I donned my sandals and cloak and he scooped me up, one hand beneath my knees and one under my back. Instead of moving to my door, he went to my window—which was open! He must have scaled the Schoolhouse wall to get to me. I sat on the sill as he tied a rope around his waist and pulled me onto his back. I clung there as he climbed to the ground. He set me on my feet, then swept me up, high on his chest, and sprinted toward the village.

“Is it Fount?” I said, shouting as he ran. “Is Fount sick?”

As I said it, I realized that it was my worst fear.

“Many sick people,” William said. “Arika need pray.”

“Obi save us,” I whispered.

He pressed my head against his neck.

After a few moments, a troublesome odor penetrated my panic—a scent I couldn’t identify. “What’s that smell?” I shouted.

At my words, his step faltered, and his tone, when he answered, was grim. “Arika need pray,” he said.

In the Schoolhouse we preferred logic to mystique. In personal study, I enjoyed the fables surrounding the ancient deities—Zeus, Jesus, and Pope in particular. They were amusing, if not particularly awe-inspiring. After all, none of them had had the power to stop humanity from nearly destroying itself in war.

The workers, in their ignorance, still believed in the divine. And their devil, Petro, was anything not derived from living matter. In essence, they worshipped creation, which, I supposed, was as noble an idol as any. It was out of respect for William, rather than religion, that I bowed my head that night. I hung my head and, for the first time in seventeen years, the first of many times to come, I prayed.

William’s hair and brows were dusted with white powder as he set me on my feet in front of the sick house. The same substance floated in the air and collected in drifts on the ground. I held my palm out to catch a speckling of flakes.

“William,” I said. “What is this?”

Slowly, he shook his head.

The flakes weren’t cold and they smeared between my fingers. I looked up, shielding my eyes as the wind whipped a light blizzard above us. “It’s not snow,” I said. “What is it?”

Again, he shook his head, refusing to answer.

“William, please!” Fear tickled my dry throat.

He spoke reluctantly. “Many sick people.”

I turned to the warehouse. It was quiet. The shutters were pulled tight. I remembered how, in my naiveté, I’d thought the sickness had smelled like fresh clean fish. Only later did I recognize the stench of blood. Speckled spots of mucus, coughed into the air by a roomful of dying people. The lucky ones were placed on tables, covered in blankets; the luckless had stiffened at our feet. Robin had borne the task of dragging the dead to the pyre.