He staggers for the market with his rickshaw, not bothering with a proper goodbye. I’ve given him terrible news while he’s given me the opposite. Sure, my pack remains ilked-up and working the General’s fields. Vee is a prisoner as bait. Bay is still held hostage in that nursery. But the executions have been paused. I don’t have to worry about one of them dying every third day, which means I can push to Zuly’s at a safe pace. If she can read the map, I’ll have time to think up a solid plan, figure out a way to use the info to barter my pack free.

I sprint for Cleo’s and find her at the table with Saph, both of them snickering through mouthfuls of their lunch.

“Where’s Asher?” I ask.

Saph stifles a laugh. “I stopped by to see him over my break. Let’s just say he’s got his hands full.”

I frown, mostly because I don’t know what she’s talking about but maybe also because the thought of them chatting between shifts makes my stomach twist in ways I don’t like. “Full how?”

“With shit,” Saph says.

“Literally,” Cleo amends.

“There are these raised slats that extend across the saltpeter beds,” Saph explains. “You stand on them when you turn over the manure and straw. They’re narrow, kinda wobbly.”

Asher has never been the most sure-footed. “He fell in, didn’t he?”

The sisters glance at each other and burst into laughter.

“Happens to someone every few weeks,” Saph says between gasps. “Never gets old, though.”

The horrific stench of the saltpeter beds puts sulfur harvesting to shame. I had nothing to complain about on the boardwalks.

Nose scrunched, I walk through the first facility, asking after Asher. Someone tells me he was working at the third bed, but when I arrive there, he’s nowhere to be found. A pair of workers who are turning over the manure with long rakes mention a changing room in the rear of the building. I thank them and dart off, passing a wash area that reeks of shit before the hall dead-ends at a curtained doorway. I grab the fabric and burst through, finding a clean but shirtless Asher drying his hair with a threadbare towel.

He twists, turning his back away from the doorway and holding the towel in front of his chest. The moment he sees it’s me, the fear in his eyes shifts to annoyance. “Gods, Delta. You don’t just barge in on someone like that.”

I eye the clean pants he’s wearing, the pink-scrubbed skin of his arms. “And you’d think someone with a secret branded on his back would put his shirt on first, not his pants,” I hiss quietly.

“Guess I’m lucky it’s just you then,” he says, and goes back to drying his hair. “Nothing you haven’t seen.”