The guard who was driving—the one who had me in a headlock earlier—makes noises of protest, but Hana silences him quickly.
“I said, leave us.” For a second, the old Hana resurges; I see the defiance in her eyes, the imperial tilt of her chin. “And close the doors behind you.”
The guards file out reluctantly. I can feel the weight of their stares, and I know that if Hana were not here, I would already be dead. But I refuse to feel grateful to her. I won’t.
When they are gone, Hana stares at me for a minute in silence. Her expression is unreadable. Finally she says, “You’re too skinny.”
I could almost laugh. “Yeah, well. The restaurants in the Wilds are mostly closed. They’re mostly bombed, actually.” I don’t bother keeping the edge out of my voice.
She doesn’t react. She just keeps watching me. Another beat of silence passes. Then she gestures to the table. “Sit down.”
“I’d rather stand, thanks.”
Hana frowns. “You can treat that as an order.”
I don’t really think that she’ll call the guards back if I refuse to sit, but there’s no point in risking it. I slide into a chair, glaring at her the whole time. But I can’t get comfortable. It has been twenty minutes at least since the foghorn blew. That means I have less than forty minutes to get out of here.
As soon as I sit, Hana whirls around and disappears into the back of the kitchen, where a dark gap beyond the refrigerator indicates a pantry. Before I can think of escape, she reemerges, carrying a loaf of bread wrapped in a tea towel. She stands at the counter and slices off thick hunks, slathering them in butter and piling them high onto a plate. Then she moves to the sink and wets the tea towel.
Watching her turn on the faucet, watching the steaming water that appears instantly, I am filled with envy. It has been forever since I’ve had a proper shower, or gotten to clean myself except in frigid rivers.
“Here.” She passes me the hot towel. “You’re a mess.”
“I didn’t have time to do my makeup,” I reply sarcastically. But I take the towel anyway, and touch it gingerly to my ear. I’ve stopped bleeding, at least, although the towel comes back flecked with dried blood. I keep my eyes on her as I wipe off my face and hands. I wonder what she is thinking.
She slides the plate of bread in front of me when I’ve finished with the towel, and fills a glass with water, along with real ice cubes, five of them rattling joyfully together.
“Eat,” she says. “Drink.”
“I’m not hungry,” I lie.
She rolls her eyes, and once again I see the old Hana float up into this new impostor. “Don’t be stupid. Of course you’re hungry. You’re starving. You’re probably dying of thirst, too.”
“Why are you doing this?” I ask her.
Hana opens her mouth and then closes it again. “We were friends,” she says.
“Were,” I say firmly. “Now we’re enemies.”
“Are we?” Hana looks startled, as though the idea has never occurred to her. Once again, I feel a flicker of unease, a squirming feeling of guilt. Something isn’t right. I force the feelings down.
“Of course,” I say.
Hana watches me for a second more. Then, abruptly, she gets up from the table and moves over to the windows. Once her back is to me, I quickly take a piece of bread and stuff it in my mouth, eating as quickly as I can without choking. I wash it down with a long slug of water, so cold it brings a blazing, delicious pain to my head.
For a long time, Hana doesn’t say anything. I eat another piece of bread. She can no doubt hear me chewing, but she doesn’t comment on it or turn around. She allows me to keep up the pretense that I am not eating, and I experience a brief burst of gratitude.
“I’m sorry about Alex,” she says at last, still without turning.
My stomach gives an uncomfortable twist. Too much; too quickly.
“He didn’t die.” My voice sounds overloud. I don’t know why I feel the urge to tell her. But I need her to know that her side, her people, didn’t win, at least not in this case. Even though of course, in some ways, they did.
She turns around. “What?”
“He didn’t die,” I repeat. “He was thrown into the Crypts.”
Hana flinches, as though I’ve reached out and slapped her. She sucks her lower lip into her mouth again and starts chewing. “I—” She stops herself, frowning a little.
“What?” I know that face; I recognize it. She knows something. “What is it?”
“Nothing, I . . .” She shakes her head, as though to dislodge an idea there. “I thought I saw him.”
My stomach surges into my throat. “Where?”
“Here.” She looks at me with another one of her inscrutable expressions. The new Hana is much harder to read than the old one. “Last night. But if he’s in the Crypts . . .”