“You offered to see Jex Zanlan killed.”

“I admit that’s what I said. The truth is, I would not have been able to stop his death if you had not helped me.”

She watched him with narrowed eyes. “If you do not have power over Jex’s life,” she said slowly, “then what am I doing with you here on this train?”

“You’re taking me to see Chay Zanlan,” he set in a set, stubborn voice. “Finish your story.”

Kit resumed speaking in a subdued voice as if her mind, at first, was elsewhere. “So a widow with young children knows that her children have very little chance of survival if she is forced to remarry. And that is why so many gulden women immigrate to the city, looking for shelter. They know if they can all manage to stay alive until the oldest boys turn twelve, they are safe. To slaughter a twelve-year-old is to commit murder and be subject to a trial—and, very likely, severe punishment.”

“So that’s why there are all those stories of children killed in the ghetto,” Nolan said. “It’s all about inheritance and—and property values.”

“You’re less brutal about it in-country,” she said softly. “But your laws are just as strict. For instance, you’ll never be able to inherit property, will you?”

He shook his head slowly, dumbly. “Only through Leesa. I mean, there is property my mother will settle on me, but only when I marry. If I were to never marry, it would go to my sister or a cousin or one of their daughters.”

“And what would happen to you?”

“My mother’s estate would care for me the rest of my life. Or it would if I didn’t have an income from my job, which is probably what I would choose to live on. So if I were, for some reason, cast out of my family, I could still live, though not as comfortably as I do now. But I wouldn’t be on the street. I wouldn’t starve. I wouldn’t be hunted down and murdered by some avenging heiress.”

“That must make you feel very secure.”

“Don’t mock me.”

“I’m not mocking you! I just think you shouldn’t allow the privileges and luxuries of your own situation to blind you to the realities that others live with—and live by.”

“I’m not blinded by them. But they make me think—why can’t these same options be available to others? A guldman doesn’t want the responsibility for his brother’s widow. Fine. Teach her skills, let her earn her own money, let her be an independent woman.”

“Just because you—” she began, but he cut her off.