“I’m seventeen.” She cleared her throat. “You don’t look eighteen,” she said after a few moments. “I mean, you do and you don’t.”
Perry figured she was waiting for him to ask why. He didn’t care.
“I’m feeling fine, by the way. I have a headache that won’t go away and my feet hurt like mad. But I think I’ll live to see another day. I can’t be sure, though. The stories say diseases can creep up quietly.”
Perry bit down into his teeth, thinking of Talon and Mila. Was he supposed to feel sorry for her because she might fall ill? He couldn’t imagine a life without disease or illness. He took the two blankets from his bag. Sleep would bring morning and morning would bring him closer to reaching Marron.
“Why do you avoid looking at me?” she asked. “Because I’m a Dweller? Are we ugly to Outsiders?”
“Which question do you want me to answer first?”
“It doesn’t matter. You won’t answer anyway. You don’t answer questions.”
“You don’t stop asking them.”
“See what I mean? You avoid answering and you avoid looking. You’re an avoider.”
Perry flung the blanket at her. She hadn’t been ready. It hit her on the face. “You’re not.”
She snatched it away, shooting him a fierce look. Perry could see her perfectly, though she sat beyond the circle of firelight.
In the cover of darkness, he let the corner of his mouth lift.
Hours later he woke to the sound of singing. Quiet words, sung in a language he didn’t know, but that seemed familiar. He’d never heard a voice like that. So clear and rich. He thought he might still be dreaming until he saw the girl. She’d moved closer to the fire. To him. She hugged her legs as she rocked back and forth. He caught the salty tang of tears in the air, and a cold slash of fear.
“Aria,” Perry said. He surprised himself by using her name. He decided it suited her. There was a curious sound about it. Like her very name was a question. “What is it?”
“I saw Soren. The one from the fire that night.”
Perry jumped to his feet and searched into the fog. He’d never liked fog. It robbed him of one of his Senses, but he still had the other, his strongest. He breathed in deeply, careful to keep his movements subtle. Her fear wove with the woodsmoke, but there were no other Dweller scents.
“You dreamed it. There’s no one here except us.”
“We don’t dream,” she said.
Perry frowned but decided not to mull over the strangeness of that now. “There’s no trace of him here.”
“I saw him,” she said. “It felt real. It felt just like being with him in a Realm.” She brushed the blanket over her wet cheeks. “I couldn’t get away from him again.”
Now he didn’t know what to do. If she were his sister or Brooke, he would have held her. He thought about telling her he’d keep her safe, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. He would protect her. But only as long as it took to get Talon back.
“Could it have been a message through your eyepiece?” he asked.
“No,” she said firmly. “It’s still not working. But the strange thing is, I saw what I recorded that night. I recorded Soren when he was . . . attacking me.” She cleared her throat. “And that’s what I saw. It’s like my mind played the recording back on its own.”
That was called a dream, but Perry wasn’t going to argue over it. “Is that why the Dwellers want it back? Because of the recording?”
She hesitated and then nodded. “Yes. It could ruin both Soren and his father.”
He ran a hand over his hair. Now he understood why the Dwellers wanted the eyepiece. Had they taken Talon as barter? “So we have leverage?”
“If we can fix the Smarteye.”
Perry exhaled slowly, feeling a surge of hope. He’d been prepared to surrender himself to the Dwellers in exchange for Talon. Maybe he wouldn’t have to. If the Dwellers wanted that eyepiece badly enough, it might be enough to get Talon back.
The girl’s temper was beginning to ease. He threw on a fresh piece of wood and sat on the far side of the fire. He couldn’t avoid looking at the eyepiece on her face now. “Why do you wear that thing if it’s broken?” he asked.
“It’s part of me. It’s how we see the Realms.”
He had no idea what Realms were. He didn’t even know what to ask about them.
“Realms are virtual places,” she said. “Created with computer programming.”
He picked up a stick and poked at the embers. She’d explained without him asking. Like she knew he had no idea. That streaked him a bit, but she kept talking so he listened.
“They’re places as real as this is. If my Smarteye was working, I could go to any part of the world and beyond too, from right here. Without going anywhere. There are Realms for times that have passed. Last year the Medieval Realms were champ. You’d be great in one of those. And then there are Fantasy Realms and Future Realms. Realms for hobbies and any kind of interest you can think of.”
“So . . . it’s like watching a video?” He’d seen those at Marron’s. Images like memories playing out on a screen.
“No, that’s only a visual. The Realms are multidimensional. If you go to a party, you feel the people dancing around you, and you can smell them and hear the music. And you can just change things, like choose more comfortable shoes to dance in. Or change your hair color. Or choose another body style. You can do anything you want.”