Page 7

Safinia dug her thumbnail into her palm as Orestilla explained. Last night she’d seen a light—a small one, flickering in the window, like someone was carrying a lamp as they walked around the small, one-room apartment she lived in alone. In her mind’s eye, Safinia could see Orestilla there, frozen, shadowed in the slanted darkness of an alleyway, staring up at her own window.

“It could have been my grandfather,” she whispered. “I should have just gone upstairs.”

“Fear is a gift,” Safinia said. She knew that: She’d once smelled smoke on the breeze and simply known, still two miles from her home. “You did the right thing.”

“I know I’m a coward,” Orestilla said. “But I don’t want to find out what happened to Hersilia by having it happen to me.”

“Stay with us,” Anesia said. Both Orestilla’s and Safinia’s heads snapped to look at her. “What? She could pay us rent. Like at a guest home.”

“You would let me?” The hope in her voice was excruciating.

Safinia grabbed Anesia’s elbow and pulled her aside. “What are you doing?”

“It’s a good idea.”

“Guest homes have mattresses,” Safinia hissed. “Real food. We can’t feed her!”

“She’s terrified!” Anesia argued. “Whoever’s after her, they’re not going to look for her in the outskirts.”

They looked at Orestilla. She offered nothing to their argument, only stared at her shoes and waited, her hands still wrapped around herself like they could ward off whatever was coming for her. Attice sometimes fell asleep like that, her chin tucked around herself and her thin, long fingers pressing into the skin of her shoulders.

Safinia could not send her back. She couldn’t stomach Orestilla standing again in the street, but this time choosing to climb the stairs. “You can stay,” she said, before she could talk herself out of it. “Of course you can stay with us.”

Orestilla clapped her hands to her mouth, as overcome, suddenly, as she’d been when she found them. Her face was blotchy—Safinia could tell she was going to cry, or worse, lurch forward to hug her. It would feel awful. She’d been too close to saying no to be taken as a hero for saying yes.

“We should go now. While there’s still a little traffic on the road.”

“I need to pack. It sounds like I should at least bring some of my food stores. Together, I doubt anyone will bother us.” Orestilla began unwinding her bracelets and handing each to Safinia. “You can take these as insurance. So you know I’m good as my word. I won’t be a burden.”

Safinia opened and closed her mouth. Orestilla had just put a small fortune in her hands. Just once bracelet could be traded for enough salt to last a year. “I can’t take these,” she said.

Orestilla waved that away. “I don’t have a betrothed to claim them, anyway. What else do you need?”

“Plenty,” Anesia answered when it was clear Safinia was struck dumb. “Preservatives, food, leather. Attice needs new sandals. Dresses and things. Help with chores.”

“We don’t need dresses and things,” Safinia said faintly.

“Well, chores, anyway.” Anesia looked Orestilla over with the same eye she gave her sister. “And you should change into something simpler. You’re begging to be robbed in clothes like that.” At Safinia, she smiled brightly. Like every new thing was an adventure.

Attice was surprisingly lucid when the girls returned; she took Orestilla in stride, albeit barefoot, her hair loose around her neck like a storm cloud. The first surprise came when Orestilla untied the lid of her basket of things and stepped back to let Safinia pick through its contents.

“It’s only a few things of mine. The rest is for you.”

Inside: four good-sized sacks of salt, dried and spiced meats, pickled eggs, a folded length of silk, and a new pair of sandals for Attice. Safinia picked one shoe up and pressed her thumb into the supple leather where Attice’s toes would go.

It was far, far more than she expected. Beside her, Anesia whistled. She dug for something obscured by the silk. “Are those citrons? I’ve never had one!”

“My father has a few trees. They won’t taste like you’ve heard—the flavor’s not as rich here in the west. They’re still nice, though. And filling.” Orestilla looked at Safinia, her eyebrows raised. “Good enough?”

“Good enough,” Safinia echoed. Far too good. Nearly as intolerable as being thanked for nothing. But her practical side won out—she couldn’t begrudge Anesia the taste of a few luxuries. Her little sister had been almost too young to remember much of their parents, and the prizes their mother brought back from raiding. And the salt, the vinegar—that was very useful. “Thank you, Orestilla.”

Orestilla looked pleased with herself. But for the tight, fine weave of her chiton, she looked like she could almost be an outskirts girl—she wore it to her knees, cinched with a belt of hammered brass. Given a few days, a few scratches and stains, no one passing by would question her.

Bedtime, when it came, brought with it another pleasant surprise—Orestilla produced a pot of oil for their hair and ground bone for their teeth. It was gentler than the crushed oysters they normally used for cleaning, though Safinia’s mouth felt gritty afterward.

As Anesia and Attice settled inside, their hair neatly braided and smelling fresh, Orestilla lingered.

“You’re sure you don’t mind being put out?” she asked.