“Fifty crowns! There isn’t nothing in the good goddess’s lighted earth worth fifty!” The matron looked over her shoulder, her gaze roving up the stairs as if she could see through the stones and into the dormitories where the children rested on their cots. Nox curled more tightly into herself as the matron spoke. “I haven’t paid a penny over five silvers for half the bastards in here. I have one girl worth ten crowns on a good day, and she’s the rarest of them all. Ain’t no one spending fifty crowns on your stolen babe.”

The man’s gaze no longer twinkled. His mouth tugged upward, revealing his teeth, cold smile glinting in the candlelight. He said nothing but remained holding the basket, unmoving.

The Gray Matron balked. “I’ll give you fifteen.”

He remained impassively rooted to the carpet.

“Twenty, and that’s the highest I’ll go.”

Nox knew little of money, except that it was good to have some and that people always wanted more. She thought of the coppers, steel, and golds of the heavy coins she’d seen and what it might be like to have twenty metal circles in her tiny hands. Instead, she continued to clutch her toes against the cold. She wiggled them within her hands, knowing she had ten toes and ten fingers. That was twenty.

The Gray Matron’s offer had already betrayed her. She wanted whatever the stranger possessed.

The man tilted his head ever so slightly, raising a brow. Rain dripped off his soaked cloak. Small puddles formed on the carpet around his wet boots. “Farleigh isn’t the only mill on this side of the mountains, Agnes. It’s a rainy night, and I don’t particularly want to play games. I like you, and we’ve done business in the past, so I wanted to give you the first crack at the treasure. But you and I both know that no one’s getting this pretty thing for a cent less than fifty crowns.”

The matron shuffled her weight from one foot to the other for a moment. “Is it a boy?”

“It’s a girl.”

She chewed her lip, looking conflicted. She lowered her voice when she spoke again.

“Your stolen goods were fine when we were younger.” She seemed to be arguing against herself. “We had a good thing back then. You’d take from the village. I told myself you were doing a favor to the parents, I did. You were taking away a mouth to feed. I’ve always preferred that parents come to me on their own, of course… I’m not that person anymore.”

Nox was still listening intently as the matron spoke. Her eyes had adapted to the dark, but she strained them as she squinted up at the matron, hoping it might help her understand what was happening.