“You want to talk now?” Perry heard his father’s angry tone in his own voice. He knew he should stop himself, but he couldn’t. “You show up when you want to, and run when you don’t? Which is it going to be? If you’re staying, I’d appreciate you not burning our food.”

“I was trying to help—”

“You want to help?” Perry jumped down from the loft, muffling a curse as pain lanced through his arm. He strode up to Cinder, who stared up at him with wide, piercing eyes. He waved toward the open door. “Then why don’t you do something about that?”

Cinder glanced outside, then back at him. “That’s why you want me here? You think I can stop the Aether?”

Perry caught himself suddenly. He wasn’t thinking straight. Didn’t know what he was saying. He shook his head. “No. That’s not why.”

“Forget it!” Cinder backed away, moving toward the door. The veins at his neck had begun to glow blue, like the Aether. It seeped like branches beneath his skin, spreading up over his jaw, across his cheeks and his forehead.

Perry had seen him this way twice—on the day Cinder had burned his hand, and when he’d laid waste to a tribe of Croven—but it stunned him again.

“I never should have trusted you!” Cinder yelled.

“Wait,” Perry said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

It was too late. Cinder spun, and shot outside.

8

ARIA

Roar ran up a short while later, as Aria approached the compound with Molly. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” he said, wrapping Aria in a quick hug. “You made me worry.”

“Sorry about that, pretty.”

“You should be. I hate worrying.” He clutched Molly’s free arm, and together they pulled her as quickly as she could manage to the cookhouse.

Inside, the tribe was packed together, crowding at the tables and along the walls. Molly left to check on River, and Roar went to see Bear. Aria spotted Twig, the lanky Aud who’d been with her on the journey there. She slid onto the bench beside him and scanned the buzzing hall. People were in a panic over the storm, talking over one another in brittle voices, their faces tight with fear.

She wasn’t surprised to see Brooke a few tables over with Wylan, the fisherman with dark, shifty eyes who’d cursed her under his breath at Perry’s house. She saw Willow nestled between her parents, with Old Will and Flea nearby, and the rest of the Six, who never strayed far from Perry’s side. As her gaze moved from one person to the next, a sense of dread rolled through her, making her fingertips tingle. She didn’t see Perry.

Roar walked over and dropped a blanket over her shoulders. He edged Twig aside and sat beside her.