One night Reef turned to him as they stood under a stand of trees waiting out a pelting rain. “It’d be a different life without the Aether.”
His temper was calm and steady. Thoughtful.
The other men went quiet. Their eyes turned to Perry, waiting for him to speak.
He told them then about the Still Blue. For a while after he’d finished, he and Reef had stood watching the rain beat down on a charred field. Listening to the hiss it made. Perry knew he and Roar could discover this place. Reef and his men would help. Marron and Cinder, too. They’d learn where it was and then he’d take the Tides there.
“We’ll find the Still Blue,” Perry said. “If it exists, I’ll get us there.”
It came out sounding like what it was. Like he’d made a pledge to his men.
After a week of skirting storms, they approached the Tide compound under a night sky lit bright with Aether. Perry strode across a field that crunched like tinder beneath his feet, inhaling the familiar scents of salt and earth. This was where he needed to be. Home with his tribe. He had no illusions of the welcome he would receive. The Tides would blame him for Talon and Vale. But he hoped to convince them that he could help. The tribe needed him now.
A torch flickered to life at the edge of the compound and then he heard shouts of alarm, telling him they’d been spotted by the night watch. Within moments several more torches appeared, blazing spots in the blue night. Perry knew the Tides would think this a raid. He’d been a part of this situation dozens of times before. He would have been the archer on the roof of the cookhouse, where he now saw Brooke.
He waited for an arrow to pierce his heart, but Brooke shouted down. He heard his name again, volleyed from voice to voice. He heard them calling, “Peregrine. Peregrine is back,” and his feet stumbled. Within moments people poured out of their homes and clustered together, forming a mob at the edge of the compound. Tempers churned in the passing breezes. Fear and excitement, filling the air in bold, fragrant slashes.
“Keep walking, Perry,” Reef said quietly.
Perry prayed for the right words, now when he needed them. When there was so much to explain and make right.
The frenzied whispers of the crowd fell off as he closed the final distance. He scanned the faces before him. Everyone was there. Even the children, who were half asleep and confused. And then Perry saw Vale come forward, the silver links of the Blood Lord chain flashing against his dark shirt.
For an instant relief crashed over him. Vale was free. Not a captive in the Dweller Pod. Then he remembered Vale’s last words to him. Telling him he was cursed. Telling him to die.
Perry’s legs twitched, unsteady beneath him. He didn’t know what to do. He hadn’t expected this. He could see that Vale was just as shocked as he was. Vale, always intent and cool, looked pale and shaken, his mouth set in a grim line.
Finally Vale spoke. “Back, little brother? You know what this means, don’t you?”
Perry searched for answers in his brother’s face. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I shouldn’t be? Haven’t you got it backward, Peregrine?” Vale gave a dry laugh and then tipped his chin at Reef. “Don’t tell me you’ve come to make a play for Blood Lord with your little pack here? Don’t you think you’re a bit outnumbered?”
Perry struggled to make sense of things. “I saw Talon,” he said. “I saw him in the Realms. He said you were there. He saw you in the Realms.”
Darkness flashed across Vale’s features. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Perry shook his head, recalling the way Talon had made Perry prove his identity. Talon couldn’t have been wrong about seeing Vale. And he had no reason to lie about it. That meant Vale was lying. A sick feeling bloomed in Perry’s stomach. “What did you do?”
Vale reached down to the sheath at his belt and brought out his knife. “You better turn around right now.”
Perry sensed Reef and his men bracing behind him, but he just stared at the knife in Vale’s hand, his mind churning. The Dwellers hadn’t just been looking for the Smarteye that day on the beach. They had gone after Talon.
“You had him kidnapped,” Perry said. “You set me up. . . . Why?” Then he remembered the Dweller dome with all the rotting food. So much. Enough to waste. “Was it for food, Vale? Did you get that desperate?”
Bear stepped forward. “Our stores are full, Peregrine. Sable’s second shipment came last week.”
“No,” Perry said. “Liv ran. Sable couldn’t have sent the food. Liv never went to the Horns.”
For a moment no one moved. Then Bear shifted, his thick eyebrows knotting in suspicion. “How do you know that?”
“I saw Roar. He’s looking for her. He’s coming here in the spring. He might have Liv with him by then.”
Vale’s face tightened with rage, the last of his guard vanishing. He was caught. “Talon’s better off in there!” he growled. “If you saw him, you’d know he is!”
Shouts of surprise erupted around them.
Perry shook his head in disbelief. “You sold him to the Dwellers?” He didn’t know why he hadn’t seen it earlier. Vale had done the same thing to Liv. Sold her for food. Only it was justified by custom. Archaic, Aria had called it. Perry saw that now.
How many times had Vale lied to him? About how many things?
He caught sight of Brooke in the crowd. “Clara . . . ,” he said, remembering Brooke’s sister. “Brooke, he did it to Clara, too. He sold her to the Dwellers.”