although it was too early for the eggs to have done any good.
She cast a glance over her shoulder at the baby. “Oh, he’s fine. Although he weighs a bloody ton.”
“I can show you a way to tie him on that’ll be easier on your back.”
As he unwrapped the length of cloth she’d tied the boy with and then retied it—the baby gurgled delightedly, as if being juggled from one arm to another was a hilarious game—the girl said, “Ma gave me money to give you, for yesterday. You wouldn’t have had to wait except she was working the long shift and she just came home. Oh, that is better!” She eyed him skeptically. “How do you know about babies? You have a little one somewhere?”
Nate blinked, and felt himself blush. He’d been matched, not long before he left—but he’d had no news of a child, although he wasn’t sure Derie would tell him if there was one. “Where I grew up, there were always babies around.”
But she wasn’t listening. Digging in her pocket, she pulled out three copper coins, and held them out. “Will this do? For the eggs, too?”
“More than enough.” He took it. “Thanks. I can’t remember the last time somebody paid me in actual money. How long is the long shift?”
“Four days. It’s why I had Cantor with me to start with. Good thing, though. Ma said she hadn’t noticed about his head.”
“You’re a good sister,” Nate said.
“Yep,” she said proudly. “Anyway, now he can keep me company while I work, can’t you, Canty?”
“What kind of work are you doing?”
“Running messages.” She reached into her pocket again, this time producing a filthy piece of paper and a stub of pencil. “See? People tell me their messages and I write them down, then I read them back so they know I have it right. Then I take them to wherever and read them out again. Ma got me the paper from the factory.”
Nate nodded. “That’s right. You told me yesterday you could write.”
“I can do more than that. I can read, write, do numbers, everything. My brother’s inside. He paid for me to go to school.” He caught a flicker of something sad and stoic in her then; at first Nate thought it was the brother, gone forever inside the Wall—there was no coming out to visit once you went in—but then the girl said, “I’d learned it all, anyway, by now,” and Nate knew it was school she missed, and school she’d given up to take care of the baby. There was nothing he could do about that, but he felt her sadness like it was his own.
Then her head went up and she put the sadness away. Nate could see her do it, could feel her pulling good cheer out of the heart of her like a carrot out of hard, frozen ground. “Well, customers waiting. I should fly.”
You should, Nate thought. You won’t. Not in Highfall. Not in Brakeside. The sadness was crushing him. “Bring the baby back in a few weeks,” he said. “We’ll take a look at that head.”
But she was already gone, calling her thanks over her shoulder.
* * *
On his way home he stopped at a tavern and bought a bottle of brandy with the coins the girl had given him. Sitting in the kitchen after Arkady had retired, he shared the bottle with Vertus, and if Vertus noticed that the sharing mostly consisted of Nate picking up the bottle and putting it down again without drinking, he didn’t say anything. Soon enough the servingman, too, stumbled off to bed. His bedroom was directly above the lab. Ordinarily, he was a light sleeper. He wouldn’t be that night.
Nate waited a reasonable amount of time, though his own eyes were scratchy and sore with exhaustion. Then he took down the box where Arkady kept his tea. Barefoot, he carried it into the lab, careful to step on only the most solid floorboards; he’d been taking note of those that creaked for weeks, now.
It didn’t take him long to find what he needed. The calculations took longer: the weight of the tea, the potency of the dose. Nate kept a tiny journal of his own tucked away in a pocket—nothing incriminating, out of context, and easily burned. If he made it home, he would transpose it into a real journal and add it to Caterina’s collection. For now, the scratch of his pen seemed very loud to him, and almost soothing. It