“Documentation,” he said, his fingers tracing the edge of the paper as if he needed to protect it from me.
“That’s good. Alice, the forewoman, said we ought to document things in case we die.” It was meant to be a joke, but the words fell flat, and Julian stared at me as if I’d grown another set of hands.
With a sigh, I left his breakfast on the table beside his desk. Unable to control a quick glance at his work, I saw the nameNikolaat the top of the letter. His handwriting was compact and without flourish, but there was something affectionate about the way he’d written the name. “You look as if you’re composing a letter to a suitor,” I said with a smile. Spending the afternoon with Ainsley had clearly cracked something open inside me—made me overly familiar. Made me eager to hear the voice of another. To be heard.
It made me long for those I’d spent almost every day of my life with until now.
“Pardon?” Julian asked, wide-eyed, clearly startled by my stunning lack of matters.
I was behaving shamelessly. My face flushed. “Forgive me, Senior. It’s so early. My mind is half asleep.”
“Surely you’re aware that a Child of Industry would not have asuitor,” he said through gritted teeth. “Or are you even more woefully uneducated than you seem?”
I could not help thinking about Ezra. About the fact that I was going to meet him this very morning. He wasn’t a suitor, of course. But he wasalso most certainly not the kind of company Julian or the House would approve of me keeping.
“I ought not to have teased you,” I admitted, abruptly irritated. His eyes widened even more as I went on. “It’s only that I was used to a bit of friendly jesting with the others at the House. It made the day go by faster. It made us all …”
Not as desperately lonely.
“Then I suggest you better acclimate yourself to life in Frostbrook,” Julian said tightly, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.
“Yes, Senior,” I managed to reply without the irritation I felt. Resisting the urge to snatch the letter up and read it the way I’d often stolen Tabitha’s diary, I left him alone in his quiet room. A ways down the corridor, I halted with my back against the wall and breathed through a heady mix of anger and amusement. Oh, Gertrude would have loved to know how much I’d utterly failed to control my tongue.
I missed her so much.
With my chores scheduled for later in the afternoon, I busied myself tidying my quarters to keep from showing up at the river too early. Ezra was already at the dock when I arrived. He had his back to me when I approached, and a wave of familiarity struck me at the shape of his broad shoulders and the way he wore his hair unfashionably long.
“Don’t let me startle you!” I called out.
He turned and arched a thick brow at me. “I’m not as easily startled as you, Apprentice. At the very least, I haven’t hurled myself off any river-banks lately.”
Twitching, I patted the bag at my hip. “I have bread and butter.” It was a peace offering, though I wasn’t sure why I felt like I needed to ease the space between us.
“Thank you. I missed supper last night.” Exhaustion lined his face, but there was something day bright about him, as if a fire burned behind his eyes. “Beatrice attended a birth, and it lasted all night. A boy, born right before dawn. They’re calling him Tiernan!” He accepted the offered bread and bit into it like a starved man.
“Wait for the butter,” I said through laughter, opening the waxed-paper package and spreading the substance onto his rough piece.
“Thank you,” he repeated with his mouth full.
“What part did you play in the birth?” I asked, having only a rudimentary familiarity with the whole affair. Human reproduction had not been a topic of study at the House.
“Support, mostly. Heating water, making sure Beatrice had her tools and that the mother’s family was kept aware of her progress. The father—he’s working on the Mission construction—stayed by her side the whole time.”
“A father attending a birth?” I asked, surprised. It was my understanding that in Sterling City, women were kept secluded with their midwives, sisters, and mothers.
“He had a part in it, didn’t he?”
I’d never thought of it that way and blushed terribly. I shoved bread into my mouth and savored the nutty flavor, hoping it would distract me from inadvertently talking about sex with Ezra. As with birthing, I knew only what the other students had whispered of. All of it sounded messy.
“You eat like you’ve never had good bread,” Ezra observed.
That did nothing for my blush. “I haven’t. Not like this. It tastes like the countryside. Sunny.”
“What did the bread taste like where you come from?”
“A little dusty. Sometimes the smell of the port carried all the way to the House of Industry, and no matter how much incense we burned, everything tasted like rotting fish and horse shit.”
He snorted. “That’s specific.”
