From his expression and the look in his eyes, I could tell he was starving—yet he was still fighting to hold on to the last shred of manners.

I nudged the flatbread in my hand closer to him. “If you don’t know the way, then at least tell me about Notonia—what it’s like, the local culture.”

Either way, he was getting the flatbread. That was nonnegotiable.

“I know that,” he said. He rubbed his hands against his clothes, took the flatbread, ...