A frowning Kalos watches me eat and eventually sits down. He settles his robes around his legs, peeling wet linen from his limbs. “So, since this is your strategy for survival, what is the plan? Wander the swamps until we perish?”
I shake my head, and wonder if it’s wise to eat a second corn cake. I do so anyhow, because if I don’t have the strength to move tomorrow, that’s a problem. “We’re going to find a city and hide out.”
He looks openly skeptical. “And how will we do that, pray tell?”
“I have a map.”
“Mm. And will the city be friendly? I am the Vulture God, after all. The bringer of disease. No one embraces me with enthusiasm.”
Is he bitter about that? Or just making pissy commentary? “You can’t blame them. I touched your hand and you gave me the flu. Maybe if you want to be embraced, be a kinder, gentler god.”
He snorts. “You assume I wish for the embrace of mortals. All I want is to be left alone.”
“That’s the goal,” I say, since it’s as good a goal as any. “We look for somewhere to hide out where you can be left alone, and I can manage to live a normal life while being tied to you.”
“A normal life,” he muses. “What does that look like for you?”
I genuinely have no idea. I don’t know much about this world or its people, or what I’d do for a living. I have no skills. I’m a barista, a dog walker, and an Uber driver. “I’ll figure something out. Right now, a normal life just means staying alive. We’ll conquer this one step at a time.”
Kalos sighs heavily. “If we must.”
“We must.” In the dimming light, he looks…distant. Vaguely miserable. It must be rough to be Apathy. I wonder what his thoughts are, or if I even want to know. “You want quiet, I’ll get you quiet.”
He simply grunts. “I wonder if we’d be better off if we just wandered in this swamp until we died. That’s easier for everyone, isn’t it?”
“It’s not easier for me, and I’m not giving up. Your other Aspect that’s coming after you is just going to have to wait. I don’t plan on dying any time soon, so too bad for you.”
“Too bad, indeed.” He sounds a little depressed at my resolve, the turd. Is this what I gave up everything for? To run endlessly and hear his bitching? I know he can’t help it, but my temper is rather short today. It’s all the mud. And the exhaustion. And… everything.
For a moment, I want to curl up and just cry. Cry for home, cry for David, cry for all the hopes and dreams I had that disappeared the moment I saw his nosebleed.
But that’s not what I signed up for.
I swallow the knot in my throat and finish eating. I give Dingle the crumbs of my food and pull out the map, because it’s something to do and I can’t sleep on a muddy knoll covered in roots. The flies and mosquitos are thick now, to the point that I pull the neck of my dress over my mouth and nose to keep the bugs from getting into them as I breathe. With annoyance, I notice not a single insect touches Kalos or his pale, porcelain skin. Figures. Waving a hand at the bug-infested air, I unroll the heavy parchment and peer at the black lines covering it. The moonlight is decent, but it takes me a lot of squinting before I realize I can’t read the language.
Well, fudge. I squint again just to make sure and hold it out to Kalos. “Can you read this?”
He ignores the map and eyes me. “Why?”
“Because I can’t.”
“Then why did you bring it?”
I’m tempted to roll it up again and beat him over the head with it.He can’t help himself, I remind the ugly little voice inside me. “We’re lost and a map is a good way to figure out where we’re going.”
He sits down next to me, his long, dramatic white hair hanging in his face. It’s tangled and messy, but he clearly doesn’t care. “And where do you think we should go?”
“No clue. Want to suggest someplace?”
Kalos eyes me with disdain.
“Thought not.” I rustle the map like I’m reading an important newspaper and pull it close to my cloth-covered nose again. No dice. I’ll have to look at it in the morning, when bugs aren’t in danger of flying into my eyes. I settle the open map over my head and lie back against my pack.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m going to try to sleep,” I tell him.
“Wonderful,” he says in a tone that indicates it’s anything but.
