“Amzil,” I said reflexively. I had completely forgotten that I had sent her to Spink’s door.

“Yes. Amzil. The Dead Town whore.”

A small silence followed his words. I felt both angry that he called her such a name and abashed that I had thoughtlessly sent a woman who merited such a name to his door. The awkwardness built between us as I tried desperately to think of something that would take us back to a place where we were friends who could talk to each other.

Spink cleared his throat and then added accusingly, “Amzil AND her three children. Of course, Epiny was immediately entranced with all of them.

Have you any idea what a junior lieutenant’s pay is, Nevare? And how much noise three children make in a very small house? And how much they eat, especially that little boy? It fascinates Epiny. She just kept putting food in front of him, waiting for him to stop. But he didn’t, not until he suddenly put his head down on the table and fell asleep.”

A leaf turns in the wind, and you suddenly have a different perception of what color it is. It stung that Spink could call Amzil a whore, but he had no way of knowing that she was someone I cared about. I wondered when she had become “someone I cared about” rather than just Amzil the whore. That realization was as jolting to me as the sudden knowledge that I was the one throwing up barriers between Spink and me. “I didn’t stop to think about that,” I admitted. “Amzil came out here, wanting to live with me. She thought that was her only option, other than raising her kids in a brothel.”

“And you turned her away?” Spink sounded surprised.

I shifted in my chair and then said grudgingly, “It was right after that incident in town. I didn’t think they would be safe here. And she wasn’t offering me—I know they call her a whore, Spink, but I don’t think that’s fair to her. She’s done that occasionally, out of necessity, to feed her children. And I suspect that sometimes she wasn’t given the option of saying no, that men went out there, used her, and left money or whatever so they didn’t have to think of themselves as rapists. Well. I don’t know.

But yes, I sent her to you. Without thinking of what a financial burden they might be. Did you let them stay?”

“Epiny answered the door.” It was the only reply I needed. He went on,

“She’s a strong woman, my Epiny. Not in the flesh; I’ll admit that her health has suffered since we came here, and that like the rest of us, she is prey to the darkness of spirit that flows out of the forest. But she fights it.

She has made the women of Gettys her special project. Having a woman come to the door and say that she’d rather scrub floors for us than be a whore was a validation of all that Epiny has been trying to accomplish with her whistles and meetings and night classes for women.”