I eat ravenously, but I don’t touch the pitcher. I can’t bring myself to ignore the one piece of advice Asher bothered to give. Not yet, at least. My mouth is chalky and dry, and the food tastes like dust in my mouth, but I clear the plate. My goggles rest beside it, moonlight reflecting off the eyepiece.

The eyepiece.

I sit straighter, an idea hitting me. I glance over the items on the table again. My goggles. The tall, narrow pitcher made of clay. The metal Old World cup. I pick up the cup and hold it above the pitcher. It will fit inside, just barely.

In a flash, I’m at the window. The sun will rise behind the Backbone, meaning there won’t be much heat on this window ledge until near noon, but I can’t not try.

I dump the pitcher’s contents, watching as the liquid rains past windows and splats on a stone awning several levels below. The water I stole from Reed has refilled my bladder some, and I relieve myself into the pitcher, then carefully set the Old World cup inside.

Next I rest my goggles atop the pitcher so that the curved, clear eyepiece faces down. The goggles are wide enough—and the pitcher narrow enough—that it creates a decent seal.

I set the whole thing on the window ledge and step back. When the sun finally shines on Bedrock, it will heat up the urine in the pitcher. Water will rise, gather on my goggles, drip down the sloped shape of the eyepiece, then fall into the Old World cup, which waits below. Separate from the urine. Clean, drinkable water.

Gods, am I grateful that I once heckled Flint about his travels in the wastes. I wanted to know how he spent so many days between settlements, how his water lasted so long. He admitted that some days it didn’t, that in the worst of the heat he’d move during the night and stay still during the day to collect water. Flint carried a piece of Old World tech he called plas. He showed it to me once. Clear like glass, but foggier and flexible, it could be crumbled into a ball or smoothed flat like a blanket. During the day, he’d stretch the plas across a hole in the ground and set a small stone at the center so the plas bowed slightly. Beneath, in the hole, was his own piss and an empty Old World jar, waiting patiently below the stone.

“And you can drink what you collect?” I’d asked, disgusted.

“Yeah. Fresh water droplets gather on the underside of the plas, then slide to the lowest point—where I placed my stone—and drip right into the jar.”

“Scud off.”