In all the quiet, Aria was left to circle in her own thoughts. They weren’t good ones. Her enthusiasm over finding the Smarteye had worn off. She’d tried distracting herself yesterday by observing the outside, but that no longer worked. She missed Paisley and Caleb. She thought about her mother and wondered about the “Songbird” message. She worried that her feet would get infected. Whenever a headache flared, she imagined that it was the first symptom of an illness that would kill her.

Aria wanted to feel like herself again. A girl who chased the best music in the Realms and bored her friends with facts on inane subjects. Here, she was a girl with leather book covers for shoes. A girl stuck walking across hills with a mute Savage if she had any hope of staying alive.

She made up a tune to match all the fear and helplessness she kept locked inside. A mournful, terrible melody that was her secret, sung only in the privacy of her thoughts. Aria hated the tune. Hated even more how much she needed it. She vowed that when she found Lumina, she’d leave this pathetic part of herself on the outside where it belonged. She’d never sing the sad melody again.

That night, she collapsed before the Outsider had the fire burning, wrapped in the blue fleece blanket. She rested her head on his leather bag, finding that she needed a pillow more than she feared filth.

She had never known this much pain. She had never been this tired. She hoped that was it. That she was tired, and not surrendering to the Death Shop.

On the morning of their third day of traveling together, the Outsider divided the last of the food he’d brought from the cave. He ate, avoiding looking her way, as usual. Aria shook her head. He was rude and cold and eerily animal, with his flashing green eyes and his wolfish teeth, but by some miracle they’d struck a deal. She could’ve had worse luck than to have crossed paths with him.

Aria chewed on a dried fig as she ran through the inventory of her discomforts. A headache, muscle pains, and cramps low in her stomach. She couldn’t look at the soles of her feet anymore.

“I’ll have to hunt later,” the Outsider said, poking at the fire with a stick. The morning was cooler. They’d been climbing steadily into higher terrain. He’d put on a long-sleeved shirt beneath the leather vest. It was a tired white color, rife with loose threads and patched holes. It looked like something a shipwreck survivor might wear, but she found it easier to look at him fully dressed.

“Fine,” she said, and frowned. Monosyllabicism. An Outsider disease, and she’d been infected.

“We’ll be moving onto the mountain today,” he said, his gaze darting to her feet. “Well out of my brother’s territory.”