There were plenty of huts to go around. We each could have had our own, though Jasmine assumed she and I would share. I honestly think she didn’t want to leave me alone with Kiyo around. The huts were deceptively small, but as we entered ours, it was obvious this had once housed a family. There was plenty of space and even partitions to create common and sleeping rooms. We had clean cots and a dining table, and mercifully, no personal items of the lost family remained. The walls and roof looked as though they’d been built to keep out any breezes or tropical rain but had little effect on temperature control. A fire pit that had been intended for cooking was going to be our heat source.

We’d barely been in there a minute when a young woman came scurrying in behind us. She looked no older than Jasmine, yet at the same time had a haggard appearance from harsh living that had aged her beyond her years. She knelt by the cooking pit and began to deftly light a fire.

“Oh,” I said, “you don’t have to bother with that. We know how to make a fire.” It was a skill one had to acquire in a world devoid of lighters and kerosene.

“It is no bother, my lady,” the girl replied, not meeting my eyes.

“Eugenie. My name’s Eugenie.”

“I know who you are, my lady.”

The fire roared to life and caught so quickly that I suspected our helper probably had some sort of magical fire ability. Definitely a skill to possess in these times.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Rhona,” she said, getting to her feet. With her facing me now, I was able to get a better look and could see just how harshly the blight had treated her. Her cheeks were sunken in, and there were bags under her eyes. The scraps she wore to stay warm were hardly adequate and showed a figure that was mostly ribs. I also noticed she was missing two fingers off of her left hand and wondered if that was the work of frostbite. The hand had bandages on it, indicating a recent injury.

In that moment, I so badly wanted to give her food that my hands began to move of their own accord toward my travel pack. Dorian’s words came back to me, and I forced myself to look ahead. Giving her something—even a strip of dried meat—seemed like such a small thing. But what if that meat would keep someone in my party alive when we reached the Yew Land? What if it meant the difference between stopping the blight and failing?

Making a decision, I reached for my pack—and pulled out a sweater.

“Here,” I said. “Take this.”

Rhona’s brown eyes went wide. “Lady, I cannot. It’s too fine.”