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A girl of about fifteen stood in the open doorway, a slip of a thing with baggy, dirt-stained clothes hanging off her bony fray hair dripped beside her sweat-lined, flushed face She rested her hand on the doorway Her arh and shoulders squared She was clearly terrified out of her mind

“What in the hell…” Hadriel said under his breath, starting forward “Hello,” he offered cordially, closing the distance between the “How can I help you today? To what do e the pleasure?”

“You sound like a ot his voice out of a can,” I whispered “Act natural”

“I don’t knohat natural is for a butler!” he said in an undertone “I’obshite to stay alive!”

“I’irl said with a tremor in her voice “It’s my momma She needs so off”

“Oh, thank the goddess for her tricky ways You’re up, doll” Hadriel motioned me on

I stepped forward, pulling the girl’s focus from Hadriel “We don’t have any ht and redients Does your village not have any extra leaves or elixir to share?”

Grief lined her face and bowed her spine She held her shoulders rigid against the desire to reduce down into the fetal position I knew, because I’d been there myself, countless times

“They didn’t have enough for us They are treating the village leaders first Please, we have two everlass plants Just tell me how to make it I can make it”

“Don’t you have the recipe? It has been passed out to all the villages…”

A line formed between her brow She clearly didn’t knohat I was talking about

“Things seee than elsewhere,” Hadriel es have a very distinct class system”