"It was a fairy tale, that's all. They didn't get along. It was kid logic. It didn't make sense. But I loved the story. I loved her, I guess. She could have told me anything, and I'd have loved her. Kids love their parents, even the parents who don't deserve it. They can't help it."

This memory of his is so honest and real that Pressia's embarrassed that she didn't play the game sincerely. She tries again. "My parents hired a pony to come to my birthday party once when I was little."

"To give the kids rides?"

"I guess."

"That's nice. A pony. You liked ponies?"

"I don't know."

She wonders if the game has helped. Does he trust her more now that she's handed a memory over and he's given one to her? She decides to test it. "Back there with the Dust you killed, when you pulled it up from the hole and flipped it-that didn't seem normal," she says. "It didn't seem possible." She waits for him to pick up his end of the conversation. He tucks his chin to his chest and doesn't answer. "Back there with the Groupies, when you ran, it seemed faster than a human running..."

He shakes his head. "The academy," he says. "I got some special training. That's all."

"Training?"

"Well, coding, really. It didn't all take, though. I'm not a ripe specimen, turns out." He doesn't seem to want to talk about it, and she doesn't want to push. She lets the conversation lag. They walk on in silence.

Finally they come to a small collapsed storefront.

"This is it," she says.

"This is what?" Partridge asks.

She leads him around a pile of rubble to a wide metal back door. "Bradwell's place," she whispers. "I should warn you that he's fused."

"In what way?"

"Birds," she says.

"Birds?"

"In his back."

He looks at her, startled, and she likes that she's disturbed him.

She knocks, following the directions on the piece of paper-one knock, then two soft taps and then she pauses and gives another sharp knuckle-punch. She hears some noise inside. And then Bradwell knocks from the other side, the same way she did, small hollow-sounding gongs.

"He lives here?" Partridge asks. "Who could live here?"

She knocks twice. "Wait over there. I don't want you to set him off." She points to a wall, darkened by shadow.

"Does he set off easily?"

"Just go."

Partridge recedes to the shadows.

There's a scraping sound, Bradwell unlocking the door. It opens, just a crack. "It's the middle of the night," he whispers, his voice so rough she wonders if she woke him. "Who are you? What the hell do you want?"

"It's Pressia."

The door opens wider. Bradwell is taller and broader than she remembers him. A survivor, it seems, should be wiry and lithe, a body easily hidden, lean from subsisting on little. But he's had to become muscular to survive. There's the double scar running jaggedly up his cheek, his burns, but his eyes are what catch Pressia's attention. She feels a hesitation in her breath. They're dark eyes and steely, but when they take in Pressia's face they seem to soften, as if Bradwell is capable of more tenderness than she thought. "Pressia?" he says. "I thought you didn't want to see me ever again."

She turns her burned cheek away from him and feels herself blush-embarrassed by what? Why? She hears a flutter behind him-the wings of the birds lodged in his back.

"Why are you here?"

"I wanted to thank you for the gift."

"Now?"

"No," she says. "That's not why I came. I just thought I'd say it now that you're here. I mean, I'm here with you." She's yammering. She wishes she'd stop. "And I brought someone," she says. "It's urgent."

"Who?"

"Someone who needs help." And then she quickly adds, "I don't need help. It's this other person who does." If she hadn't run into the Pure, she'd be at his doorstep right now asking Bradwell to save her. And she realizes how relieved she is that she isn't coming to him by herself, for herself. There's a quiet moment. Is Bradwell going to turn back? Is he trying to decide what to do?

"What kind of help?"

"It's important or I wouldn't be here."

Partridge steps out of the shadows. "She's here for my sake."

Bradwell glances at Partridge, then Pressia.

"Get in here," he says. "Hurry up."

"What is this place?" Partridge asks.

"Elliot Marker and Sons Fine Selection of Meats, Established 1933," Bradwell says. "Found the little bronze placard after the Detonations. This was when some people were still lining up the dead and covering them with sheets and rolling them in rugs to be identified later, as if some government agency were just about to kick in and start up a recovery effort. The first floor-the display cases and counters, cutting area, cold storage, office-that was all gone, but I pulled the rubble from the back door at night hoping it led to the basement. And it did. The meats were spoiled but a butcher shop's got a lot of weapons."

Pressia's eyes are adjusting to the dark. She's standing in a strange cage, outfitted with straps and chains, and a slide that leads to the basement. Partridge is standing behind her. He reaches up and touches a chain. "And this is?"

"The stunning pen," Bradwell says. "Animals were brought in through the back door, then stunned, with their hooves secured by straps connected to a rod that ran along rails. Their heavy bodies would be suspended upside down, and they were brought down for processing." Bradwell jogs down the slide in his heavy boots. "Just be glad you aren't a heifer in the old days."

Pressia sits on the pen's floor, scoots to the edge, and slides down into the basement. Partridge follows her, and then they walk behind Bradwell along the side of the basement that hasn't caved in, heading toward the hint of light from the cooler at the other end of the room. "They bled animals down here, used hot vats and processing stations. The animals were pulled along the rails by a system of winches and stripped of their hides, dismantled."

"Do you ever stop giving lessons?" Pressia asks under her breath.

"What?" Bradwell says.

"Nothing."

The ceiling is still fitted with its bare rails, which lead into the meat locker-a small room, ten feet by fifteen, with metal walls and ceiling. The rails run along the ceiling in here too. Bradwell says, "I've taken down most of the huge hooks that used to dangle from them." But there are a few left. Two of the hooks are strung up with strange creatures, hybrids of some sort. They've been skinned. Bradwell's also removed any metallic or glass fusings-one is missing an arm, the other has an amputated tail. Now that they're bare with pimpled flesh, it's hard to say what they once might have been. In one corner, there is a homemade wire cage holding two rat-like creatures.

"Where did you catch these?" Pressia asks.

"The defunct sewer system. Some of the smaller pipes stayed intact under the rubble. The vermin use them. And at certain points, the pipelines end. Some break completely, and if you lie in wait at the end of one of the narrow pipes, you'll eventually catch a small beast."

"There isn't much room for them to move in these cages," Pressia says.

"I don't want them to move. I want them to get fat."

Their claws scratch against the cement floor.

The walls are lined with shelves interrupted by vertical rows of more hooks. If you tried to hang a hat on one, it'd pierce the top clean through. Partridge is eyeing the hooks.

Bradwell tells him, "Don't get too excited and start gesturing wildly or you'll get hooked and good."

The meat locker doesn't have much ventilation except for a homemade exhaust fan over a cook stove. "The shop is on the weak power grid that OSR uses to light the city," he says. A single bulb hangs from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

Wool blankets are draped over two old armchairs that he must have found somewhere out in the streets. One has melted in on itself; the other's lost one arm and its back. Both have exploding foam that he's clearly tried to stuff back in, but the stuffing just keeps trying to escape. Pushed together, this must be where he sleeps. He has a small stock of canned meats from the market and some wild berries that grow among thorns in the woods.

Pressia wonders if she's caught him off guard, showing up like this. He's tidying up now, putting away a pan, shoving an extra pair of boots under an armchair. Is he embarrassed? Nervous?

She sees the footlocker pressed up against one of the walls. She wants to open it and go rifling through. Sitting on top of it is what seems to be a reference book on butchering, processing, and preserving meats of all kinds.

"So," Bradwell says, "welcome to my home sweet home." He still hasn't gotten a good look at Partridge. He doesn't know that this is a Pure-flesh and blood. Partridge has his hood on and the scarf. He's holding tight to his bag, hidden under his coat, like Pressia taught him. Pressia is nervous now. She remembers Bradwell's talk, how much he hated the people in the Dome. She worries if this was the right decision. How will Bradwell react? It strikes her now that Bradwell might see Partridge as the enemy. What then?

Bradwell pulls the two armchairs apart. "Sit down," he says to Pressia and Partridge.

And they sit on the lumpy chairs.

Bradwell pulls up the footlocker and takes a seat. She sees the ruffle of birds on his back under his shirt. She feels for him. The birds are his body now-just as the doll head is part of hers. The birds merge with his life span. They live as long as he lives. If one has an injured wing, would he feel it? Once, when she was twelve, she tried to cut her doll head off. She thought she could free herself from it. The pain was sharp, but only at first. When she slid the razor in deep at the back of the doll's neck where it met her wrist, it wasn't as painful. But the blood flowed so brightly, and with such force, that it scared her. She pressed a cloth to it, but the cloth went red fast. She had to tell her grandfather. He worked quickly. His skills as a mortician came in handy. The stitches were even, and the scar is small.

Pressia sits back, and even though the sock hides the doll-head fist, she tugs on her sweater sleeve to be doubly sure. The Pure would see it as grotesque and maybe as a sign of weakness.

She glances at Partridge and knows he's seen the ruffle beneath Bradwell's shirt too, but Partridge doesn't say a word. Pressia imagines that he's in shock. Everything must be foreign. She's had years to get used to it. He's only had a couple of days maybe.

"So are you going to tell me who this is now?" Bradwell asks.

"This is Partridge." She says to Partridge, "Take off the scarf and hood."

He hesitates.

"It's okay. Bradwell's on our side." But is he? Pressia wonders. She hopes by saying it, she'll convince Bradwell that it's true.

Partridge pushes off his hood and unwinds the scarf.

Bradwell stares at his face, which is smudged with dirt, but unmarked. "Arms," Bradwell says.

"I don't have any weapons," he says. "Except an antique knife."

"No," Bradwell says. His face is calm, except for his eyes. They look at Partridge sharply, like someone who is about to aim a gun. "I want to see your actual arms."

Partridge pulls up his sleeves, and there is more perfect skin. There's something unsettling about it. Pressia isn't sure why, but she feels a kind of revulsion. Is it jealousy and hatred? Does she despise Partridge for his skin? It's also beautiful. She can't deny it-like cream.

Bradwell nods at Partridge's legs.

Partridge bends down and pulls up one pant leg and then the other.

Bradwell stands up and crosses his arms on his chest. He rubs the burn on his neck, agitated, and walks around the meat locker, dodging the hooks weighted with hybrids. He looks at Pressia. "You brought me a Pure?"

Pressia nods.

"I mean, I knew you were different but-"

"I thought I was a type."

"At first, I thought you might be, but then you told me off."

"I didn't tell you off."

"Yes you did."

"No, I didn't. I just disagreed with the way you'd categorized me. And I said so. Is that what you think every time someone corrects you? That they're telling you off?"

"No. It's just that-"

"And then you give them a mean birthday present, just to remind them of what you think of them?"

"I thought you liked that clipping. I was being nice."

She's quiet a moment. "Oh. Well, thank you."

"You already said thank you but I guess that was sarcastic."

"Maybe a little insincere-"

Partridge says, "Um, excuse me."

"Right," Bradwell says, but then he turns to Pressia again. "You brought me a Pure? Is that some kind of mean gift?"

"I didn't know where else to go."

"A Pure?" Bradwell says again, incredulously. "Does he know anything about what happened? The Detonations?"

"He can speak for himself," she says.

Bradwell stares at him. Maybe he's afraid of Partridge. He might despise him. "Well?" Bradwell finally says.

"I know what I've been spoon-fed," Partridge says, "but also I know a little about the truth."

"What truth?" Bradwell says.

"Well, I know that you can't trust everything you hear." He unbuttons his coat and pulls out the leather bag. "I was told that everything was awful here before the bomb, and that everyone was invited into the Dome before we were attacked by the enemy. But some people refused to come in. They were the violent, sickly, poor, stubborn, uneducated. My father said that my mother was trying to save some of these wretches."