I drop the waterskin, suddenly wanting nothing to do with it, Asher’s warning be damned.

Reed is bone still as water leaks from the skin and onto the floor. “I’m going to pretend this didn’t happen,” he says slowly, “but I won’t pretend again.” He drops my arm, and I collapse to my knees. Then he retrieves his waterskin, beckons for his bird, and is gone.

It’s only when the cloth door falls shut that I begin shaking. I sop water from the floor with my palm, rubbing where his fingers had squeezed over my wrist, scrubbing as though I can wipe away the feeling. The tears come next, or at least the act of crying does. I sob, but I’m so dehydrated, nothing falls from my burning eyes. At this realization, I drink what I can of the spilled water, lapping it from the stone floor like an animal. When I get more grit than water on my tongue, I sit back, clutching my jacket in my hands. The brand burns on my back. The lodestone weighs heavy on my heart.

I crawl to the window and use the ledge to pull myself up. The shanties along the dam are now cloaked in shadow, the fields quiet. Ma’s down there somewhere, and the General will kill her if I don’t tell him what he wants to hear.

There is no choice for me, no good outcome. Part of me wonders if he knows this.

Skies damn Asher and Bain and Cree. This is their fault. They conned me, caught me, let me be led into this trap. I know Asher never intended for my imprisonment to extend beyond the Barrel, but he knew what waited here in Bedrock, and he did nothing to prepare me for it. He could have told me what to expect, how he escaped, what he did to survive. Instead he only told me not to drink anything I’m given.

I grab the pitcher. The water inside smells faintly sweet, but looks clear. I dip my pointer in, lick the liquid from the pad of my finger. Seems normal—glorious and tasteless and wet. But that scent is still there, lingering like a lazy fog. My mouth wants the water even when my brain screams that clean water shouldn’t have a smell.

I collapse on the bed before my thirst makes me do something I’ll regret.

When I wake, it’s dark, but a plate of cured meat, bread, and fresh peas still in their pods sits on the nightstand. The bread is tinted green, a telltale sign that the soda that helped make it was harvested from the rich beds at Alkali Lake. Of course the General would have the best of everything. He has water and crops and even the wastes’ best baking soda. He can’t leave just one thing to the outside settlements.