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“Sorry . . . I’m so sorry,” I stutter as I scramble to right the basket, placing the fallen bottles back inside. Arlo is crouched beside me, picking up more jars that rolled off the table. His expression is apologetic. Then I feel him drop something into my cloak pocket.
“Wasn’t watching where I was going,” he says to the woman as he rises with hands full of jars and tincture bottles.
She glares at us but waves her hand in dismissal, already turning back to her sorting. Arlo quickly guides me away, and when we round the corner at the end of the market row, I slip my hand into the cloak pocket.
My fingers close around a small glass bottle. When I pull it out, the label reads Cough Remedy: honey, black seed oil, licorice root. It’s not much, but it’s something, and my throat tightens so fast I can’t speak.
Arlo bumps my shoulder with his. When I look at him, he reaches into his hoodie pocket and pulls out two more items, holding them up with triumph. In one hand, a jar of camphor, and in the other, a slim brown bottle with a tattered label.
My mouth falls open. “Arlo,” I hiss. “You could have lost your hands if she caught you,” I glance over my shoulder, expecting the Guard to be chasing us down, but the street is silent. Shaking my head, I turn the brown bottle over to read it and giggle.
“What?” Arlo asks, peering over my shoulder at the worn label.
“This is for foot fungus.”
He blinks, takes the bottle back, and reads it. His face goes through several expressions: confusion, denial, and then a slow, dawning horror that makes something crack open in my chest and spill out as laughter.
“Damn it.”
“At least we got the cough syrup,” I say, holding up the small bottle. “And some camphor.”
“I saw an opportunity.” He chuckles.
I shake my head. “What would I do without you, Arlo?”
He looks at me with that boyish grin that makes my heart beat faster. “Come on. Let’s get back before that woman notices her foot cream missing.”
CHAPTER 3
• Alessia •
BY THE TIME we reach home, I know most people will be waking soon.
They will be trying to keep warm, heating their meager rations for the day. Checking their loved ones made it through another miserable night. Thankfully, the main house seems quiet, and there are no curtains rustling to make me believe we’ve been spotted.
We sneak back through the gate, and without a single word or long look, we separate. Arlo heads for his cabin, and I move for the barn. I’m relieved to find Sable still fast asleep. If she had woken up alone she would have assumed the Guard hauled me away like the others.
I quietly pull the bottles of cough syrup and camphor from my pockets and move quickly toward our bed, slipping them under the covers beside her and straight down into the pile of hay we sleep on.
Once the sun breaks through the low-hanging clouds, the farm will come alive. Crawly lets a select few men hunt in the surrounding forest every morning, even when they come home empty-handed most days. Those men will be the first on their feet and out their doors.
Closing my eyes, I try to catch a few minutes of sleep, but after a while, Sable’s barking cough tears through the barn again. I jolt upright in bed. The first bright splash of sunlight filters through the slats, along with the early morning chill.
Sable looks impossibly small in our bed of hay and rags, her skin slick with fever sweat, cheeks rosy, lips split and bleeding where the wind has blasted every crack.
I press my cold hand against her forehead, and she snuggles deeper beneath our holey blanket. Her skin is too warm, but it’s nothing compared to last night when touching her would burn my frozen fingertips.
Her eyes open as she peeks out at me, one an icy blue and the other a light seafoam green, and I swipe her golden hair away from her hollow cheek. “I’m hungry Lissa,” she murmurs, her voice catching on another vicious cough.
“I will try to find something,” I whisper.
She nods weakly and rolls over.
As I leave the barn, I rub my tired eyes and peer out at the barren fields. Now that the sun is up, the snow-laden cabins scattered for miles are easier to see.
The storage room door slaps open and shut in the wind. It would normally be locked tight, and my stomach churns. I try not to assume the worst as I approach, but Crawly wouldn’t leave it unlocked if there were anything inside worth protecting.
I push past the swinging door, and the floorboards creak under my boots as I head toward the row of storage crates on the far wall. I look inside of each empty barrel and crate, praying for a crumb, a stray root, anything.
