Asher pauses. “I should have told you about the sewers, but there was so little time, and if you drank the water, you’d have forgotten my advice within a day.” He bites his lip. Shadows dance over the creases in his forehead. “You’re smart, Delta. Always have been. I knew that if you just kept your wits, you’d figure a way out.”

A day.

A single day.

I shudder, thinking how close I was to losing my memories, to having my life fog up before my eyes.

I don’t tell him that I nearly broke. Instead I say, “It smelled sweet, like a syrup. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Ilkcorolla seed, also known as sleeping ilk. The plant grows right there in Bedrock. The orange flowers drop white seeds that can be ground into a powder. And the powder is . . . potent. Makes folks numb and forgetful.”

I think of the vine plant I didn’t recognize that day I followed Reed through the fields. I’d thought it was beautiful, those massive flowers, their long, delicate petals.

“Do the memories come back if someone’s not”—I search for the term I’d heard in Bedrock—“ilked-up?”

Asher shrugs. “They did for me. The Oracle told me to stop drinking the water, started bringing me his own.” He pauses. “It was hard at first. My body craved the drug, but eventually I was clean. But then I could remember what the Loyalists did to me . . . The torture, the abuse. In some ways it was easier to be lost in my own mind.”

I don’t know what to say. I’ve spent so long focused on the con he pulled on me that I’ve failed to truly consider what he’s endured these past years.

He lowers the candle a little, peering at my face. “Did they hurt you, Delta? Gods, I could kill myself for watching you go there. It was supposed to end in the Barrel. If they hadn’t found the map . . . If you’d just been placed in a home . . .” His thumb grazes my cheek, and I flinch away from him.

“We’re wasting time. We should be walking.”

His face does that thing where it flickers between the boy I once knew and the stranger who let Bain and Cree put me in a cage.

“Asher, we don’t have time for this,” I insist. I snatch the candle and shove past him, taking the lead.

“I’m so sorry, Delta. Truly.”