“Yes, but it was honest, which is the cornerstone of a good philosophy.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Lift hopped off the stone benches. “As fun as it was talkin’ crazy stuff with you, I got somewhere important to be.”

“You do?” Wyndle asked, rising from where he’d been coiled up on the bench beside her.

“Yup,” Lift said. “I’ve got an appointment.”

Chapter 7

7

LIFT was worried she’d be late. She’d never been good with time.

Now, she could keep the important parts straight. Sun up, sun down. Blah blah. But the divisions beyond that … well, she’d never found those to be important. Other people did though, so she hurried through the slot.

“Are you going to find spheres for that woman at the orphanage?” Wyndle said, zipping along the ground beside her, weaving between the legs of people. “Get on her good side?”

“Of course not,” Lift said, sniffing. “It’s a scam.”

“It is?”

“Course it is. She’s probably launderin’ spheres for criminals, takin’ them as ‘donations,’ then givin’ others back. Men’ll pay well to clean up their spheres, particularly in places like this, where you got scribes looking over your shoulder all the starvin’ time. Course, it might not be that scam. She might be guiltin’ people into giving her donations of infused spheres, traded for her dun ones. They’ll feel sympathetic, because she talks about her poor children. Then she can trade infused spheres to the moneychangers and make a small profit.”

“That’s shockingly unscrupulous, mistress!”

Lift shrugged. “What else are you going to do with orphans? Gotta be good for something, right?”

“But profiting off people’s emotions?”

“Pity can be a powerful tool. Anytime you can make someone else feel something, you’ve got power over them.”

“I … guess?”

“Gotta make sure that never happens to me,” Lift said. “It’s how you stay strong, see.”

She found her way back to the place where she’d entered the slots, then from there poked around until she found the ramp up to the entrance of the city. It was long and shallow, for driving wagons down, if you needed to.

She crawled up it a ways, just enough to get a glimpse at the guard post. There was still a line up there, grown longer than when she’d been in it. Many people were actually making camp on the stones. Some enterprising merchants were selling them food, clean water, and even tents.