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I groaned, looking at the abundance of white fruit. “More berries?”

“Trust me. The juice will get rid of the shit in your mouth. Plus, you lost a lot of fluids when you puked. This’ll help.” He passed Zeke a branch that he’d stripped down to the soft, edible core. “Grabbed this for you to have some more. I ate some on the way back.”

I choked down some of the disgusting berries Cyn gave me, then used the sapphire necklace and a dress pin to tie the makeshift bag to my waist for later. I didn’t know why none of us had thought of doing it sooner.

Cyn’s eyes narrowed on me. “You okay?”

“What? Yeah. Why?”

“You’re sweating a lot.”

I didn’t know what to tell him. I wasn’t hot and felt fine—other than my stomach throwing a party I didn’t authorize, making me want to throw up again.

“I’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s from all the walking.”

He didn’t look convinced.

We’d been at it for what felt like hours, and while I was used to running and in pretty good shape, I was running on fumes after throwing up. The upset stomach didn’t help.

“We should stop soon,” Zeke said. “I’m crashing too.”

Cyn’s jaw tightened as he looked back the way we came.

I didn’t doubt he was calculating how far we’d traveled since waking up in this death trap, but if we went until our bodies couldn’t keep up, none of us would survive.

24

NEED

CYN

Iconvinced them to walk a little longer to find a better place to stop, far away from the corpse. It might attract not only lesser infernal scavengers but also larger predators that wouldn’t hesitate to attack us while we were still alive.

I needed to keep them as far away from that danger as possible.

By the time we found a suitable spot, Raelynn was barely holding herself upright.

“I didn’t think the berries would do this to you,” Zeke said, looking at her with genuine concern while I cleared excess debris from the mossy area to give them a place to rest.

Her stomach gurgled. “I don’t know if it happens to Shyrlivi, but a lot of humans get violently ill when they travel. New foods, new water, new climate… it can cause a lot of problems.”

Zeke frowned, taking a seat near the spot I’d chosen. “Yeah, but you’re not human.”

“I think Ezra said I’m one-eighth human.”

“That’s barely anything,” I said, taking a seat against a tree opposite them, settling in to watch over them while they slept.

“I know. But it still means I have human biology, so it’s possible that’s the reason the berries—or the branches—made me sick.”

Or the magic of this damned place.

She hadn’t freaked out once since we’d gotten into this mess, so I wouldn’t upset her by saying something I couldn’t prove. Maybe it was only the berries. I hoped her stomach would adjust soon so that the next time she needed to eat, she wouldn’t get sick. Going without them wasn’t an option.

She curled up on her side on the thick moss, and her stomach gurgled again. “Zeke?”

“Mm?” He shifted to face her, resting on his side.

“Can you do that head thing you do?”