“Nah, I’m in production, same as you. Bronx the Chemist stopped by early this morning and asked me to get you up to speed. It’s hard work, though, so I figured you could use a bit more shuteye.” She squints at me. “You don’t know how to work a loom, do you? Or knit? I hear the textile gals can chat all day. It’s not too late to switch to the prosperity pillar.”

I shake my head. Knitting and handiwork may be one of my strong suits, but I need to stay where my odds of meeting someone who can read are highest.

“No matter. Just figured I’d ask. Let’s go.” Cleo leads me out the door and through the narrow dirt streets. I can hear a blacksmith’s tools clanging. Cleo says something about markets and livestock fields, hands waving in various directions. Presumably she’s pointing out their locations, but all I can see are the worn sides of the crowded shanties. “At the southern end of town is the lumberyard and the charcoal pits,” she goes on. “That’s where we make the charcoal. Can’t produce black powder without it. And on the northern end we’ve got three saltpeter beds, all at various stages of development. Plus the kitchen, where we make the black powder, and the pantry, where it’s stored. And once we go out the front gate—”

“What’s saltpeter?” I interrupt.

“Another ingredient we need to make black powder. And be glad you’re harvesting sulfur and not working the saltpeter beds. It’s nothing but turning over manure and straw for weeks on end, until the saltpeter comes to the surface, and a decent amount of urine is involved to keep things moist. It’s disgusting.”

“Sounds it.”

“Not that harvesting sulfur is a picnic. We work two shifts: one in the early morning and one in the afternoon, taking a lie-down at midday, when the heat is the worst.”

“And you let me sleep until second shift? But not Asher.” This embarrasses me for some reason.

Cleo shrugs. “He got up early, and who am I to stop him? But don’t go thinking he’s just some selfless hard worker.”

I frown, because he is. At least the Asher from my childhood was.

“He’s got lots to make up for,” Cleo clarifies. When we reach the front gate, she shouts up to the guard on watch, and the door rises with a creak.

Beyond Powder Town’s wall, evidence of the Loyalists’ visit still lingers. Hoofprints mar the dry earth, but the horizon to the north—the way they’d ridden in—is blessedly quiet, and the sky is an open pool of blue, no falcons in sight. The sun has already crested its climb and is starting to dip toward the mountains at the town’s rear.