“I’ll go,” I said. “I don’t mind. I’m already hot.”

“We are all hot,” Morah said.

“Oh, would you?” Raven said to me. “I bet you won’t feel the heat a bit if I loan you my parasol.”

“Parasols are Middling,” Morah said. “She can’t use one.”

“That’s right. I forgot. Maybe you shouldn’t go after all, my dear.”

“I want to,” I insisted. “The dough can have its second rise while I’m gone.” I untied my apron.

“Are you sure?”

If I had a mother, would I let her go out into this heat, especially when she was feeling ill? “Of course I’m sure.”

As I left the kitchen, the basket on my arm and instructions on a slip of paper, I heard Morah say to Raven, “I don’t know why you make her do everything.”

I felt a twist of doubt.

But Raven hadn’t made me. I had offered.

I shook away my discomfort and went out into the steely sun. The Ward was bright white, the walls shining like glaze on a cake.

“That’s enough,” Rinah called from the shadow of her home.

I glanced up from my weeding. I wiped sweat from my mouth. “But I’m not finished.”

“You don’t even have a hat on your head, child. You’ll drop dead from heatstroke. What will your mistress do then? She has no use for your corpse, believe me. Come inside, drink some water, and take what you’ve come for.”

I tucked my gardening knife into my pocket and followed her inside. The sudden cool darkness felt like a plunge into a well. I felt dizzy. I was more tired than I had realized. I gratefully accepted the tin cup of water Rinah offered with one hand, the other hand resting on her pregnant belly. Then she took my basket and filled it with enormous vegetables from her garden. Anything she planted always flourished. “Here is something extra,” she said, and slid in a roll of tanned leather. “We slaughtered one of the goats.” Rinah and her family had one of the rare homes with a plot of land. She had a coop and a few goats: rewards from the Council for bearing so many children. “I know Raven needs the leather,” she added. I would dye the leather Middling blue and cut it to coded size for new passports.

“Careful in the Ward,” she said, which is what Half Kith say to warn others against the militia.

“Why?”

“A soldier died the night of the festival. He fell from the rooftops.”

I felt suddenly cold despite the heat. As nonchalantly as possible, I said, “He must have been chasing the bird.”