Lift hunched there on the bench, not moving. Then she scratched herself on the behind. The woman fussed, looking like she was going to leave, and Lift leaned in.

“You are disobeying beggar regulations,” the woman snapped.

“Ain’t beggin’. I’m tradin’.”

“Fine. What do you want to know?”

“Is there a place,” Lift said, “in this city where people stuff all the things they wrote down, to keep them safe?”

The woman frowned, then raised her hand and pointed along a street, which led straight for a distance, toward a moundlike bunker that rose from the center of the city. It was big enough to tower over the rest of the stuff around it, peeking up above the tops of the trenches.

“You mean like the Grand Indicium?” the woman asked.

Lift blinked, then cocked her head.

The woman took the opportunity to flee to a different part of the garden.

“Has that always been there?” Lift asked.

“Um, yes,” Wyndle said. “Of course it has.”

“Really?” Lift scratched her head. “Huh.”

Chapter 12

12

WYNDLE’S vines wove up the side of an alleyway, and Lift climbed, not caring if she drew attention. She hauled herself over the top edge into a field where farmers watched the sky and grumbled. The seasons had gone insane. It was supposed to be raining constantly—a bad time to plant, as the water would wash away the seed paste.

Yet it hadn’t rained for days. No storms, no water. Lift walked along, passing farmers who spread paste that would grow to tiny polyps, which would eventually grow to the size of large rocks and fill to bursting with grain. Mash that grain—either by hand or by storm—and it made new paste. Lift had always wondered why she didn’t grow polyps inside her stomach after eating, and nobody had ever given her a straight answer.

The confused farmers worked with their shiquas pulled up to their waists. Lift passed, and she tried to listen. To hear.

This was supposed to be their one time of year where they didn’t have to work. Sure, they planted some treb to grow in cracks, as it could survive flooding. But they weren’t supposed to have to plant lavis, tallew, or clema: much more labor-intensive—but also more profitable—crops to cultivate.

Yet here they were. What if it rained tomorrow, and washed away all this effort? What if it never rained again? The city cisterns, which were glutted with water from the weeks of Weeping, would not last forever. They were so worried, she caught sight of some fearspren—shaped like globs of purple goo—gathering around the mounds upon which the men planted.