“No, there’s a fledge miner with me, Trey Barossa. He’s hiding back there. He doesn’t think you’re safe.”

The witch stood and shook herself, untangling her clothes, running her fingers through knotted hair. “He’s right,” she said.

“You look as afraid as I feel,” Alishia said to Rafe, and his eyes widened, the flaming stick lowered toward the ground.

Wider. Let me see inside.

She felt unaccountably excited, intrigued by this boy and whatever secrets he held restrained.

So soon? Have I found it so soon?

But she did not know what “it” was, and the strange thoughts confused and troubled her. Only a while ago she had pleasured herself to the song of these strange thoughts. She had considered that it was the fledge miner prying into her mind, traveling using fledge to view her innermost secrets and pique her desires, but he seemed too frightened to be plotting and scheming. And the thoughts . . . they were further removed from him. They were almost alien.

Alishia had begun to wonder whether she had made a mistake leaving the city.

“He’s not scared,” the witch said. “I’m looking after him, so he’s got nothing to be scared about.”

“Why are you looking after him?” Alishia said. “He can’t be your son.”

“Know a little about witches, do you?”

“A little.” Alishia had read a lot. She knew that they were mostly made sterile by the poisons and plants they made their work. And she knew that the witch could be carrying poisonous creatures to throw, or blinding powders, or chemicala. The very tincture of her tattoos could kill.

The witch stared at her, edging slowly around the fire until she stood between Alishia and the boy.

What’s so precious? Alishia thought. And then that other part of her mind again, the one that did not feel like her own: Could he be so precious?

“Tell the fledger to show himself,” the witch said.

“Trey! Come out of the dark.” Alishia heard the footsteps behind her, slow and troubled.

“It hurts my eyes,” he said.

“Not been aboveground for long?” the witch asked, but Trey did not answer.

“Any more of you?” Rafe said.

His voice sent a thrill down Alishia’s spine. She did not know why. “No,” she said. “This is us.”

“We have no food,” the boy said. “Nothing to offer you.”

“We have a little fledge,” Alishia said, but the witch cursed and spat into the fire. It sizzled, as if just as mad.

“We don’t want your drug!” she hissed at Trey.