page18 (1/2)

Tris wasn’t as frightened by this greeting as she would have been a week before “I’d like to ask a favor, if I may”

Rosethorn tilted up her wide-brimmed hat in order to see Tris’s face better “The answer is no”

Tris half ss here or in Summersea for a week I want to help at the infirain They need people to fetch water and food and so on The only way I can do it is if someone looks after Shriek”

“Shriek?”

“That’s what I’ him—because he does”

“I see” Rosethorn dusted a speck from a tomato “Why the infirmaries?” she asked

About to refuse to answer, Tris thought the better of it “Lark said they took the pirate wounded It’s because of me some of them are here, so—I should help out”

“You’ll hate it,” co flesh—a lot of them are burned They won’t thank you”

Lark had said the same It wasn’t that Tris didn’t believe thee the fact that she had to do so dead who came in her drea was after I came here I’m not so used to it that I expect it from people”

Rosethorn adjusted a tie on a plant “Just afternoons?”

Tris nodded

“All right Tonight you and I will talk about what happens to Shriek—Mila, what a name!—to Shriek next He’ll be ready to fly soon”

Tris nodded

“Well, go on Leave him in my workshop I’ll hear him just fine when he wants to be fed”

Rosethorn and Lark were right It was not pretty in the infirmaries The smell on the hot afternoons sent Tris out to be sick over and over Burns had to be cleaned, the dirty bandages laundered in boiling water and hung out to dry She carried buckets of water until her back, legs, and arms ached The harsh soap they used reddened and cracked her hands Every night Daja had to wake her when she fell asleep in her tub at the Earth Temple baths No one thanked her except the healer-dedicates, and that only rarely The pirate captives, who had the duke’s justice to look forward to once they were better, snapped and taunted and yanked her curls or knocked things from her hands The few slaves they had rescued only stared at the ceiling, wordless

Three boom-stones had made it past the shields while Tris and her friends attacked the fleet One had landed on a wing of the girls’ main dormitory The Water Te in that infir every time she set foot inside it

On her eighth day of service, the dedicates sent their healed crione, less than half of all the patients remained With plenty of healers now to care for the the floor of a newly e up, she saw Niko

“Are you ready to begin lessons again?” he asked

She pushed her spectacles up on the bridge of her nose “After I finish this floor”

“Have you any ideas about what area of your talents we should concentrate on?” It seemed like an idle question

Her ansas not at all idle “I need to learn control, Niko—for real With everything I think the rest has to wait” Swirling water fiercely in the bucket, she stared at soap bubbles to keep hi to fear she would dream about the drowned slaves for the rest of her life “I don’t want this to happen again Not ever”

“At least you know it,” he said quietly, rolling up his sleeves “You could have been another Enahar, living off human pain”

She looked up at hies—were they all slaves? Ay as Enahar bound him with blood, he had to do what he was told But … he liked the money, too, Niko The money and the power I could tell”

“Most of the ly” was the quiet reply “And had Aymery tried to disobey Enahar, he would have paid for it with even more of his blood”

“Dirty jishen,” whispered the girl, scrubbing hard

Niko tracked down a second brush and helped her finish the room

Late that afternoon Tris was about to give Shriek a feeding at the big table when Briar carried a small, covered dish to her Sandry and Daja followed—he’d hinted that a treat was in store

“Rosethorn says to start giving hi her the container

“Rosethorn?” Tris called

“That’s his natural food” was the reply from the workshop “He won’t survive when you set him free if you don’t start him on this now”

Briar removed the lid on the dish with a flourish Tris looked and shrank back Inside squirrubs, and a ss to peer into the dish Grabbing his collar, Daja hung on, in case the pup decided it was time to try bird food

Shriek, still under the handkerchief on his nest, squalled