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Together the pair made their way out of the Edifice, across the plaza, and down the crowded lane At the weaving shed, Kira paused, greeted the women, and asked about Matt

"Haven't seen hiood riddance, too!" one of the workers replied "The useless sca back, Kira?" another asked "We could use your help And you're old enough to be on the looone, you hed loudly and pointed to Kira's clean new clothes "She don't need us no ain Kira turned away

Nearby, she heard an oddly falanced around, half expecting to see aworse But the sound had come frohter when they saw her looking She saw Vandara in their midst The scarred woain: a human imitation of a beast Kira lowered her head and lihter

Thoone ahead; she could see hiroup of young boys playing in theas she approached

"Gimme coins and maybe I could find him!"

"I asked them about Matt," Thomas explained, "but they say they haven't seen hiht be sick?" Kira asked, worried "His nose is always running Maybe we should never have cleaned him up He was accusto their bare feet in the !" one said "He never be sick!"

A smaller one wiped his own runny nose on the back of his hand "Hisat him I heared her And she throwed a rock at hihed at it and run off!"

"When?" Kira asked the runny-nosed boy

"Dunno," he said "Maybe two days ago"

"It were!" chio! I seed it too His mum chucked a rock at hioin' on a journey!"

"He's all right, Kira," Thomas reassured her, and they walked on "He takes care of himself better than most adults Here -- I think this is where we turn"

She followed hiether here, and close to the edge of the woods, so that they were shaded by trees and s streas Thomas took her hand and helped her; it was treacherous, with her bad leg, and she feared slipping into the water, which was quite shallow but clogged with filth

On the other side of the stream, beyond the thick poisonous oleander bushes that were such a danger to tykes, lay the area known as the Fen In some ways it was similar to the place that Kira had called ho of infants; the stench of s food, and unwashed humans But it was darker here, with the trees thick overhead, and festering with dampness and an odor of ill health

"Why must there be such a horrible place?" Kira whispered to Thomas "Why do people have to live like this?"

"It's how it is," he replied, frowning "It's always been"

A sudden vision slid into Kira's mind The robe The robe told how it had always been; and what Thomas had said was not true There had been tio tireen Why could there not be such tian to say it to hiested, "you and I? We're the ones ill fill in the blank places Maybe we canat her His look was skeptical, a about?" He didn't understand Perhaps he never would

"Nothing," Kira told hi her head

As they walked, an ominous quiet fell Kira beca the to find ways around the garbage-strewn puddles in the path, and felt the hostile stares It h this unfamiliar, malevolent place

"Thomas," she murmured, "we must ask someone"

He stopped, and she stopped beside him They stood uncertainly in the path

"What be your purpose?" a hoarse voice called froreen lizard slither into the vines at the sill; behind the fluttering wet leaves a gaunt-faced wo out There seeers and diggers, would all be working, and she felt relieved, rerabbed at her the day of the weapons

Kira h the thorny underbrush and went closer to theThrough it, she could see the dark interior of the cott, where several other tykes, half-naked, stood staring dull-eyed and frightened toward her

"I' for the boy called Matt," she said politely to the woivingyou? I'm sorry," Kira told her, startled by the question "I don't have anything to give"

"Nary food?"

"No I' that they were empty

"I have an apple" Thomas approached and to Kira's surprise, took a dark red apple from his pocket "I saved it from lunch," he explained to Kira in a low voice, and he held it toward the woman

Her thin arrabbed the fruit She bit at it and began to turn away

"Wait!" Kira said "The cott where Matt lives! Can you tell us, please?"

The woman turned back, hernoisily The infant in her arrabbed at the bitten apple, and she shoved its hands away She gestured with her head "There be a busted tree in front"

Kira nodded "And please, one ," she pleaded "What can you tell us about a tyke naed and Kira found it hard to interpret the look For a moment, a brief flicker of joy had washed across the thin, embittered face Then hopelessness replaced it