men even be witches? There was something funny going on. And whatever the case, I wasn’t about to let him humiliate me again, not after I had worked so hard and endured so much. I had been chosen, after all, and despite my reputation, despite Mother Morevna, despite everyone, I was the Successor. And I was going to be ready for that role if it killed me.
Then there was the matter of the thieves. So while Mother Morevna convalesced, I practiced my magic in case they attacked again. In case I needed to act. I practiced channeling energy, finding things that were lost, breathing fire. My brain hurt from constant practice with runes and sigils. My fingers hurt too and were often caked in the various dusts that I needed to cast certain spells. There was a greater fire spell that I learned that burned my fingers black when I miscast it.
I was still wiping the soot from my hands when I went downstairs and saw Lucy, pretty and well-dressed as always, but carefully makeupless, waiting outside Mr. Jameson’s office.
“Been burning something?” she said. “You smell like smoke.”
“Fire spell,” I said, wiping my hands again. “I can do all kinds of things now. I can make a whirlwind, a giant flame, and… Wait, why are you here?”
She shifted in her seat.
“I’m here to fill out a water ration request form,” she said. “My aunt Lucretia is coming down with Dust Sickness, we think. We need to change her water from the normal well to the Dowsing Well. We’re hoping it might still be early enough to fight it off.”
“Oh no,” I said, thinking how frivolous my spellwork must have sounded. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. I haven’t seen Mr. Jameson, or else I’d go get him for you. Do you…” I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Do you want me to break in for you? I will if you want me to.”
“That was fine back then, but you’re the Successor now,” Lucy said. “What kind of friend would I be if I risked your reputation like that?” My heart jumped a little at the word “friend.” Is that what we were now?
Lucy sighed. “I’m probably waiting around for nothing, anyway. I hear Jameson doesn’t even grant these requests to white people. But still. Sometimes I wish someone would just lose some extra ones close to the house. Then I could just pick ’em up and not feel like I was stealing.”
But someone had lost some.
“Wait a minute!” I said. “Stay right there!” I shot up and ran as quietly as I could upstairs, tiptoeing past the locked door to my own room, where the stack of water rations the nurse had given me was still sitting on my bedside table. I grabbed it and ran back down to Lucy.
“Here,” I said, shoving the rations into her hands. “Take these.”
“Jesus, Sal! Where did you get these?” She looked at them like each one was a hundred-dollar bill. “This is enough for more than a month!”
“Just take them,” I said. “They’re for one person too, so they should be fine for your aunt. And this makes up for me not being able to get water for you myself anymore.”
“Are you sure?”
I hesitated. Mother Morevna had dropped them, but I reminded myself, they couldn’t have been hers. She had probably been on her way to Mr. Jameson’s office herself and forgotten. And Lucy’s aunt had Dust Sickness. How could I refuse her after what had happened to Mama?
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m sure.”
Lucy suddenly threw her arms around me and held me in the sweetest-smelling hug I’d ever had. “Thank you,” she said. “So much.” Then the hug was over, and Lucy stuffed the rations into her bag. “You don’t know how much this means to my family. You’re the real miracle worker, Sal. Not Asa Skander.”
Asa Skander. All the warmth and pride went out of me like air from a balloon.
She rolled her eyes. “Asa this, Asa that. People acting like he’s some kind of messiah, here to help heal the Sick and lead us out of the desert. You’d think they’d have learned their lesson by now. People are even slacking off in their duties, thinking he’ll save us all. They only got fifteen barrels of corn done yesterday. Fifteen when they should be getting fifty.”
So it was worse than I thought. If people thought of Asa as a messiah, what must they think of me? How would they ever see me