“Help him? I’m going to slit his throat. ”
“Just get him back here, Roar!”
When he was gone, Perry lay back and stared through the trees. The Aether swirled above. He closed his eyes. Concentrated on breathing.
“Perry, can I see?”
Aria knelt at his side. “Let me see,” she said softly, reaching for his hand.
He sat up, a groan tearing through his throat. Then he looked at his left hand for the first time. It had swollen to twice its normal size. The skin over his knuckles looked like blackened meat. Big, red blisters crowded the flat of his hand, making a trail down his wrist. Perry’s stomach twisted. Stars burst before his eyes. He swallowed back the sour rush in his mouth. He was going to vomit or pass out. Maybe both.
“Put your head down and breathe. I’ll be right back. ”
She handed him the bottle of Luster when she returned. Perry drank. Didn’t stop until he’d drained what was left. He dropped the bottle to the side. Aria had taken his burnt hand into her lap and pushed his sleeve up. She held a long strip of gauze. Her belt once, he realized. She poured water over it.
“I should wrap it, Perry. So it doesn’t get infected. ”
Cold sweat broke out over his back. Perry met her eyes for only a second, afraid she’d see his fear. He nodded and let his head fall forward again.
Her first touch over his knuckles was feather soft, but chills came over him, shaking his shoulders. Aria’s hands went still.
“Keep going,” he said, before he could change his mind and rip his arm off. It might have hurt less. He kept his head down. Watched the dark spots his tears made as they fell on his leather pants. He wanted to ask her to sing. He remembered her voice, how it had carried him away. He couldn’t form the words. But then the Luster kicked in, saving him by dulling some of the pain. Perry pushed the wetness off his cheeks and straightened, swaying unsteadily.
Aria wrapped the long strip of gauze around his wrist, and then wove it up, looping it through each of his fingers. She was calm now. Focused. He watched her as he sank deeper and deeper into the mind-numbing fog of Luster.
She was touching him. He wondered if she realized it too.
“Have you ever seen someone like him before?” she asked.
Cinder. A boy with Aether in his blood. “No. Never seen that,” he slurred. Perry wondered how it was possible, but he couldn’t deny what he’d seen. Not with proof moving through him in agonizing waves. How many times had he looked up and felt connected to the sky himself? Like it wasn’t just some faraway force? Like his own mood ebbed and flowed with the Aether? He should’ve trusted his Sense. Cinder set off the same stinging sensation in his nose. And he’d known the boy was hiding something.
“I was trying to help. . . . The more I try to catch up, the farther I fall behind. ” The words slipped out, clumsy but true.
Aria looked up from his hand. “What did you say?”
Her face blurred left and right. Finally his focus pinned on her.
“Nothing. Nothing. Just stupid things. ”
Roar came back carrying Cinder across his neck in a hunter’s hold, legs to one side, arms to the other.
“Is he dead?” The question came out of Perry in one sound, all of the words sliding together.
“Unfortunately, no,” Roar said, out of breath.
Cinder balled up as soon as Roar set him down. He was shaking worse than before. He turned his face into the earth. Perry saw wide patches of bare scalp. They hadn’t been there before. His clothes were blackened. Almost falling off completely.
“We have to leave him, Perry. He’s too weak. ”
“We can’t. ”
“Look at him, Peregrine. He can barely hold his head up. ”
“The Croven will come through here. ” Perry gritted his teeth as stars bloomed before his eyes. Fewer words, he told himself. Less movement. Just breathing.
Aria draped a blanket over Cinder. She bent close. “Is it the Aether?”
Perry peered up. The Aether had a soft, washed-out look. It had waned back to the wisps of earlier that day. He was in so much pain, he hadn’t noticed. Then he realized the sting in his nose was faint. Hardly there. Cinder had to be linked to the Aether tides.