“Is that it?” she asked.
“What? No.” All he could think about was the way she’d looked the night of the Aether storm. The curves of her bare skin, pressed at his side. “You’d swallow a small amount and wait a few hours, see how it sits. Now you know how to find berries. We need to pull foot.”
He crossed his arms and stood there, still unsure what to do. He knew he was giving her a strange look. He felt strange. He felt a lot of strange. He hadn’t seen her as a girl before now. He’d seen her as a Mole. Now he couldn’t stop seeing all the girl about her.
Aria gave him the same look right back—eyebrows drawn down, mouth twisted to the side, a mixy, strained look—mocking him.
Perry laughed. A ripple ran through his shoulders at the feeling of laughing. When was the last time someone had joked with him? The answer came easily. He’d been with Talon.
“So is this one good?” she asked, holding up the berry.
“Yeah. It’s good.”
She popped it into her mouth and swallowed. Then she smiled, extending the branch out to him.
“Go ahead,” he said, and set to tightening the string on his bow.
When she was finished, she looked over and smiled. “Seems easier if I just find them and ask you whether they’re edible or not. Faster than the rubbing and tasting process.”
“Sure,” he said, feeling like a fool. “That would work too.”
Chapter 19
ARIA
They decided to take turns sleeping, right there by the creek. She was supposed to take her turn first, but when she lay down, she couldn’t keep her eyes closed. Dreams were unsettling things, and she wasn’t up for another one just yet. So she sat, shivering despite her thick coat and the blue blanket wrapped around her. The Aether moved in thin sheets, slow and wispy as the clouds. Gusts rustled through the pine needles, setting branches swaying around her. There were people who lived in trees and cannibals who dressed as crows out here.
Yesterday she’d seen them both.
“How far away is Marron’s?” she asked.
“Three days or so,” Peregrine said. He held the small knife with the carved feathers, twirling it absently. Spinning it once. Catching the handle. Spinning it. Catching it.
Peregrine or Perry? She didn’t know what to call him. Perry made her shoes from book covers and taught her how to find berries. Peregrine had tattoos and flashing green eyes. He twirled a knife without fear of cutting himself and put arrows through people’s necks. She’d seen him decapitate a man. But then, the man had been a cannibal who’d been after her. Aria sighed, her breath fogging lightly in the cool air. She wasn’t sure what she thought of him anymore.
“Will we get there in time?” she asked.
His lips turned up like he’d been expecting the question. “The Croven aren’t close, as far as I can tell.”
It wasn’t the exact answer she’d wanted, but good to hear nonetheless. “Who is he—Marron?”
“A friend. A trader. A ruler. A bit of everything.” His eyes dropped to her shaking shoulders. “Can’t have a fire.”
“Because someone would see the smoke?”
He nodded. “Or scent it.”
She looked at his restless hands. “You don’t sit still much, do you?”
He slid the knife through a leather strap at his boot. “Being still makes me tired.”
That made no sense, but she wasn’t going to ask and risk upsetting what felt like a fragile truce.
He crossed his arms and then uncrossed them. “How do you feel?”
A tingle ran down her back. This was so strange. Him, asking her this. Far more intimate than it should have felt. Because she knew he wanted to know. He didn’t ask empty questions or waste words.
“I want to go home.”
It was a weak answer and she knew it, but how could she explain? Her body was changing, and it wasn’t just that she was menstruating. Her senses were filled with the trickle of the creek and the smell of pine in the air. Her whole awareness was shifting. Like every cell in her body was stretching its arms and yawning off sleep. Sure, she ached in her feet. And she still had the headaches and a dull pain low in her stomach. Yet in spite of all her ailments, she didn’t feel like a girl whose life was slipping away.
Perry stood. Perry, she realized. Not Peregrine. It seemed her subconscious had decided what to make of him. She unwrapped herself from the blanket, her muscles aching and reluctant to move again. They might as well walk, she supposed, if they weren’t going to sleep. Then she noticed the way Perry stared into the darkness.
“What is it?” she asked, shooting to her feet. “Is it the Croven?”
He shook his head, still gazing into the woods. Perry cupped his hands around his mouth. “Roar!”
The sound of his raised voice made her heart stop.
“Roar, you rancy bastard! I know you’re out there! I can smell you from here!”
A moment later, a whistle broke into the air, echoing through the mountain pass.
Perry looked down at her, a striking grin on his face. “Our luck just turned.”
He devoured the hillside in big, loping strides. Aria ran to keep up, her heart racing faster than her feet. At the top, they reached an outcropping of boulders that looked blue in the failing light, like whales breeching from the sea. A dark figure stood there, his arms crossed over his chest as though he’d been waiting. Perry tore over to him. Aria watched as they locked into a fierce embrace, then began to shove at each other playfully.
She picked her way closer, taking in this new Outsider. Everything about him looked refined under the cool light. His lean build and sharp features. The cut of his dark hair. He wore fitted clothes. Black from head to toe, with no frayed edges or holes that she could see. This was someone she could easily see in the Realms. Polished and too handsome to be real.