Perry looked up, surprised. Cinder was still chewing, but the stick was clean. Not a scrap of meat left. His eyebrows were drawn together in a dark scowl.

Perry lifted his shoulders, allowing himself a smug smile. “Isn’t it obvious?” The boy’s black eyes went wide. “I’m kidding, Cinder. It’s nothing like that. We’re helping each other out of some trouble.”

Cinder swiped a grubby sleeve over his face. “But she is pretty.”

Perry grinned. “Really? I hadn’t noticed.”

“Sure you haven’t.” Cinder smiled like they’d agreed on something important. He pushed his hair away from his face, but it fell back into his eyes. It was a mess of knots. Like his own hair, Perry realized.

“What kind of trouble?” Cinder asked.

Perry let out a long breath. He didn’t have the time or energy to tell their story again. But he could skip to the part that mattered now. He sat forward, propping his arms over his knees. “You’ve heard of the Croven?”

“The flesh eaters? Yeah, I’ve heard of them.”

“A couple of nights ago, I got in a mix with them. I’d left Aria to hunt. When I came back, they’d found her. Three of them. They had her cornered.” Perry slid his hand down to the arrowhead. Pressed his finger against the sharp point. This story wasn’t easy to tell either. But he noticed the way Cinder’s expression had opened. The mask of scorn was gone. He was just a boy now, drawn in by a thrilling story. So Perry kept on.

“They were blood hungry. I could almost taste their hunger for her. Maybe because she’s a Dweller . . . different . . . I don’t know. But they weren’t going to walk away. I took two down with my bow. The third with my knife.”

Cinder licked his lips, his black eyes rapt. “So now they’re after you? You were just helping her.”

“That’s not how the Croven will see it.”

“But you had to kill them.” He shook his head. “People don’t ever understand.”

Perry knew he looked stunned. There was something in the way he’d said it. Like it was a burden he knew. “Cinder . . . do you understand?”

Wariness crept into the boy’s gaze. “Can you really tell when I’m lying?”

Perry shifted his shoulders, his heart beating hard. “I can.”

“Then my answer is maybe.”

Perry couldn’t believe it. This kid . . . this pathetic boy had killed someone? “What happened to you? Where are your parents?”

Cinder’s mouth twisted into a snide smile, his temper a cool, sudden drift. “They died in an Aether storm. It happened about two years ago. Poof, and they were gone. It was sad.”

Perry didn’t need his Sense to know he was lying. “Were you forced out here?” Blood Lords exiled murderers and thieves into the borderlands.