Perfidy marveled at how still and quiet it was inside their small hut when she was all alone. She could almost hear the passing of the tiny motes of dust visible in the swathe of light cascading through the window. Could hear her own breaths scrape from her nostrils. If she listened hard enough, she swore she could hear the sound of her mother’s knitting needles clinking against each other.

She laughed at her overzealous imagination. Which turned into a sob. Which turned into angry tears burning her eyes and painting fiery tracks down her cheeks.

How had any of this happened? Because of magic? She shook her head fiercely, dislodging several tears from her chin where they’d been clinging for dear life. It wasn’t an answer, because she didn’t have one.

She replayed the events of the last few days in her head, something she’d done more than a thousand times already. She expected that before tomorrow she’d go over them a thousand more times.

“I’m not dumb, I’m jest stoopid,” she muttered, something her ma liked to say whenever she made some small mistake. They were the same words Perfidy had snarled at the jail’s guard when he’d dumped her unceremoniously in the mud and asked whether she was dumb. He’d snorted and left her there, while a kindly woman had helped her to her feet and advised her to return home until the morrow.

Drip…drip…drip…

She glared at the spot on the ceiling that was letting in the leak. Water beaded at the point, before sliding smoothly down an angular beam before gathering once more, growing heavier and heavier until—

Drip.

The water splashed into a bucket that was already a quarter full, despite it not having rained in the last few hours. It seemed that wherever the breach in the roof was, the invading water had to take a circuitous route before slipping inside. It was this very leak that had caused all their problems.

No, she reminded herself. It was my deadbeat pa that caused our problems. Had her old man been around, Perfidy would’ve never gone on the roof in the first place. But he’d left them three years earlier, up and vanishing in the middle of the night and taking their meager pouch of saved coin with him. “The bastard,” she said aloud, liking the way the word sounded in her voice. Her mother would’ve had her hide for saying as much, but her mother wasn’t here, was she?

Against her better judgment—she wasn’t dumb after all, just stupid—she headed back outside. The ladder was still there, propped up against the side of the house on a slight angle with the upper portion leaning on the roof’s overhang.