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In essence, wasn’t their goodto close your eyes and picture sorunt atop the poor homely slave who’s your own?

Neve hated hiift this , but she didn’t think it would be herself She knew she was pretty, and if she’d never had cause to be grateful for it before, here was proof that there’s a first ti Maybe she’d be the one he pictured in the dark, and that was a notion vile enough to choke on, but she wouldn’t be the one he courted

She just wouldn’t

She dressed herself The shed was frigid; dressing quick was an art learned early Washing quick was harder; you had to really care to even bother Neve cared, Lord knohy At least her basin wasn’t skih April Still, this water was kissing cousins to ice, and she was shaking with chill when she yanked on her stockings and slip, her dress and kirtle, her ered, it was the work of a ht, and cover it with a kerchief the color of lanced at the door On a nor--not that her sad hen Potpie had been laying of late, but she still checked as aand kneell enough why She ondering at the state of her porch

Was it as eht before?

"Please God," she whispered, and right away it struck her as the wrong plea If there was a god, then Neve’s whole life was a criainst her, and she dared attract nostool that served her for a bed stand and drew soth from what lay upon it

A dead flower

How irls on the Isle of Feathers had a dead flower ready this ? And then, how many knew there was no courtship so bad that she could afford to reject it?

That was hoorked: You woke on the first of December to find--or not find--a token of affection on the porch A paper cone of sweets or a whittled bird or a posey, maybe To reject the suit, you left a dead flower in the spot for the fellow to find the next night Acceptance was tacit You did nothing, just rose eachto see what your future husband had left for you, twenty-four days in a row until the Christather in Scarether under a lacework of paper snowflakes and frosted lamps and sealed their fates with a dance You set your hand in his and that was it: contract sealed with the cla sweat

How romantic

Neve had no expectations, but she had a dead flower ready, just in case It was a thorn lily, left over froently It was crisp as paper, light as nothing When this floas alive, Ivan and Jathry were too Neve had picked it on a Sunday when the three of theoing to take They’d been closing in on Age, though Neve still had nine est and last of the plague orphans, she herself the very youngest, the very last She’d always known she’d be alone here at the Graveyard sheds for a time before they set her "free" too, but that would have been a different kind of alone: just waiting, just biding time before she could clai to take the plot, even if it didn’t make sense anyood for? Needlework That hat they did at the factory They embroidered lace tablecloths for ships to carry to rich folk on every shore of the Gliding, and Neve was better than passing fair; she was better than good She was an artist Even Da her "Crow Food" with at least a hint of respect But a great lot of good were needle and thread when it ca stony soil without a s she’d have to do to live

If you could call it living

Neve was scared clear down to a deep place inside where a part of herself was caged like a creature, mute and huddled and nuled with the heat of fevers, but even so she knew that as long as she kept breathing, life would keep co at her--like the swarh to take the shortcut through Nasty Gully in springtiet tangled in your hair and in your skirts They even push their way into your mouth

Life would do the same Neve couldn’t pretend otherwise In truth, she dreaded the lonely penury of Fog Cup alht of a man she couldn’t love, and if there was a token on her porch, she knew in her secret heart she’d be a fool not to consider it But she didn’t want to consider it She wanted to be free, and if she could never be free, at least she wanted to be brave--brave enough not to sell herself, nothe dead flower, she squared her shoulders Brave, she thought, and went to the door Brave, she thought as she opened it

But brave she was not when she saas sitting there, incongruously fine against the buckled boards of her rotting, charity-shed porch

It was a Bible bound in red leather and stenciled all over in gold

Only one ift One man had done so, in fact, three tiraves now stood in a row, and with plenty of space at the end for that row to grow and keep adding to its collection Who’s next? called the ceirl with the honeysuckle hair

Neve clutched her frail lily and stared at the Bible whose pages had been thumbed by dead women So Spear wanted her after all In that place inside where her fear was caged like a creature, so stirred and rose, and she spoke a new plea without pausing to think Not to God, Spear’s coconspirator God was a newco ships as the orphans and livestock

There were older powers in the world than Him

"Please, Wisha," whispered Neve, and she felt the forbidden word part the air like the wings of a bird and go forth froue It was an execration to speak it, but it didn’t feel like one It felt like power, like the birth of a s its way into the world, new-alive and ith her own desperate thrurow, some day, into thunderheads and sink a fleet of ships half a world away But what good was that to her? Much nearer and in that instant, at the threshold of her freezing shed while rain hissed at the roof and the heavy air pressed down, dense with its absence of voices, she saw so happen The red leather cover of that unwanted Bible flapped open in a violent gust Pages riffled and ca freed First the pages, then the rest