I hung my head, barely listening, as my guilt ripened beneath her kindness. Kindness, I realized, I didn’t deserve. When she was sick, I had not rushed to the kitchen. And I didn’t believe her when she told me of the fever. More, I had lied to her about her baby.

I forced myself to look up. Robin’s face was carefully blank, but I felt her gauging me. Watching for my reaction, just as I watched Jones. My inner eye burned with shame as I saw our relationship, clearly, for the first time.

“Don’t worry, Ma’am. You are not alone; Crane is with you,” she said.

I didn’t answer. I could not speak past the ache in my chest.

William put his stalwart hand on my shoulder. I looked at it a long time. My gaze traveled up his arm to his eyes. “I stay here,” he said.

I watched Robin walk away until she was out of sight.

* * *

Finally, I turned back to the young man, still unconscious on his makeshift bed. I opened the jar of medicine Hosea had given me. The smell made my eyes water. “It’s strong,” I said.

“Fever is strong,” William countered.

I dipped my fingers and spread the ointment on the young man’s chest, as I’d seen Hosea do. “That should do it,” I said, glancing at William.

He nodded down at me.

I pulled the cover over the young man’s chest and turned to find our next patient. William’s hand on my arm stopped me.

“Arika, you take,” he said.

He opened my schoolbag and handed me the pad I’d used to take Sky’s and Kiwi’s stories.

“No.” I pushed it away. “Hosea—I mean, Kha told me not to do that anymore.”

“Kha not right. You take.” He forced the pad into my hands.

I looked over my shoulder at Hosea. He was out of earshot. “If he sees me with that, he’ll throw me out.”

William shook his head. One hand moving to his club. “You stay here.”

I bit my lip. I’d promised Hosea I would not lie to the dying patients, but maybe I could still take their stories. Not with quill and paper, that would raise Hosea’s suspicion, but—. “I have an idea,” I said. “Put this away.”

Reluctantly, he took the pad I handed back to him.

“I don’t need it,” I said. “I’ll memorize their stories, and write them out later. It won’t be perfect, but it might work.”

“You do that?” William asked.

“I haven’t done it before, but—” I shrugged. “It’s all I can offer.”

He nodded. “Okay, we go.”

The Boy, Fount

THE BOY, FOUNT