After a detour to the herb garden to gather wound-seal, El takes the dead baby to the kitchen entrance. She isn’t allowed to enter, but she knows the old charwoman, Elda, who handles ashes, waste, and death. Ao once helped Elda with a concoction of herbs for a lung ailment, so the woman takes the little body with a nod and brings El a ceramic mug of hot water. Ao steeps the herbs, mashes them into a paste, and applies it to the child’s cut foot. The child stirs but doesn’t wake. The girls doze in the drowsy heat, enjoying the rare luxury of a quiet rest broken only, now and then, by a wailing cry from wherever the captives are being held.

Late in the afternoon, the main party arrives with the other four atoners. One is an old man with a crippled hand and a face so scarred by burns he can no longer speak; he was sent to the lady’s court by her blessed lady mother, last year, before Lord Thelan arrived, because the old man could no longer do his retainer’s work. The fellow is slow, which is why he walks with the main party and its wagons. The others are three younger children, called Nep, Nap, and Nup, all so weary they can barely gulp down the shared bowl of parsnip and cabbage soup that is their day’s meal and which Ao had made sure to hide in a corner until they arrived so no retainer would steal it. Afterward they talk the little ones and the old man through their day, discussing in basic terms what they saw and what they should be looking for and how to deal with Spore should they encounter it. If atoners don’t help each other, then they will all die, one after the next.

Later, once the little ones and the elder are asleep, Ao and El stand at the pen’s gate looking toward the main hall. They can see lamplight and hear feasting, smell the glorious scent of meat and honey. That night, the two girls sleep, safe, in the pen with the others. In the morning, the child is awake but drowsy, even a little stupefied, which is a mercy. As the advance party leaves, they hear the begging cries of the outlaws as they are chained to the execution pillars. The fires will be set once the lady and lord depart. Outlaws no longer count as human, and any person who isn’t human must be burned. That is the law of the white-haired god.

Ao is carrying the child, braced on her hip. She whispers, “I’d rather burn.”

“No, you wouldn’t,” says El.