Clo clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth. “There was this one machinery stall in the market closest to my mam’s in the Snarl. It was different from the others. Woman who ran it kept everything so clean, the metal gleamed. Never stole from that stall. Saved my shale and bought what I needed, taking my time, picking up the little pieces, setting them down in their right place, just so. But it’s not the owner I miss. It’s those neat, perfect rows of clean metal, just begging to be picked up and made useful.” Clo gave a laugh, a little forced. “Guess that’s some obvious symbolism right there. That’s what I do. Fix broken shit, ignore all the broken bits of my own life I left behind.”

“Why did you leave Myndalia?” Rhea asked.

Clo shrugged. “Nae by choice, really. My mam—” Her throat closed. Clo had always thought the Snarled lung would get her mam in the end, but it was—

—soldiers. Mam shoving her in the closet, ignoring Clo’s whispered protests. Harsh questions from soldiers, nasal accents so clipped compared to the rolling vowels of the Snarl. Her mother: placating. Friendly. Clo hunkered down in the dark. She wasn’t a child, she wasnae going to hide—

The sizzle of Mors blasts. Soldiers rooting through their things, rummaging, grunting like animals. Mam down, chest heaving. Clo bursting from the closet. Holding hands over the wound in Mam’s stomach. Useless. Useless hiding—

Open eyes. Glassy. Gone.

A night of vigil, the unmoving hand in Clo’s growing colder.

—Clo closed her eyes, not wanting to remember, to feel.

Rhea reached out to touch her, but Clo inched back, arms wrapped tight around herself.

The next morning. Her mother wrapped up in an old blanket. Clo cradling mam like she was the child. Later, she’d woven through the slum on unsteady feet and tripped through the damp soil. Left the towering, cramped labyrinth behind for the open expanse of swamp. She’d found a twisted Nyssa tree, its long branches trailing in the water.

Deep enough.

Quiet enough.

She’d tied stones to the ropes around the body. Kissed the top of mam’s head and let her sink, sink, down into the bog, to rest with the bones of others buried the same way.

Clo had said no words. There were none left.

A shaking breath brought her back. Rhea’s hand lay on the cloth of Clo’s sleeve.

“I’m sorry,” Rhea whispered.