After that first night, Mal kept his distance. I hadn’t approached him. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to say. His mood had changed—that calm was still there, but now I had the eerie sense that he was drinking in the world, memorizing it. He would turn his face up to the sun and let his eyes close, or break a stalk of bur marigold and press it to his nose. He hunted for us every night that we had enough cover for a fire. He pointed out larks’ nests and wild geranium, and caught a field mouse for Oncat, who seemed too spoiled to do any hunting of her own.
