“You keep saying that.”
“He hasn’t touched you or threatened you. He didn’t separate us, and he doesn’t treat me like his property.”
“Do you hear yourself? You’re praising a man for the things he hasn’t done to us.”
“I’ve been an orphan and a servant my whole life. Plenty of men do those things without thinking twice.”
“It isn’t about him.” I sit down on the rim of the dry fountain. “I never wanted a husband. I wanted to travel, I wanted to see the world and choose to live on my own terms. And the first time I set foot outside Concord, I land in another prison… in the Waste. With one of the most feared species on Alia Terra. It’s not his fault, I’m not saying that. I did all this to myself. To us. Hedid us a favor by buying us, and now we’re here, and… Don’t try to tell me it’s a good thing. It doesn’t feel like it is.”
Darina sits beside me.
“He told you that you’re free to leave.”
“And if he meant it, I intend to leave. As soon as I have a plan, we’re gone.”
“How?” She asks it gently, without any argument in it. “Where would we go? Esme, everything I’ve ever seen is the orphanage and your parents’ house. What have you seen?”
“Concord,” I admit.
“So, two girls who’ve only known one city since they were born are going to walk out into the world and build a life. With what?”
“I have money. I took it from my parents before we left, and my jewelry is in my bag. I can sell it.”
“Is it enough?”
“Enough to travel on, maybe. Not enough to live on.” I lift my chin. “But we can work.”
She laughs so hard she has to grip the fountain rim to stay upright.
“What?” I snap at her.
“You,” she says, wiping her eyes. “Work. Esme, you have never worked a day in your life.”
“I can learn.”
“You’ve never carried your own bathwater. You’ve never lit a stove. You can’t even dress yourself without help.”
“That’s not a skill, that’s flexibility.”
“I’m on your side,” she says, and bumps her shoulder against mine. “I’m going wherever you’re going, you know that. I’d just like us to survive once we get there.”
“We will. I’ll figure it out.”
She looks up at the house, at the terraces stacked against the black cliff.
“It’s a good house, you know. It needs a woman’s hand.”
“If you mean curtains and flowers, you can stop right there.”
“I mostly mean edible food.”
I think about dinner last night, the tough meat, the strange roots, whatever that gray sauce was, and I stand up.
“That, I’ll allow. I can’t survive another meal made by that man.”
The kitchen is deep and cool, with a long stone counter and shelves I have to stretch to reach. We go through Osric’s supplies jar by jar: dried meat, roots, grain, oil, and a row of spices with no labels that Darina sniffs with great interest. She names half of them and makes faces at the rest. Some leftovers from his dinner wait under a cloth, and neither of us is brave enough to eat them cold.
Nim appears while Darina is elbow-deep in the grain sack. She doesn’t come to us. She jumps onto the far end of the counter and settles there with her tail wrapped around her feet, watching.
