I force my eyes open, finding a monster before me—curled horns and dark eyes. I bolt upright, pulse pounding.

“Hey, it’s me. It’s just me.”

The ram skull lifts. Reed. Here in the shanty. I frown. It’s dark still—the middle of the night—and my pack sleeps soundlessly. Before I can ask him what he wants, he holds up his waterskin. I snatch it and down several gulps.

“Slowly,” he warns, “or you’ll make yourself sick.”

“It’s clean,” I say, ashamed at the disappointment in my voice. While my brain craves the drugged drink, my body wants water of any kind, so I down a few more gulps, then pause. Behind Reed, his falcon has perched on the clothesline. She pecks at a button on my jacket.

“Rune. No.” The bird—Rune, I guess—ruffles its feathers and snaps its beak at Reed, but leaves my jacket alone. “Another sip,” he urges me. “Slowly this time.”

“Why are you helping me?”

“I actually want to find the Verdant, and I don’t see how getting you drugged out of your mind helps things.” He glances past me, as though he’s looking through the thin shanty walls toward the waterfall that the Oracle claims is waning.

“You want me to help the General find the Verdant? Tell him to lift the threat against my pack.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You haven’t even tried.”

“He won’t listen.”

“Let me escape, then. Sneak me through the dam. Maybe I can find answers in the wastes.”

He snorts. “The Loyalists have been looking for answers for years. The answer is on your back. If you just tell us how to read it, use that code you mentioned.”

“I made that up,” I snap, then laugh, because it all seems ridiculous now—how I thought I could fool him.

Brooke grunts in her sleep.

“Keep your voice down,” Reed whispers.

“If you want to help me, help me. None of this half-rusted crap.”

“I’m giving you clean water.”

“Yeah, keeping me sharp and focused so I can watch my entire pack die, one by one. How is that helpful?”

“He won’t kill Bay. She has seven years, at least.”

“Oh, I feel so much better.” I consider throwing the waterskin across the shanty, but my cursed body betrays me, and I drink from it again. “Why are you even here, Reed? You don’t actually want me to find the Verdant at any cost. You want me to find it here, under his thumb, so you and your precious Loyalists get salvation while everyone else continues to suffer in conditions no better than the wastes.”

“You know nothing about me, Delta.”

“Well, tell me, then. Why are you here?”