“No,” I said, “but I have these.”

I held out my numa—rings, thimbles, needles. Graffias gave me a look of such hatred, such disgust, that I flinched. I almost preferred their callous stares. “I do not take bribes. Nor do I require worthless human trinkets to access the æther.”

I slipped the worthless human trinkets back into my pocket. Stupid idea. Of course they didn’t use the damn things. It was a beggar’s currency.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Get back to your residence, white-jacket, or I will summon your keeper to discipline you.”

He drew a spool of spirits. I turned and walked away from the gate, out of his line of sight, not looking back. Just as I was about to hightail it to Magdalen, a quiet voice came from somewhere above my head.

“Paige, wait!”

A hand reached through the bars of a second-floor window. My shoulders sagged in relief. Seb.

“Are you okay?”

“No.” He sounded choked. “Please, Paige—please get me out of here. I have to get out of here. I’m—I’m sorry I called you unnatural, I’m sorry—”

I glanced over my shoulder. No one was looking my way. I climbed up the side of the building, reached into my tunic, and slipped Seb the food package. “I’ll let you off the hook.” I squeezed his icy hand through the bars. “I’ll try my best to get you out, but you have to give me time.”

“They’ll kill me.” He unwrapped the package with shaking fingers. “I’ll be dead before you get me out.”

“What did they do?”

“They made me scrub the floors until my hands bled, and then I had to sort through broken glass, looking for clean pieces for their ornaments.” I noticed his hands, cut all over. Deep, dirty cuts. “Tomorrow I’m supposed to start work in the residences.”

“What sort of work?”

“I don’t know yet. I don’t want to know. Do they think I’m an—I’m one of you?” His voice was hoarse. “Why do they want me?”

“I don’t know.” His right eye was swollen and bloodshot. “What happened there?”

“One of them hit me. I didn’t do anything, Paige, really. He said I was human scum. He said—”

He hung his head, and his lip shook. This was only his first day, and already they’d used him as a punching bag. How would he survive a week, or a month? Or a decade, like Liss?

“Eat that.” I clasped his hands around the food package. “Try and come to Magdalen tomorrow.”

“Is that where you live?”

“Yes. My keeper probably won’t be there. You can take a bath, maybe get some food. Okay?”

Seb nodded. He seemed delirious; no doubt he was concussed. He needed a hospital, a proper doctor. But there was no doctor here. Nobody cared about Seb.

There was nothing more I could do for him tonight. I gave his arm a gentle squeeze before I dropped from the window, landed on my feet, and headed back toward the inner city.