Numb . . . Numb was good. Maybe if he was numb, he wouldn’t keep seeing Bazie and the boys . . . and the flames.

He swallowed again, the stuff burning its way down into his belly. Now he was more than dizzy; the room swam around him and tilted disconcertingly. Jarmin took the jug, corked it, and set it aside as he sagged down onto the pallet.

The room was definitely moving, but he didn’t care. He just didn’t want to have to watch it, so he closed his eyes. “Best thing for you, boy,” he heard, then footsteps on the stair.

He didn’t actually pass out; he hadn’t drunk quite enough for that. But every time the numbness and the dizziness started to wear off, he heaved himself up onto his elbow and took another long pull at the jug until it came back again. Now and again he tired of simply feeling the room circling him and opened his eyes to watch the ceiling rotate. When the light started to fade, Jarmin appeared again with a lantern and bread and sops, a chamberpot, and a big jug of water. He made Skif eat and drink all of the water before he took the lantern and the plates away. Skif took some more pulls on the jug, then, and as shrill voices and the cajolery of the girls drifted in through the window, he let the liquor take him away to a place where nothing mattered anymore.

Jarmin told him later that he’d stayed drunk for a week. Sometimes he cried, but only when he was alone. Sometimes he heard someone moaning, and dimly realized that it was himself. All he knew was that the jug was, temporarily, his best friend. Jarmin kept it full, but insisted on his eating and drinking water, an annoyance he put up with because it meant that Jarmin would top off the jug.

He retained enough of sense and the cleanliness Bazie had drummed into him to make proper use of the chamberpot. It never seemed to stink, so Jarmin must have kept it clean as well.

Jarmin also came up to talk to him now and again. For a while, he ignored the words and the man because he didn’t want to go to the place where words meant something. For a while, that is, until something Jarmin said jarred him back into thinking.

“Word is,” Jarmin said, into Skif’s rosy fog, “That fire was set.”

Set? Skif opened his eyes with an effort. “Wha?” he managed, mouth tasting of old leather and liquor.

Jarmin didn’t look at him, and his tone was casual. “Word is that the landlord got a surprise inspection, and was going to have to fix the place. Or get fined. Going to cost him dearly, either way. So he burned it instead, and is calling it a terrible accident.”

Understanding—and anger—stirred sluggishly. “He—burned it?”