Then he saw that she was wearing the device over her eye again. Those men could have taken the eyepiece. Then how would he have gotten Talon back? She pulled out of his grasp.
“You slaughtered them,” she said, her lips trembling. “Look what you did.”
Perry pressed his fist to his mouth and stalked away, not trusting himself to be near her. He’d crossed the Croven’s scent soon after he had left her. Perry knew they were heading toward the shelter of the cave. He’d taken another path, had sprinted to get there first, only to find the cave empty. By the time he’d picked up her trail and followed it, he’d been too late. She had brought him right back to the cave.
Perry rounded on her. “Stupid Dweller. I told you to stay here! You left to pick poisonous berries.”
She shook her head, turning a stunned look from the Croven’s dead body to him. “How could you? They wanted to share their food with us . . . and you just killed them.”
Perry was coming off the rush and beginning to shake. She didn’t know what he had scented from those men. Their ache for her flesh had been so potent it had nearly scored his nostrils. “Fool. You were going to be their food.”
“No . . . no. . . . They didn’t do anything. You just started shooting at them. . . . You did this. You’re worse than the stories, Savage. You’re a monster.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “This is the third time I save your life and that’s what you call me?” He had to get away from her. He jabbed a finger into the dark, pointing east. “Mount Arrow is on the other side of that ridge. Head three hours that way. Let’s see how you do on your own out here, Mole.”
He spun and broke into a run, plunging swiftly into the woods. He pounded his rage into the earth but slowed after a few miles. He wanted to leave her, but he couldn’t. She had the Smarteye. And she was a Mole who lived in fake worlds. What did she know about surviving out here?
He circled back and found her, keeping far enough away that she wouldn’t see him. She had Talon’s knife in her hand. Perry cursed at himself. How had he forgotten that? He watched as she picked through the woods with surprising quiet and care. After a while, he realized she was managing to keep a straight course too. He’d wanted to see her panic. She hadn’t, and that streaked him even more. With only a short distance left to go, he pulled ahead and ran the rest of the way.
It was still dark when he reached the Blackfins compound. Perry caught his breath as he absorbed the shocking scene around him. The compound looked nothing like the bustling settlement he’d seen a year ago. Now, it was crushed. Abandoned. All its scents faded and old. A picked-over carcass at the foot of Mount Arrow.
Aether storms and fires had leveled all but one of the homes, but one was all he needed. There was no door and only part of a roof. He dropped his satchel at the threshold so she’d know where to find him. Then he went inside and sank onto a battered straw mattress. Above him the broken roof’s timbers stuck out like ribs.
Perry dropped his arm over his eyes.
Had he left her too soon?
Had she gotten lost?
Where was she?
Finally he heard faint footsteps. He looked toward the door in time to see her rest her head on his satchel. Then he closed his eyes and slept.
He stepped outside quietly the next morning. Her small camouflage-clad form was curled against the wall, lit by the hazy light of a clouded sky. Aria’s black hair fell over her face, but he could see she’d taken off the device. She held it in her hand like it was one of the rocks she collected. Then he saw her bare feet. Dirty. Wet with blood. Raw flesh showing where the skin had peeled back or fallen off completely. The book covers must have broken after he’d left her.
What had he done?
She stirred, peering at him through her lashes before she sat up against the house. Perry shifted his weight, wondering what to say. He didn’t mull it over long before her temper came at him, bringing him a rush of alarm.
“Aria, what’s wrong?”
She stood, moving slow and defeated. “I’m dying. I’m bleeding.”
Perry’s gaze traveled down her body.
“It’s not my feet.”
“Did you eat any of those berries?”
“No.” She held out her hand. “You might as well have this. Maybe it’ll still help you find the boy you’re looking for.”
Perry closed his eyes and inhaled. Her scent had changed. The rancy Dweller musk was almost gone. Her skin breathed a new scent into the air, faint but unmistakable. For the first time since he’d known her, her flesh smelled like something he recognized, feminine and sweet.
He smelled violets.
He took a step back, swearing silently as it hit him. “You’re not dying. . . . You really don’t know?”
“I don’t know anything anymore.”
Perry looked down at the ground and drew another breath, no doubt in his mind.
“Aria . . . it’s your first blood.”
Chapter 17
ARIA
Since she had been thrown out of Reverie, she’d survived an Aether storm, she’d had a knife held to her throat by a cannibal, and she’d seen men murdered.
This was worse.
Aria didn’t recognize herself. She felt like she’d donned a pseudo-body in a Realm and couldn’t get out of it.
Her mind ran in circles. She was bleeding. Like an animal. Dwellers didn’t menstruate. Procreating happened through genetic design, then a special course of hormones and implantation. Fertility was used strictly when needed. How terrifying to think she could conceive at random.
Maybe the outside air was changing her. Maybe she was breaking down. Malfunctioning. How would she explain this to her mother? What if she couldn’t be fixed and this happened to her again, what, every month?
She’d been prepared for death. Death was to be expected on the outside. A normal consequence of being tossed into the Death Shop. But no matter how she looked at it, menstruating was utterly barbaric. She lay down on the filthy mattress, feeling much the same. Filthy. She closed her eyes, hoping to shut out the horrible outside world. She imagined lying on the white sand of her favorite beach Realm, listening to the soft lapping of the waves as she began to relax.
Aria tried to restart her Smarteye again.
It worked flawlessly.
All her icons were back, exactly where they should be. The icon of Aria strangling herself slid to the center of her screen, flashing a reminder.
SINGING SUNDAY. 11 A.M.
She chose it and fractioned instantly. Swaths of the Opera House’s crimson curtain billowed in front of her. Aria reached out, touching the thick velvet. She’d never seen it move like this, in rolling waves. She stepped forward, feeling through the heavy cloth for the center seam. She felt the curtain shift as it surrounded her. She turned in circles and saw no way out. Panicked, she pushed out her arms, but the material grew coarse as gravel beneath her touch.
Lumina! Aria yelled, but no sound came from her. Mom! she tried again. Where had her voice gone? She grabbed hold of the curtain and pulled with all her strength. It came loose with a lurch and began to spin, turning around her in a funnel, blowing her hair into her eyes and drawing closer with every second. She wouldn’t let herself be swallowed by it. Aria counted to three and dove into the whirling mass.
Instantly she appeared at center stage. Lumina sat in her usual seat in the front row. Why did she seem so far, like she was a mile away? What kind of Realm was this?
Mom? Aria still couldn’t hear her voice. Mom!
“I knew you’d come,” Lumina said, but her smile faded quickly. “Aria, is that another joke?”
A joke? Aria looked down. She was in camouflaged army clothes. Here, in the formal opera hall. No, Mom!
She wanted to tell Lumina what had happened. About Soren and Consul Hess and being thrown out with the Savage. But the words wouldn’t come. Tears of frustration blurred her vision. She looked down, not wanting her mother to see, and noticed a small book in her hands. A libretto. The lyrics of an opera. She didn’t know where she’d gotten it or when. Flowers drawn in ink scrolled across the faded parchment, twining together to form letters.
ARIA
Dread seeped through her. Was this her story? She opened the book and recognized the image inside instantly. A double-helix spiral turned on the page. DNA.
“It’s a gift, Aria.” Lumina smiled. “Aren’t you going to sing, Songbird? No Cannibal Candy this time, please. Though it was certainly amusing.”
Aria wanted to scream. She needed to tell her mother that she was sorry and that she was furious at her and where was she? Where was she? Aria tried again and again, but she couldn’t make a sound. She couldn’t even hear herself breathe.
“I see,” Lumina said. She rose and smoothed down her tailored black dress. “I’d hoped you’d changed your mind. I’ll be here when you’re ready,” she said, and vanished.
Aria blinked at the gilded hall. “Mom?” Her voice startled her. “Mom!” she yelled, but it was too late. For long moments, she stood on the stage, feeling the vastness of the hall, the emptiness of it, as a feeling built in her as if she might explode. She didn’t know when she started screaming. And then she didn’t know how to stop. The sound coming out of her grew louder and louder, like it would never end. The Grand Chandelier began to shake first and then the gilded columns and box seats. And then, at once, the walls and seats shattered, sending gold and plaster and crimson velvet everywhere.
Aria flew upright, gasping, clutching the ratty mattress beneath her. Her Smarteye rested in the palm of her hand, moist with the sweat of her nightmare.
The Outsider strode into the house a moment later. He peered at her suspiciously as he handed her a chunk of meat and then left. Aria ate, too numb to make any sense of what had just happened. She’d dreamed. Now both her body and mind felt foreign.
She heard the Outsider moving through the rubble outside. She sat back and listened to the thud of rocks hitting earth, or clacking sharply as they struck other rocks. Hours had passed when he returned carrying the navy blanket cinched like a sling.
He set it down without a word and spread it out, revealing a pile of odd things. A ring rolled over the fleece before it settled to a stop. She noticed a blue gemstone set into the thick gold band just as he swept it up and dropped it into his satchel. He sat on his heels and cleared his throat.
“I found a few things for you. . . . A coat. It’s made of wolf fur. It’ll get colder as we move farther up the mountain so it’ll keep you warmer.” He glanced at her, then back at the pile. “Those boots are in fair shape. A touch big but they should work. The cloths are clean. Boiled.” A fleeting smile crossed his lips, though his eyes remained downcast. “They’re for . . . whatever you want to do with them. There are a few other things. I brought what I could find.”
She looked at the random assortment, emotion sticking like glue in her throat. A ragged old leather coat with holes she could poke her fingers through but lined with thick silvery fur. A black knitted cap with a few feathers slipped into the woven wool. A piece of leather with a buckle that looked like it had once been a horse bridle but would serve better as a belt than the gauze she used now. He’d spent hours locating these things. Digging them up, as he had their water and the thistle roots. Like most things needed to be on the outside.
