“It’s mine,” Ninian said quickly, his posture growing even more defensive. “I’ll kill you.”
But Orrin only chuckled. “Won’t be necessary.” He folded his hands easily behind him and drew a deep breath of the evening air. “I got food o’ my own.” Squinting at Ninian, he sucked at his stained teeth. “Ain’t you back here pretty often, kid?”
Ninian glared, still feeling nerves prickle over his skin. He didn’t like being alone with Orrin. He didn’t answer. The truth was that before squatting in the weaver’s shop, he’d been behind the alehouse every night for two weeks. There was a little overhang that kept off light rain. Since then, he’d come back often to steal firewood and old bread.
Orrin took in Ninian’s still-wet clothes, ragged cloak, and tangled russet hair. “You haven’t got a home, do you?”
“What’s it to you?”
Orrin shrugged. “You musta done some real good praying to get a dinner like that.”
Ninian’s lip curled. “I don’t pray.”
“Ah. I’ll bet that explains a lot.” Orrin sighed heavily, the firelight making his face look craggy and wise. “You oughta try sometime.”
“If I wanted platitudes, I’d find a cleric.” Ninian had seen clerics before, and they were rare. Honoring the Gods wasn’t exactly a profession that kept anybody fed. “Go away.”
Clearly unsure what a “platitude” was, Orrin stared at Ninian blankly for a few breaths. Ninian didn’t relax his defensive stance. “Well,” the man said eventually. “I don’t want no feral children hanging around my alehouse. Eat and move on.”
“It’s not your alley,” Ninian shot back. “I’ll stay where I want.”
“Not if I make you move.” He raised an eyebrow, and Ninian didn’t doubt that the man would try. Ninian’s lip raised in a half-snarl, and Orrin turned back inside the alehouse and left him alone.
Releasing his breath in a huff, Ninian relaxed his posture and turned back to the unevenly roasting duck with a shiver. His clothing was wet. He was freezing. He hated Orrin. He hated everyone like Orrin, especially the ones with a roof over their head and the nerve to think that life was fair. “‘Pray for it,’” Ninian mocked quietly, turning the duck. He’d done plenty of praying in the past. “Amadán.”
He settled cross-legged a safe distance from the fire and stared at the duck’s browning skin. He could imagine it in his mouth so vividly he was tempted to take it from the fire and eat it as it was, but his father had once done that to a skua his mother had been cooking—had winked at Ninian like it was their little secret—and then had vomited for three straight days. So Ninian just stared at his dead bird covetously and imagined what it would taste like once it was done.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to eat you all at once, will I?” Ninian mused at the duck, frowning thoughtfully. “I guess that’s a nice problem to have.”
The sky was a mottled, milky lavender, and darkness was gathering fast. Soon, glowing embers and the occasional tongue of flame fluttering up from the coals cast the only light—and only warmth—in the alley. Ninian wrapped his cloak around himself as tightly as he could and pulled his hood up over his still-damp hair, but the air cut bitterly. His fingers had gone rather numb, and he was shivering painfully hard. Carefully, he moved closer to the fire.
After a long silence punctuated only by the occasional gust of freezing wind, footsteps echoed down the alley.
He’d just been warming up a bit, so it was with reluctance that Ninian turned away from the cooking duck and readied himself to defend his prize. Fortunately, the footsteps were light, and there was only one pair of them.
His eyes were dazzled from staring into the embers, so at first, Ninian could see only the silhouette of his unwanted visitor. It looked small. “Who are you?” Ninian demanded.
“Oh,” the figure said. It was a little girl’s voice, but Ninian didn’t dare relax. “I just thought I smelled…”
“It’s mine,” Ninian said.
“Right,” the girl said, drooping.
Ninian dropped his defensive crouch as the girl’s footsteps began to pad off down the alley again. Ninian squinted; he didn’t think she was wearing shoes. The warm firelight made the duck’s skin sparkle with drops of grease, as if the roasting bird was a beacon, but that light only set the girl into the suggestion of a shape against the night. The shadows looked like they might swallow her, and Ninian thought that if they did, she’d vanish for good.
“Wait,” he said. The girl halted uncertainly with a flinch. “It’s mine, but…” He looked at the dripping duck, the duck he couldn’t possibly eat all at once, and felt regret turn in his stomach even as he spoke. “You can have some.”
The girl turned around in a snap. Her hands splayed out in surprise. “Really?”
Ninian nodded, tugging at his fingers so that his joints popped. “It isn’t finished cooking yet. But I’ll give you some when it is.”
Timidly, the girl approached the fire and, when Ninian didn’t snarl at her, lowered herself into a cross-legged seat. In the closer firelight, Ninian confirmed that her feet were bare, filthy, and cracked. She was younger than he was—he’d guess six or seven—but she had the look in her eyes of someone who’d grown up fast. “I’m Kelp,” she said.
Ninian blinked. “You’re what?”
The girl had eyes so light that Ninian couldn’t tell what color they were—the fire washed them orange, and the night sky washed them dark—and she blinked them at Ninian like he’d missed something obvious. “I’m Kelp. What’s your name?”
“Ninian,” said Ninian. “Your name is really—”
“Well, no,” she said, uncrossing her legs and stretching her feet toward the fire. “But I saw some on the docks earlier, and I thought it looked pretty, so today I’m Kelp.”
“And… what will you be tomorrow?” Ninian asked.
“Dunno.” The girl shrugged. Her hair fell into her face, and she crossed her eyes to glare at it. “Where’d you get a bird?”
“It’s a duck. I caught it.”
“Wow.” With a sigh, Kelp fixed her gaze on the duck and stopped blinking. Her focus could easily have been mistaken for worship, despite the fact that her hair wouldn’t stay out of her eyes, and Ninian couldn’t imagine she could see very well. “How long ’til it’s finished?”
“Not long, I think,” Ninian said, unable to hide the anticipation in his own voice. Now that he didn’t think she was going to make off with his dinner, Ninian didn’t mind Kelp’s presence. It wasn’t, of course, the first time he’d interacted with the Maze’s network of homeless children, but they were invariably a wary bunch, self-sufficient and more mature than their small frames and big-eyed faces could attest. He’d never spent much time talking to anyone.
Night wind gusted down the alley, and while Ninian shivered, the girl huffed in frustration as her hair, the color of dandelion fluff, flew into her face. She shoved it back, muttering.