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"Just get hione, 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 "Letfor 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 blackeneda trail down his wrist Perry’s stomach twisted Stars burst before his eyes He sed back the sour rush in histo 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 as 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 ca his shoulders Aria’s hands went still

"Keep going," he said, before he could change his ht 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 for hi 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 thehim 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 hoas possible, but he couldn’t deny what he’d seen Not with proofwaves 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 floith the Aether? He should’ve trusted his Sense Cinder set off the sa sensation in his nose And he’d known the boy was hiding so to helpThe 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 ca Cinder across his neck in a hunter’s hold, legs to one side, arms to the other

"Is he dead?" The question caether

"Unfortunately, no," Roar said, out of breath

Cinder balled up as soon as Roar set hi worse than before He turned his face into the earth Perry saide patches of bare scalp They hadn’t been there before His clothes were blackened Al off completely

"We have to leave him, Perry He’s too weak"

"We can’t"

"Look at hirine He can barely hold his head up"

"The Croven will coritted his teeth as stars bloomed before his eyes Feords, he told hi

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 soin his nose was faint Hardly there Cinder had to be linked to the Aether tides

"Just leave," Cinder rasped

"Listen to hiot twenty Croven on our heels Are you really going to risk our lives for this fiend?"

Perry didn’t have the strength to argue He cli his unsteadiness "I’ll carry hih dry "He’s not Talon, Perry!"

Perry wanted to punch his took hi toward hi down into her eyes Seeing her worry She turned to Roar

"He’s right, Roar We can’t leave hi"