The words felt like gravel rolling from his mouth. They were true, but a partial truth, which felt more like a lie. Perry saw the questioning look in Roar’s eyes.
Bear stepped forward, wringing his big hands. “Excuse my asking, Perry, but how’s a Mole going to help us?”
Wylan muttered something under his breath. Aria’s eyes snapped to him, and Roar tensed. Auds both, they’d heard him clearly.
Perry felt a flash of heat, and had the urge to cuff Wylan. He realized that what he felt—what gripped him—was Aria’s temper. He drew a breath, grasping for control. “You have something to say, Wylan?”
“No,” he answered. “Nothing to say. Just checking if her ears work.” He smirked. “They do.”
Reef dropped a hand on Wylan’s shoulder with enough force that the smaller man winced. “Bear and Wylan were just telling me what happened while we were away,” he said, changing the subject.
Perry prepared himself for their latest argument. “Let’s hear it.”
Bear crossed his arms over his broad chest, his thick eyebrows drawing together. “We had a fire in the storeroom last night. We think it was the boy who came back with Roar. Cinder.”
Perry glanced at Roar and Aria, alarm running through him. They were the only ones who knew about Cinder’s unique ability to channel the Aether. They protected Cinder’s secret by unspoken agreement.
“No one saw him do it,” Roar said, reading his mind. “He ran before anyone could catch him.”
“He’s gone?” Perry asked.
Roar rolled his eyes. “You know how he is. He’ll come back. He always does.”
Perry flexed his scarred hand. If he hadn’t seen Cinder lay waste to a band of Croven with his own eyes, he wouldn’t believe it himself. “The damage?”
Bear tipped his head toward the door. “Might be easier if I show you,” he said, heading outside.
Perry paused at the threshold and looked back at Aria. She gave a small shrug of understanding. They’d been there less than ten minutes, and already he had to leave her. He hated it, but he had no choice.
The storeroom in the back of the cookhouse was a long stone room lined with wooden shelves, which were stacked with containers of grain, jars of spices and herbs, and baskets of early spring vegetables. Usually scents of food hung in the cool air, but as Perry stepped inside, the smell of burnt wood was thick. Beneath it he caught a trace of the sting of Aether—a smell that was also Cinder’s.
The damage was contained to one side of the room. Part of a shelf was gone, burned to nothing.
“He must have dropped a lamp or something,” Bear said, scratching his thick black beard. “We got to it quickly, but we still lost a lot. We had to throw out two bins of grain.”
Perry nodded. It was food they couldn’t afford to lose. The Tides were already on tight rations.
“The kid’s stealing from you,” Wylan said. “He’s stealing from us. Next time I see him, I’ll run him off the territory.”
“No,” Perry said. “Send him to me.”
4
ARIA
You all right?” Roar whispered as the house emptied.
Aria let out her breath and nodded, though she wasn’t quite sure. Aside from him and Perry, everyone who’d stood in this room despised her because of who she was. Because of what she was.
A Dweller. A girl who lived in a domed city. A Mole tramp, as Wylan had whispered under his breath. She’d been preparing herself for that, especially after days of Reef’s cold stares, but she felt shaken anyway. It would be the same if Perry entered Reverie, she realized. Worse. Reverie Guardians would kill an Outsider on sight.
She turned away from the door, her eyes drifting across the cozy, cluttered home. A table with painted chairs to one side. Bowls and pots in every color along the shelves behind it. Two leather chairs before the hearth, worn but comfortable-looking. Along the far wall she saw baskets with books and wooden toys. It was cool and quiet, and smelled faintly of smoke and old wood.
“This is his home, Roar.”
“Yes. It is.”
“I can’t believe I’m here. It’s warmer than I expected.”
“It used to be more so.”
A year ago, this house would’ve been packed with Perry’s family. Now he was the only one left. Aria wondered if that was why the Six slept there. Surely there were other homes they could occupy. Maybe a full house helped keep Perry from missing his family. She doubted it. No one could ever fill the void her mother had left. People couldn’t be replaced.
She pictured her own room in Reverie. A small space, spare and neat, with gray walls and an inset dresser. Her room had been home once. She felt no longing for it. Now it seemed as inviting as the inside of a steel box. What she missed was the way she’d felt there. Safe. Loved. Surrounded by people who accepted her. Who didn’t whisper Mole tramp at her.
She had no place of her own now, she realized. No things like the falcon figurines on the windowsill. No objects to prove she existed. All her belongings were virtual, kept in the Realms. They weren’t real. She didn’t even have a mother anymore.
A feeling of weightlessness came over her. Like a balloon that had slipped free from its tether, she was floating, made of nothing more than air.
“You hungry?” Roar asked behind her, oblivious, his tone light and cheerful as always. “We usually eat in the cookhouse, but I could bring something for us here.”
She turned. Roar rested a hip against the table, his arms crossed. He wore black from head to toe, like she did.
He smiled. “Not as comfortable as Marron’s, is it?”
They’d spent the past months there together while he’d healed from a leg wound. While she’d healed from deeper wounds. Little by little, one day after another, they’d brought each other back.
Roar’s smile widened. “I know. You missed me.”
She rolled her eyes. “It’s barely been three weeks since I saw you.”
“Miserable stretch of time,” he said. “So, food?”
Aria glanced at the door. She couldn’t hide if she wanted the Tides to accept her. She had to face them directly. She nodded. “Lead the way.”
“Her skin’s too smooth—like an eel.”
The voice, dripping with malice, carried to Aria’s ears.
The tribe had begun to gossip about her before she’d even taken a seat with Roar at one of the tables. She picked up the heavy spoon and stirred the bowl of stew in front of her, trying to focus on other things.
The cookhouse was a rough-hewn structure, part medieval hall, part hunting lodge. It was packed with long trestle tables and candles. Two massive fireplaces roared on either side. Children chased each other around the perimeter, their voices mixing with the gurgle of boiling water and the crackle of the fires. With the clanking of spoons and the slurps of people talking, eating, drinking. A belch. Laughter. The bark of a dog. All of it amplified by thick stone walls. Despite the racket, she couldn’t help isolating the cruel whispering voices.
Two young women carried on a conversation the next table over. One was a pretty blonde with bright blue eyes. The same girl who’d been watching Aria as she’d entered Perry’s house. That had to be Brooke. Her younger sister, Clara, was in Reverie, too. Vale had sold her off like Talon, in exchange for food for the Tides.
“I thought Dwellers died when they breathed outside air,” Brooke whispered, her gaze on Aria.
“They do,” said the other girl, “but I heard she’s only half Mole.”
“Someone actually bred with a Dweller?”
Aria’s grip tightened around the spoon. They were slandering her mother, who was dead, and her father, who was a mystery. Then it hit her. The Tides would say the same things about her and Perry, if they knew the truth. They’d talk about them breeding.
“Perry said she’s going to be Marked.”
“A Mole with a Sense,” Brooke said. “Unbelievable. What is she?”
“An Aud, I think.”
“That means she can hear us.”
Laughter.
Aria gritted her teeth at the sound. Roar, who’d been sitting quietly by her side, leaned toward her.
“Listen closely,” he whispered into her ear. “This is the most important thing you need to know while you’re here.” She stared at the bowl of stew in front of her, her heart slamming into her ribs.
“Do not eat the haddock. They’ve been overcooking it terribly.”
She jabbed her elbow into his ribs. “Roar.”
“I’m serious. It’s as tough as leather.” Roar looked across the table. “Isn’t it true, Old Will?” he said to a grizzled man with a shockingly white beard.
Though Aria had been on the outside for months, she still marveled at wrinkles and scars and signs of age. She’d thought them disgusting once. Now the man’s leathery face almost made her smile. Bodies on the outside wore experiences like souvenirs.
Willow, the girl Aria had met earlier, sat beside him. Aria felt a weight settle on her boot and looked down to see Flea.
“Grandpa, Roar asked you something,” Willow said.
The older man cocked his ear toward Roar. “What was that, pretty?”
Roar raised his voice in answer. “I was telling Aria here not to eat the haddock.”
Old Will studied her, his lips pursed in a sour expression. Aria’s cheeks warmed as she waited for his reaction. It was one thing to hear whispers, but another to be shunned to her face.
“I’m seventy,” he said finally. “Seventy years old and going strong.”
“Old Will isn’t an Aud,” Roar whispered.
“I got that, thanks. Did he just call you pretty?”
Roar nodded, chewing. “Can you blame him?”
Her eyes moved over his even features. “No. I really can’t,” she said, though pretty didn’t quite fit Roar’s dark looks.
“So you’re getting Markings,” he said. “How about I vouch for you?”
“I thought Perry—Peregrine was going to?” Aria said.
“Perry will warrant them, and he’ll preside over the ceremony, but that’s only one part of it. The part only a Blood Lord can do.”
The stout woman on Roar’s opposite side leaned forward. “Someone with your same Sense needs to take an oath swearing that your hearing is true. If you’re an Aud, only another Aud can do that.”
Aria smiled, noting the emphasis the woman placed on the word if. “I am an Aud, so that’ll be the case.”
The woman studied her with eyes the color of honey. She seemed to decide something, because the grim set of her mouth softened. “I’m Molly.”
“Molly is our healer, and Bear’s wife,” Roar said. “Much fiercer than the big man, though, aren’t you, Molly?” He turned back to Aria. “So it should be me doing the vouching, don’t you think? I’m perfect for it. I’ve taught you everything.”
Aria shook her head, trying not to smile. Truly, Roar was the perfect choice. He had taught her all she knew about sounds—and knives. “Everything except modesty.”