“I know what I’m doing!”

Vale started laughing. “Then why did they leave you? Why did she leave you?”

“Shut up!” Perry pressed the blade against his brother’s throat, but Vale only laughed harder.

Then it wasn’t Vale. It was Aria. Beautiful. So beautiful beneath him, on Vale’s bed. She laughed as he held the knife to her throat. Perry couldn’t take the blade away. It trembled in his hand as he pressed it against the smooth skin at her neck, and he couldn’t stop himself and she didn’t care. She just kept laughing.

Perry lurched out of the nightmare and shot upright in his loft. He cursed loudly, unable to keep it quiet. Sweat rolled down his back, and he was out of breath.

“Easy. Easy, Perry,” Reef said. He was perched on the ladder, brow furrowed with worry.

The house was dim and deathly silent. Perry didn’t hear the usual snores of the Six. He’d woken everyone up.

“You all right?” Reef asked.

Perry turned toward the shadows, hiding his face. Two days. She’d been gone two days. He reached for his shirt and pulled it on.

“I’m fine,” he said.

Bear was waiting for him when he stepped outside. “We’re leaner than ever, Perry, I know that. But I need my people rested. It’s too much, asking them to work a whole day in the fields and then do the night watch. Some of us need sleep.”

Perry tensed. He slept even less lately, and everyone knew it. “We can’t afford to be raided. I need people on watch.”

“I need help clearing drainage ditches, Perry. I need help tilling and seeding. What I don’t need is people snoring when they should be working.”

“Make do with what you have, Bear. Everyone else is.”

“I will, but we won’t get more than half of what we need done.”

“Then do the half! I’m not pulling men off watch.”

Bear went still, as did several people around the clearing. Perry didn’t understand how they didn’t understand. Almost a quarter of the tribe had dispersed. Of course they couldn’t get everything done. He’d hoped to build up food rations for the tribe’s journey to the Still Blue, but after the damage from the Aether storm and the loss of manpower, it was all he could do to keep them fed every day. They were overworked and underfed, and he needed a solution.

He considered his options throughout the day as he cleared drains for Bear and checked the Tides’ defense measures. Reef worked beside him, close as his shadow. When Reef wasn’t there, one of the Six took his place. They wouldn’t leave him alone. Even Cinder seemed in on it, joining Perry if he walked off in search of a few minutes to himself.