But that was craziness, brought on by the terrible few days gone by and the situation he now found himself in: sheltering from rain—which he had never seen before—with people he should have never known. And in his lap, twitching and mumbling incoherently, the stranger who had saved his life. For her more than anything Trey tried to rationalize his fears of the Nax, apply logic instead of terror, and he took his first bite of fledge.

He tasted the staleness of its outer coating. The air had touched it and its decline had begun, but he chewed past this mustiness and found the sweet dry warmth at its heart. The flavor reminded him immediately of home, bringing back sudden memories of his mother’s cooking, the ribald laughter of fledge miners as they took a food break, chanting from the cave floor. Lufero with his puppet show, Sonda smiling at him and glancing away again, always glancing away. Trey let the sensations flood in. The sound of the downpour outside the cave changed into the roar of the underground river, coming from and going to nowhere he would ever know. The tang of the rain was the cool tint of spray from the river, so far underground. And the weight of Alishia’s head resting on his legs, the warmth of her body across his thighs, was the dream of Sonda, his dream that had never had the chance to come true.

He was doing this to help, but he was also trying to escape. The truths he had seen over the past days were far too awful to bear. Perhaps he was fleeing to where Alishia already dwelled. He hoped that he would find his way back.

As the fledge began to take effect, Trey allowed his mind to wander. It strained at the edges of consciousness at first, still bound to his body as the drug filtered into his veins, a free spirit eager to move on and away. The fledge slowly dissolved the ties that bound him to flesh and bone and blood, and finally he peeled off, glancing back only once as he drifted away.

Alishia seemed to be watching him. Her eyes were wide and terrified, sparkling with minute movement, and her mouth was open in a wet scream she could not utter. He reached out and tried to touch her mind . . . and recoiled.