For a moment, Aina felt out of place in their home and wondered if her life might be different if she’d somehow moved south to Mil Cimas after her parents’ death when she was eight. She didn’t have a family. That was what she always told herself, but maybe there were relatives in Mil Cimas who’d have been willing to take her in and care for her like she belonged with them. But the thousand-mile journey to the southern tip of Sumerand, and the boat she would have had to take to Mil Cimas, weren’t cheap. And then if she had even gotten that far, she would have had to search for family she’d never met.

Thinking this way—imagining other lives for herself—never got her anywhere. All she had was Kosín and what she could wring from it. Could her parents, despite their beliefs about the sanctity of life, be proud that she was one of Kosín’s most feared killers if they knew that was all she had to live for? All that their beliefs had gotten them was a death sentence.

As Teo worked in the kitchen, Ynes glanced toward him once, then leaned forward and took Aina’s hand in her weakened grip.

“I know Teo is always getting into trouble,” she whispered. “He’ll never work for a factory, and there aren’t many other jobs in this city, I know that. We thought our lives would be safer here than in Linash, but … sometimes I can’t be there for him in the ways I should.”

“You can’t help that you’re sick,” Aina said. “He knows that. He would never blame you for having to take these kinds of jobs.”

A cough rattled through Ynes’s throat. She covered her mouth with the blanket, then focused on Aina with watering eyes.

“You’re strong, young, smart,” she said. “I can’t do much to help either of you, but you need to be there for each other. Promise me you’ll be there for him. Please help him when he needs it, and I can’t.”

Aina nodded vigorously. “Always.”

She hated making promises she wasn’t sure she could keep, but Ynes smiled warmly at this one, so she couldn’t regret it. Whenever she was around Ynes, she felt some comfort, like she had another mother caring for her when her own couldn’t. She would do what she could to assuage Ynes’s worry for her son.

A few minutes later, Teo brought over bowls of mutton and potatoes to where Aina sat at the edge of the bed. Ynes stood and moved to her room with Teo’s help, coughing all the way there.

They ate dinner quietly and, after clearing away their plates, Teo returned and threw himself under the blankets, eyes closed. Aina tensed up, then forced herself to relax.

Who closed their eyes in front of someone capable of killing them? It was that word she didn’t recognize, that sense of relationship built up between two people. It was trust. She had no idea what she’d done to deserve it.