They all moved toward the sound of Rose’s voice and found the only room with four walls. Shattered remains of old furniture were scattered on the floor as well as a thick layer of dust, dirt, and animal droppings. A family of swallows nested in a pile of twigs set on the rafters and the floor beneath it was thick with white and gray splatter. What caught everyone’s attention, however, was the fireplace. Unlike the timber and plaster walls, the fieldstone chimney ignored the ravages of time and looked nearly perfect, even elegant.
“Look!” Rose said, spinning around with a pair of iron tongs in her hand. “I found this under that stuff in the corner. We can have a fire.”
Up until that point, Gwen was all but certain she had made the biggest mistake of her life, which just happened to be the same as her last biggest error-leaving Grue.
On her first day after finally achieving her mother’s dream of reaching Medford, Gwen thought she was both blessed and outright lucky. Not only had she finally made it, but she had also landed a job that very afternoon-as a barmaid at The Hideous Head. Grue provided her room and board. The room was shared, of course, so she hid her coins in the floorboards in the little room across the hall-one of the rooms with just a single bed. She should have realized that Grue wasn’t extending kindness. No one had been kind to her in the north. She was different, and the farther she traveled the more looks she got-all of them loathsome. When she’d discovered that barmaid meant “whore,” she had tried to leave.
Grue beat her.
After that, he kept a close eye on Gwen, never letting her near an open door. Weeks later Grue became careless. She was alone at the bar, the door left open. She ran. Her coins were still under the floorboards, but she was free. At least she had thought so.
Gwen wandered the city looking for work, for handouts, for help. She found indifference, and in some cases hatred. They called her things she only understood as insults-names for lowborn Calians. After more than a week-she never really knew how long-of surviving only on bits of food she found in piles of trash, she discovered she couldn’t walk straight or see clearly, and she even had trouble just standing up. Like Hilda, she went to other brothels and received the same refusal. This was how she knew the rumors about Hilda weren’t rumors at all. That’s when Gwen became terrified. That’s when she realized she was going to die.
Wait until it’s absolutely necessary.
She couldn’t think of a more dire circumstance. She had to use the coins … only she didn’t have them. Hunger drove her back. She had to chance it. There was no hope of sneaking in, and she expected Grue to beat her again. Maybe this time he’d kill her, but she had no choice. She would die anyway.
To Gwen’s surprise, Grue didn’t kill her. He didn’t even beat her. He just stared and shook his head sadly. He sent Gwen to bed and ordered food brought up-soup at first, and then some bread. She told herself she’d get the coins when she was better. She ate and slept, and slept and ate. Days went by. The other girls visited, hugged her, kissed her, and cried about how happy they were she was all right. It had been the first time since her mother’s death that she’d felt a kind touch. She cried too.
Eventually Grue came. “I didn’t have to take you back. You know that, right?” he had said, standing above her, arms folded. “You’re young and stupid, but maybe now you see what’s really out there. No one’s going to help you. No one gives a damn about you. Whatever terrible things you think about me or have heard, let me tell you this-most are true. I’m a bad man, but I don’t lie. Fancy people, people with good reputations, they lie. I don’t give a rat’s ass what anyone thinks of me. I haven’t cared for a long time. So believe me when I tell you, I wouldn’t cry a tear if you died, and I didn’t lose a minute’s sleep when you ran. But the truth is I can make more money with you than without you, so that makes me the only person in the world who cares what happens to your sorry ass.
“I’m not going to lock you up like before. I’m not going to watch you either. You want to leave, go ahead. You can crawl away and die like all the rest.” He turned and reached for the door latch. “Starting tomorrow, you go back to work.”
That night Gwen didn’t sleep. She could have taken the coins and run. But a week on the streets had proved that all doors, except the Hideous Head’s, were closed to her in Medford. If she wanted to survive, she’d have to go back south. Four coins were more than enough to reach Vernes or even Calis. And while northerners would charge her with witchcraft for reading fortunes, she could make a small living among her own kind the way her mother had.
All she needed to do was forget about her mother’s dying wish.
Should have been a simple thing. What value were the demands of a dead woman in the face of slavery? Maybe if her mother had known … but that was the problem. To anyone else, prophesies were flimsy things, silly things, childish fantasies. Gwen and her mother knew better. Illia had abandoned everything. She’d given up her family, her home, her very life to get her daughter to Medford-and Gwen knew why.
Her mother had known. She’d read Gwen’s palm and understood the price her daughter would pay. Illia had sent her just the same-made her promise. If she couldn’t trust her mother, who could she trust?
Besides, Gwen had seen him herself. She’d looked into that man’s eyes, understood who he was, and seen the truth. No matter what, Gwen had to stay in Medford, to survive any way possible. Nothing else mattered, not her comfort, not her safety, dignity, or even her life. Those coins were meant for something more than just food.
Wait until it’s absolutely necessary.
This must have been what he had meant. But autumn was no time to declare independence. She should have started planning sooner, done some research, and lined up a place to go-a real place, not this pile of wood. Stane might have murdered Jollin if they hadn’t left, but Gwen could end up killing them all.
Then Rose spoke, and the sound of her voice was music.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asked, pointing at the fireplace with the tongs, wielding them like a sword. Her tone was almost giddy. “This is going to be great.”
Gwen looked at Rose’s cheery face and started to cry. She crossed the room, threw her arms around the smaller girl, and hugged her. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Pulling back, she was met with Rose’s puzzled expression. “They’re just tongs.”
“They’re a start. And yes, we can have a fire, so we won’t freeze.”
“What are we going to eat?” Abby asked, staring down at the pile of bird droppings with a grimace.
“I’ll go buy some food,” Gwen replied.
“Grue won’t sell us any,” Jollin said. “And if he says so, no one in the Lower Quarter will either.”
Gwen nodded. “We’ll do our shopping in the Merchant Quarter.” She looked around. “We’ll get blankets and some tools too.”
“Tools?”
“We’ll need to fix this place up.”
“What kind of tools?” Etta asked, though with her missing teeth it sounded more like, what kind of thules, and she looked worried, as if Gwen planned to have them rebuild the foundation that afternoon.
“A broom would be nice, don’t you think? We don’t want to sleep in this dirt.”
“But we can’t just stay here,” Jollin said. Her hands had moved to her hips and the smile they had shared was already a distant memory.
Gwen hadn’t determined anything yet. She hadn’t thought any further ahead than that they could camp there for at least one night, but the moment Jollin said it-maybe it was the way she said it-Gwen made a decision.
“Why not?”
“They won’t let us.”
“Who are they?” Gwen asked.