Once she overcame her initial hesitation, the strange food Alizarin had provided proved satisfying. The odd, spiked fruit was a deep purple, segmented inside a little like an orange, but with a flavor more akin to whiskey. She expected it to leave her parched, but the juice soothed her dry throat. The meat—which they ate raw because even Alizarin could not make a fire from bare sand and the scattered shells let off a greasy, smoky flame that made them all cough—had the soft-grained texture of high-grade tuna, and was delicious as long as she could put the image of the slimy, sharp-toothed orange-and-yellow snake it came from out of her mind. She ate lounging against Alizarin’s side the way she had once sprawled on the large throw pillows that filled her mother’s parlor—except this “pillow” was warm, vibrated with energy, and was firm underneath a layer of the softest fur she had ever touched. “You would make a good Abyssi,”
