“Do you want me to braid it?” Ninian asked.
Kelp stared at him like he’d sprouted a third eye. “What?”
Ninian shook his head and turned back to the fire. “Never mind.”
“No, no,” the girl said. “Did you say you could braid my hair?”
Ninian nodded. Without hesitating, Kelp deposited herself in front of Ninian and crossed her legs. “Do it.”
Ninian blinked in surprise at the light tresses in front of him. Most of the street children he’d met weren’t nearly so quick to trust, but Ninian supposed he didn’t look all that threatening. And he had agreed to share his dinner, which perhaps was enough for this strange girl to decide he was all right.
“Oh.” He hesitated to touch her for a moment. She peeked over her shoulder, and he let out a quick breath. He started combing the girl’s hair back with his fingers, feeling the dirty waves shift under his touch. Starting from the left side, he separated the hair into three and began weaving it together.
“How do you know how t’do that?” the girl asked. Her voice suddenly sounded kind of sleepy, and when Ninian leaned around to look, he saw that her eyelids had drooped with pleasure so her pale lashes lay on her cheeks.
“I used to braid my sister’s hair,” he said.
“Feels nice,” Kelp sighed. “Where’s your sister now? Are you waiting for her?”
Ninian’s fingers stopped in Kelp’s hair, and it was with conscious effort that he made them move again. “No. She died.”
“Oh. Sorry ’bout that.”
Letting out a long breath, Ninian reached the end of Kelp’s hair and twisted the last three strands around each other. “It was two years ago. My parents too.”
“How?” Kelp asked bluntly, and Ninian sucked in a little breath through his teeth.
“A fever,” he said. “We all were sick, but they never got better.” He wound up the long braid and tucked it into itself on the back of the girl’s head. Examining his work, he adjusted a few loose strands and sat back. “There.”
Kelp touched it and smiled. “You’re good at that.”
Ninian just turned his attention back to the duck, which was browned and dripping juice. He cast about for something to poke it with, located a stick, and prodded at the bird; it was firm. “I think this is done.”
Kelp jumped to her feet as Ninian carefully took the bird off the fire. “Here,” Kelp said. There was a ripping sound, and then she handed Ninian a scrap of her tunic. “Touch it through this, so you don’t burn.”
“Don’t tear your clothes,” Ninian said automatically, but he accepted her offering. He wrapped it around one of the duck’s feet and with a solid pull, tore the leg off messily. He handed it to Kelp, who took it with her hand inside her sleeve. Grease soaked through her cuff, but she paid it no mind as, ignoring the steam, she ripped off a chunk of meat with her teeth.
After removing the other leg with similar brutality, Ninian set the bird and its skewer back over the fire before tearing into his portion.
When both of them held nothing but clean bones and a leathery foot, they set about using their fingers to pry meat off of the duck’s breast, stripping it to ribs and heart and liver—a skeleton dripping innards over a dying fire that flared with each new drop of fat.
✽ ✽ ✽
With his stomach full, weariness settled over Ninian as he sat against the wall of the alley and licked grease off his fingers. On her back, Kelp lay like a dead sea star, mumbling contentedly to herself while the fire spat fading sparks into the night.
If Ninian owned anything worth stealing, he wouldn’t allow himself to close his eyes while Kelp was there—but he didn’t. So, though sleep seemed disinclined to visit, he let his eyes fall shut and listened to his own thoughts.
Sometime in the night, he heard Kelp quietly leave him, slipping out of the alley into the maze of silent streets.
He kept his eyes closed and let her go.
✽ ✽ ✽
Sleep must have brushed over him at some point in the night, for he woke in the morning before the sun. Frozen dew lay over everything, sparkling in the dimness that preceded sunrise, and Ninian sat before the ashes of the fire while a new day slowly broke over the city.
He was alone again.
Eventually, he got tired of sitting with only the quiet for company, so he stood, checked the bare duck carcass for any meat he might have overlooked the night before, and headed into the streets as the sun rose. He believed in Orrin’s threat about expelling him from the alley, and he didn’t want to wait around.
The city was waking as he scuffed his feet over the cobblestones, watching his breath mist. There was cold fog rolling in fast from the sea, and the sunlight penetrated it, making rainbows that winked in and out as Ninian’s passing eddied the fog.
Nobody’s eyes stayed on Ninian for long. He was nothing more than another ragged child, commonplace and invisible. Usually, he took advantage of this to steal what he could, but for the first time in a very long time, he wasn’t desperately hungry, and his invisibility just felt lonely.
He whistled quietly to himself, the noise echoing strangely until it sounded haunted. Though the weather wasn’t as cold as it had been the previous day, and all that remained of the rain were puddles shining darkly through the silver mist, it didn’t feel like the sky had settled. Maybe the air smelled faintly electric, or maybe the fog was just a little too still, but the longer Ninian walked through the quiet, morning streets, the more certain he became that a storm was on the way. “There’s always a storm on the way,” he muttered. This time of year was horrid for that. He hated the damp, oppressive clouds.
He sniffed the air and frowned. It smelled like ice, and the fog was frigid on his exposed skin, slipping under the cuffs of his pants.
Not rain, then, but a snowstorm.
It was time to find another place to stay. Maybe this time he could find one that would last—that would be nice. Now that he’d eaten, shelter was his priority, especially with a blizzard on the way. He could not be outside for that.
He didn’t let himself feel his exhaustion.
He vaulted a low wall, old stone crumbling under his palms, and set his course away from the sea. If he was looking for shelter, the wettest place in the city wouldn’t be his first choice.
✽ ✽ ✽
The skeleton of what once must have been a rat peered at Ninian from a gravelly ditch, and Ninian kicked it so that the tiny bones scattered over the cobblestones. Then he broke into a jog and, skirting the edges of the noxious Inner Maze, kept moving.
He’d rarely been so far out of the city proper—it was far from everything he needed to survive. Though buildings still pressed out of the earth like ancient, manmade fungus, there were fewer people. The Maze, he remembered his mother explaining, had once been home to more people than it could comfortably hold. It had been a city kingdom in its own right, and the districts at its fringes had been just as alive as the Inner Maze.
The Maze’s putrefaction hadn’t been its own fault, Ninian’s mother had said. It had been as glorious as any city until the White City on the top of the cliffs cut off contact with the people below and took the money with it. They left the sea for the Maze—skinny fish and salty soil.