I want to probe more, but dwelling on the dead men replants the Watchmen’s black, empty eyes and severed trigger fingers back into my thoughts.
“I don’t think so. These bodies have been here for at least a week. . . .” Howl freezes midstep, his head cocked to the side as if he’s listening. Each of the tendons in his neck stands out underneath his skin like a starving set of ribs, his jaw set so hard I can almost feel his teeth cracking under the pressure.
It looks almost like . . . fear.
“Howl, what . . .”
He puts his finger to his lips, listening.
Dread oozes through my chest and paralyzes me, the quiet noises of the forest suddenly sinister and dangerous. I can’t see anything that should be frightening on the ground or off in the trees. “What is it?” I whisper.
Instead of answering, Howl stalks off into the trees, feet silent on the uneven ground. When he comes back, the tense look isn’t quite gone, though it’s masked now by a smile. “Come on, we need to check something out.”
“What? You look like you’re about to dig yourself a cave to hide in.”
He squats down, fingers pressing at the exposed dirt, digging around a clump of pink flowers just brave enough to push through into the cold air. Squishing the dirt against his palm into a ball, he then tosses it up into the air and catches it again with the other hand. “Sounds messy.”
The knot of fear in my chest is slowly loosening, and pride takes over. I try to sound nonchalant. “What, then?”
Howl points to the ground, which seems unremarkable in any way. “People have been through here. More recently than the group that killed the soldiers. It took me a minute to figure out whether or not they could be within earshot.”
“So, not our mysterious and complicated mountain people you won’t tell me about?”
His mouth twitches as if he wants to laugh but is too polite to do so. “I don’t know if I’d call them ‘ours.’ Right now I think we have more in common with that detatchment of Reds we found than anyone else out here. Twice as dirty and just about as frozen. I’m not sure anyone else will take us in.”
Bending down, Howl wraps his fingers around one of the flowers and pulls, handing the bloom to me.
“At least with the dead guys, I’d know who I was dealing with,” I say, raising an eyebrow. But I take the flower, twirling the stem between my fingers.
Howl grins, but his eyes are strained. Worried about whoever is out here and trying to hide it. “Now I can’t tell you, because this is more fun. Maybe if I keep my mouth completely shut, you’ll explode or something.” And he starts to walk.
“Howl!” I call after him. “Aren’t Firsts supposed to tell the truth? It’s part of your science-Mantis-finding oath thing.”
His pack stares back at me, shifting on his back he disappears into the trees.
Running to catch up, I take my place a few feet behind him, though his pace is much slower than usual. “What if you die? I’ll be stuck out here with . . .” Myself. The pocket that holds my new bottle of Mantis feels extra light.
The frustration rock solid in my stomach starts to grow until my whole midsection might as well be granite and dragging along behind me. What is it that made him run away? And why doesn’t he believe I’ll be able to understand it? Even worse than that, if he can’t tell me, does that mean he doesn’t trust me? That we aren’t friends?
I skip a few steps to catch up with Howl. “I heard a story once that the Chairman only employs mutes because he can’t stand the chatter from Thirds who can talk. Does that apply to sons as well?”
Howl grunts, fringes of hair bobbing up and down, just visible over his pack from behind him. He doesn’t react to the mention of his father.
“My roommate, Peishan, said it wasn’t all the Thirds serving up in your house. Just the Chairman’s hairdresser. She knows all the City secrets, all the Chairman’s stupid jokes, and how often he brushes his teeth. He trusts her because she can’t tell anyone else, not even her own family.”
Silence.
I pull my long braid over my shoulder, more snarl than actual braid at this point. “You already know all of my secrets. And you seem to have the no-talking thing down. So if you were planning to start a new career as a hairdresser, I’d be willing to let you try mine.”
“I think the only way to fix that braid involves a knife.” Howl pauses to brush his fingers across a tree trunk where a few strips of bark have been rubbed away. “Now, how do I turn you off again? Mute would be good right now.”
The curt reply stings a little, but I don’t let it stop me. “You have to know the magic word. It isn’t the name of my firstborn child, or ‘open sesame,’ or anything about my hair, so don’t bother.”
Howl doesn’t look back this time. “What about ‘please’?”
The cold sinks in deep this morning and my healing ribs ache from shivering. Howl stops every ten feet to look at each displaced pebble in our path, making me think of a child wearing his dad’s uniform hat and coat, striding around and issuing orders as he plays at being much bigger than he actually is.
“You seem kind of anxious, Howl. Would it cheer you up if I ate an apple this morning?”
He finally looks at me, half a smile pulling at his mouth. “I didn’t pick any for you today, so you’d have to fight me for it.”
“I’d win, too.”
I skip a step back when Howl unbuckles his pack and drops it to the ground, wondering if he means to take me up on that challenge, but he just answers in a conspiratorial whisper, “I fight dirty when I’m protecting my food. Now, if you don’t mind, I want to spot the people who passed through here before they hear your voice and die from an overdose of secondhand perkiness. Like I said, I don’t think they are soldiers, but I don’t think they are . . . our people either. And I don’t want to stumble across a nest of Wood Rats by accident. Especially not in the land between the City and . . .” He purses his lips, then amends, “Anyone living this close to the City.”
Dropping his pack behind a rock, Howl gestures for me to set my pack down as well. By the time my things are hidden, he’s already ten yards away, dark hair barely visible through the underbrush.
We dodge through the woods until I feel ridiculous trying to follow his lead. Elbowing my way through frozen dirt on my stomach and ducking behind bushes seems more conspicuous than walking like a normal person. I’m about to suggest this when he puts one finger to his lips.
Howl huddles under the bare ribs of a bush, the branches sticking weakly out from a dusting of dead leaves. Through the bush, I can see a scrap of mud-green canvas.
The sight of something man-made has me on the ground with my heart pounding, mind full of all the stories they tell about the people who live Outside. After all these days of wandering alone, the idea of other people seemed vague. Unreal. But ahead of us is a very real tent, and real live Wood Rats live in it. The scavengers that survive Outside are definitely something to fear.
Howl gestures for silence again, pointing to his mouth and breathing deeply, a sharp contrast to the short, scared bursts coming from me.
Putting a finger to his lips, Howl touches my shoulder and shakes his head. When he places his other hand on my stomach, it sends a panicked jolt through my abdomen, and I jerk away. Howl rolls his eyes and points to my shoulder. He puts a finger on his own shoulder and breathes in with an exaggerated shoulder movement, shaking his finger. With a hand on his stomach, he takes slow breaths that come from much deeper.
I try it. Much more quiet and controlled. I even feel calmer.
But it’s too late.
A click sounds behind me, ripping through the cold silence like a clap of thunder. Howl’s eyes fasten on something behind me.
I turn to find a weather-beaten old man standing over us, gun trained on Howl. He doesn’t blink when Howl’s hand slips up into his jacket. He just shoots the tree behind us, sending a flurry of birds into panicked flight. “Don’t move. No use for whatever you’ve got hidden under there.”
I agree. I happen to know it’s the knife that disappeared from my pocket down in the Chairman’s basement. Howl uses it to cut our army-ration dried meat into strips so we can eat while we walk. It isn’t very sharp.
“Hands up, both of you.” The man’s eyes stare at Howl until he does as he’s told. “Now stand up.”
I roll over to my knees and inch to my feet. Howl creeps up in front of me as he stands, one hand over his head, the other extended out in front of me as though his arm is going to make a difference if this Outsider decides to shoot me.
The man’s eyes widen as he takes in the First mark scored into Howl’s hand, the scar white against his skin. The angry set of the man’s mouth hardens.
“What are you and your little girlfriend doing breathing so loud near our camp?” His voice is a rasp. Harsher than before. “You part of the extermination forces that run through here?”
“The what?”
Howl’s elbow presses against my shoulder, an unmistakable Be quiet. “We’re on the run. Away from the City.”
“I guess that explains the First mark and . . .” He gestures to the shiny patch of melted skin that makes a star on my hand. “She infected?” The gun is suddenly pointed at my head instead of Howl’s.
Howl’s protective arm pushes against me again, tensing as if he’s about to jump the guy. Instead, Howl just says, “No. We’re not infected. She used to be a First.”
The man nods thoughtfully. His voice is still rock hard when he finally speaks. “Care to join us?”
Howl swallows, staring at the gun still pointed at my head. His sleeve grazes my collarbone as he lets his arms fall down, and he grabs my hand.
The weapon clicks again and the man lowers it, waving us toward the strip of green I saw through the bushes. I can just see a small clearing, a canvas tent streaked with mud occupying one edge. A fire-blackened pot suspended over a smokeless Junis fire spouts steam up into the morning chill. It smells like dirt and unwashed humans. And boiled cabbage.
As we get closer, a woman steps out from behind a tree, hair silvered with age. Where the man’s years of exposure and hardship crack through, her face wrinkles and bends. Softer. “You okay, Cas?” she asks.
The man nods and pokes a thumb in our direction. “Couple of City strays. Nothing we can’t work with, Tian.”
Tian looks us over, taking in our dirty clothes and cheeks red with cold. “Pretty far away from the walls to look so well fed. Where are your supplies?”
Howl squeezes my hand before I can speak, “We dumped them a few days back. Thought the Reds were after us and we couldn’t move fast enough to stay ahead.” Hanging his head, his voice takes on a dejected whine I’ve never heard before. “We figured with a few days’ worth of food and water, we would be able to find help.”
“You aren’t worried about running around in the woods with nothing? City kids who grew up with Mantis?” She doesn’t look angry, just unconvinced. Cas sits down in front of the fire, looking away from us, but his hand stays close to the gun. “What kind of trouble is worse than risking a brush with a clan of infected out here? Not much I wouldn’t do to get behind those City walls.”
“We had to leave.” Howl’s voice cracks. “We were as good as dead in the City.”
Tian raises an eyebrow, blinking at the traitor brand unmistakable on my bare hand. Or maybe she’s looking at both our hands, so awkwardly intertwined. “Sweethearts?” Her voice is tinged with pity.
Howl grasps my hand even tighter, and I know it is my turn to speak. When I do, my voice grates, inches from pretend tears. “It was because of me. My mother, really. There was no point in staying after what she did.” It feels odd to twist the truth into this lie.
The old lady purses her lips. “Things are tough even in the City these days, I guess.” A trilling whistle sounds from her lips and two men step out from the fringes of the wood, guns lowering as they walk toward us. A young girl pokes her head out of the tent, her hair bound up in a dirty scarf. She gives us a quick glare before clapping the flap shut again.
The dark-haired men sit by Cas at the fire, almost identical in appearance. One is lazily unconcerned with us, the other openly watching and interested.
Tian jerks her head toward the men. “These are my sons, Parhat and Liming. The little one in the tent is June.”
One of the men, Liming, catches my eye when she says his name, giving me a start. His eyes are bright green against his sun-dark skin. Green, like the invaders, like Kamar . . . or maybe this Mountain place we’re going. I squeeze Howl’s hand, trying to get his attention, but he ignores me.
Parhat doesn’t look up from the boiling water over the fire. He rhythmically taps a scarred wooden bowl against the three-legged stand that suspends the pot over the crackling wood.
Something inside of me relaxes. It’s hard to be frightened of a family cooking dinner. Maybe Outsiders aren’t as bad as I thought. Maybe there are people with green and blue eyes who aren’t part of the army trying to destroy my home.
They taught us about Outsiders in school. Wood Rats. Scavengers who have defected from the City or Kamar, preying on small groups of soldiers or on one another. But why should Cas and Tian be any more dangerous than people in the City? Maybe the campaign against Outsiders is just another way to keep people inside the walls. Like Howl’s ridiculous theory that the First Circle won’t let citizens have fresh fruit or they’ll escape. Another nightmare to scare the little ones in their sleep.
“My name is Yong-Gui.” Howl jerks his head toward me. “And this is Wenli.” His tight grip on my hand is starting to pinch my fingers. “Thank you for letting us sit by your fire. It’s been so cold.”
“Are you coming from one of the farms?” I instantly regret asking as Howl tries to squeeze the bones right out of my fingers. Parhat finally glances up at us. His eyes are glazed and unfocused, darting between me and Howl before twisting back toward his bowl.
Cas turns back to the fire. “South.”
I nod. Howl pulls me around to face him. “You’ve got a bit of dirt on your neck, Wenli.” One finger runs lightly along my jaw, stopping just below my ear, sending tingles down my throat. Howl catches my eye and presses firmly just behind my jaw, under my ear, eyes flicking toward Parhat. “Is there any water nearby?”
He knows there’s water nearby. We’ve been following the river. Perhaps this is a bid to sneak away?
Looking back at Parhat, I see that just under his ear he has a scar. It looks almost carved. A cross, cut shallowly over and over again. Looking a little more closely, I see more of them. Crosses decorating the back of his neck, and one peeking out from the cuff of his jacket. Scars. Suddenly I understand why Howl is crushing the life out of my hand. He has never been around SS. I’ve known hundreds of infected kids over the years. With Mantis . . .
Parhat’s eyes move up again to look into the trees. They never seem to rest on anything in particular, just dart back and forth as though he can’t keep still. The tapping on the wooden bowl stops, and he looks at us again. Chills run up and down my spine, and I find myself returning Howl’s grip. Those eyes are feral. They’ve never even seen Mantis.
Maybe, in this case, the City wasn’t lying.
Tian sloshes a bit of water into another wooden bowl for my neck, saying, “Might as well use warm. The river’s close by, but this won’t leave you shivering.”
I take the bowl with a hesitant smile and sit with my back to the fire. Howl crouches next to me, watching as I scrub away at my face and neck with the water.
Howl brushes a wisp of hair behind my ear and leans toward me with a painted-on smile.
Lips warm against my ear, he murmurs, “They aren’t going to let us leave. I have two Mantis pills in my pocket for an emergency. If I give them to you, can you take them without anyone noticing?”
I nod slightly and slip a hand inside his jacket. The pills are in a little paper packet, like the ones Sister Shang brought to me the day I broke into the library. When they are safely hidden under my shirt, I whisper back without moving my lips, “Sure you don’t want to just spike the food?”
Howl chuckles like I told him a joke, twirling my stray lock of dark hair around his finger. “There’s no way it would be enough. It should keep you with me until we have a chance to get away, though. If they find our packs, they might just take them. Or they might kill us.”
“I would never have guessed that.” I keep my expression blank. “The gun didn’t tip me off or anything. Why didn’t you just tell them we are brother and sister so we don’t have to act like this?”
“Not plausible. You’re a Fourth. Besides, this way I can watch you jump every time I come anywhere near you.” The edges of a real smile flit across his face, but it disappears as Liming walks over to break up our chat.
Setting two bowls of food on a rock beside us, he sinks down next to us with a sigh. His eyes are sharp and expectant, pinning each of us in turn. I’m not sure what to say or what he wants, but I can’t help but break the loaded silence with a desperately empty “Hi.”
He doesn’t answer, looking over at the bowls and back to us. When we don’t move, he points to them, back at us, then to his mouth. I nod and reach for a bowl, which steams in the cold air. The brownish-yellow liquid smells sharply of rotten cabbage and dirty laundry, the aroma of tubers hiding somewhere underneath. Liming’s eyes follow as I bring the bowl to my lips, sipping to allow the arctic chill lodged in my throat to melt. Definitely spoiled cabbage.
The open smile branded across Liming’s face feels genuine, but lopsided. Missing something.
Howl takes his bowl and drinks, swallowing with a choke disguised as a cough. “Thank you so much for sharing.” The words rush out of his mouth like he’s afraid if something isn’t steadily coming out, more stew will have to go in. “What is in this? It’s delicious.”
Liming nods briskly and returns to his place by the fire without answering.
I sidle up close to Howl and try to whisper out of the side of my mouth, “What was that?”
“He can’t speak.” Howl sloshes his soup around, watching closely as if something alive might crawl out of it. “He doesn’t have a tongue.”
Not even a mention of green eyes. “What do you mean?”
“I mean he doesn’t have a tongue. Cut out, probably. You can tell by the way he moves his mouth.” The soup swirls around and around, and he lifts it again to take an exploratory sip. “I don’t think they put anything toxic in the soup, so you can go ahead and eat it.”
I glance over at Parhat, who is now absorbed in stabbing the ring of ashes around the fire with a stick, a terrible thought burrowing deeper every second. If we don’t find the mountain people Howl seems to think are out here, those scars could be my future. That blank stare with nothing but infection looking out . . . I can’t quite keep the shudder back as it ripples up my spine and down my shoulders and arms. “I’ll pass on lunch. How do we get out of this?”
“We’ll leave tonight after they all go to sleep. Circle back, get our packs, and run for it.”
“The only reason we are still alive is because they think we have Mantis or food or something valuable, right? They need us to take them back to our packs.”
“Right. Better hope Parhat doesn’t have any violent compulsions.”
I think of the wine cellar, the inescapable grip of compulsion, and shiver. Tian walks over, smile plastered across her face.
She pulls us both out of the cold, toward the fire. Where we cannot talk.