“Don’t eat that, Dweller. Spread it on your feet. Here.” He pushed a handful of dried fruit at her along with a cluster of thistle roots he’d dug up earlier. They tasted like uncooked potatoes, but at least they wouldn’t starve. “That you can eat.”

She kept the fruit but handed the roots back. Perry returned to the fire, too stunned to be offended. No one handed food back.

“The fire won’t burn into these trees,” he said when she didn’t join him. She was inspecting each piece of fruit before she ate it. “It won’t burn like that night.”

“I just don’t like it,” she said.

“You’ll change your mind when the cold sets in.”

Perry ate his own meager dinner. He wished he’d taken time to hunt. Probably wouldn’t have worked even if he had. Her constant blather had scared off game. Nearly scared him off too. He’d need to find food tomorrow. They’d eaten almost everything he’d brought from the cave.

“The boy who was taken,” she said. “Is he your son?”

“How old do you think I am, Dweller?”

“I’m a little shaky on the fossil record, but I’d say fifty to sixty thousand years.”

“Eighteen. And no. He’s not my son.”

“I’m seventeen.” She cleared her throat. “You don’t look eighteen,” she said after a few moments. “I mean, you do and you don’t.”

Perry figured she was waiting for him to ask why. He didn’t care.

“I’m feeling fine, by the way. I have a headache that won’t go away and my feet hurt like mad. But I think I’ll live to see another day. I can’t be sure, though. The stories say diseases can creep up quietly.”

Perry bit down into his teeth, thinking of Talon and Mila. Was he supposed to feel sorry for her because she might fall ill? He couldn’t imagine a life without disease or illness. He took the two blankets from his bag. Sleep would bring morning and morning would bring him closer to reaching Marron.

“Why do you avoid looking at me?” she asked. “Because I’m a Dweller? Are we ugly to Outsiders?”

“Which question do you want me to answer first?”

“It doesn’t matter. You won’t answer anyway. You don’t answer questions.”

“You don’t stop asking them.”

“See what I mean? You avoid answering and you avoid looking. You’re an avoider.”

Perry flung the blanket at her. She hadn’t been ready. It hit her on the face. “You’re not.”

She snatched it away, shooting him a fierce look. Perry could see her perfectly, though she sat beyond the circle of firelight.

In the cover of darkness, he let the corner of his mouth lift.