With Mouse, she’d hatched a plan. It hadn’t taken much, and suddenly, Alejandro—who’d been all up on her about being a castoff and not worth anything except as a nailshed girl—had his entire herd slaughtered.

“Anyway,” Mouse said, “how were we supposed to know the coywolv would figure out how to open the gate?”

Mahlia laughed. “That was purely unnatural.”

And it was. Coywolv were scary that way. Smarter than you wanted to believe. When Mahlia had seen the ropes of strewn guts and the last few patches of goat fur in the morning, she’d been as amazed as anyone. She’d been aiming to give the dumb farmer a scare, and she’d gotten a thousand times that.

Goes-around-comes-around to the nth.

“Eh.” Mouse made a face. “He deserved it. All talking about how you weren’t good for nothing but a nailshed girl. All that Chinese castoff stuff. He barely looks at you now. You put the fear of the Fates in him good.”

“Yeah. I guess.” Mahlia picked at the rust of the I beam. Peeled off a flake as long as her pinky. “But now with Tani, it means all his whispering about me carries weight. It was the first thing Salvatore said right after Tani died.”

Mouse snorted. “They’d blame a castoff just for breathing. You could be good as gold and they’d still blame you.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Mouse looked at her incredulously. “For sure. They’re just pissed you actually stood up for yourself. Mahfouz can talk peace and reconciliation all he wants, but if you don’t stand tall, no one gives you respect.”

Mahlia knew he was right. Alejandro wouldn’t have let up on her if she hadn’t scared him off. For a little while, she’d been able to walk tall and not feel afraid, thanks to that stunt with the coywolv scent. But at the same time, now she had a cloud of distrust hanging over her, and Doctor Mahfouz didn’t let her into his medicines without supervision. Goes-around-comes-around whipping back at her.

She grimaced. “Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t matter what I do. End of the day, I’m still a castoff. They either hate me for being weak or hate me for standing tall. Can’t win that fight.”

“So what’s really eating you?”

“Salvatore said something else, too.” She held up the stump of her right hand, with its puckered and mottled stub of brown skin folded over. “He said Tani would still be alive if the doctor had more hands to help.”

“Yeah? Think he’s right?”

“Probably.” Mahlia spat over the edge. Watched her saliva do cartwheels to the ground. “Me and the doctor work good together, but a stump ain’t no hand.”