The girl whispers, “Why do you stop?”
The woman doesn’t look up. “Because moving makes heat.”
“But we’re inside.”
“We are always inside the heat.”
The girl is trying to understand. She will. Everyone does eventually.
I cross the chamber, keeping to the left where the stone is cooler. The newcomers have spread themselves wrong, clustering near the entrance where the air tastes fresher but holds more surface warmth. City survivors sit deeper in, backs to the inner stone, feet bare against the floor, hands loose in their laps.
It’s easy to see who belongs to which kind of survival. The newcomers take up space like they still think space can beclaimed. The City-born make ourselves narrow enough for the world to pass around us.
“Sera.”
Mira lifts a hand before I reach her sleeping alcove. Her fingers tremble, but she notices everything. She always has. Age has thinned her skin and stolen most of her teeth, but it hasn’t dulled the sharp hook of her gaze.
I crouch beside her and take out the twist of dried meat. She looks from the meat to my face.
“No,” she says.
I set it in her hand. “Yes.”
“You look pale.”
“I always look pale in this bad light.”
“You lie badly when you’re hungry.”
“Hunger takes imagination first.”
Her mouth twitches, almost a smile. Almost. She tries to hand the meat back.
I close her fingers around it. “Eat.”
“Sera,” she protests, but it’s weak.
“Chew slowly. If you make yourself sick, I’ll have to listen to Emon complain that old women cause more trouble than children.”
That gets the smallest breath of laughter from her. Good. Laughter is dangerous, but sometimes it’s worth the cost. I move before she can argue again.
Tal is next. He sits with two other boys near a broken wall niche, trying very hard to look like he isn’t watching the basket. His wrists are worse than last week. I can see every small bone. I hand him one of the cave roots.
“This one’s bigger,” he says, frowning at it.
“No, it isn’t.”
“It is.”
“Then don’t tell anyone,” I say with a smile.
“They got meat yesterday,” he says, darting a glance at the newcomers.
“They got travel ration recovery.”
“That sounds like meat with a longer name,” he huffs, speaking softly.
“It was.”
