What if—I can’t look at the thought straight on—what if he only has a month, a day?
A memory floats to the top of my mind of an old beggar woman in Crofton who had bled her last week for a bowl of soup, stumbling from door to door, greeting every person in town and pleading for a day-iron or two, or even just a bit of bread. She forgot the names of the people first—then she forgot the shape of the village entirely, and wandered around the fields, raising her hand to knock on air.
Papa and I found her curled in the wheat, her skin cold as ice. Her time had run out. And it all started with the forgetting.
Thinking of her, I run. My blood urges me on, begging to be turned to coin.
Crofton announces itself first by a few spindly columns of smoke, then the patchwork of rooftops peeking out over the hills. The narrow path leading to our cottage turns east off the main road, well before the village. But I pass it by and keep walking, toward the noise and smoke of the market.
Inside the low stone wall that roughly marks the village periphery, row houses lean together like a huddling crowd, as if by being close they’ll succeed in keeping out the cold, or the woods, or the slow suck of time. People hurry by me here and there, bodies hidden in layers, heads ducked against the wind.
The marketplace is nothing more than a long stretch of muddy cobblestone where three roads meet. It’s crowded and noisy this afternoon: rent is due for everyone, and the space is thick with people selling. Men in rough farmers’ clothes and women with babies slung across their backs haggle over bolts of cloth and loaves of bread and cattle bones thick with marrow, ignoring the handful of beggars who wander from stall to stall, their refrain—an hour? An hour?—blurring into the general hum of activity. The air is dim with smoke from the oily cook fires.
There’s a long line winding from Edwin Duade’s time lending shop; Papa and I are scarcely the only ones who scramble every month to make ends meet. The sight always makes my stomach hurt—dozens of people grouped up along the walls, waiting to have time drawn out from their blood and forged into blood-iron coins. I know I have to join them, but somehow, I can’t force myself into the queue. If Papa finds out . . .
Better to get something to eat first, to fortify my strength before I sell my time. And I may as well sell my catch, measly as it is.
I start for the butcher’s stall, where my friend Amma stands behind the counter, doling out strips of dried meat to a cluster of schoolgirls in clean pinafores. A pang of mixed nostalgia and envy goes through me. I could have been one of those children. I was, once. After Papa’s expulsion from Everless, the Gerling estate—the flash of anger as I think of it is as familiar as my own heartbeat—he spent his savings on books and paper for me, so I could go to school. But as his sight worsened, the money for books and paper ran out along with his work. Papa’s taught me everything he knows, but it’s not the same.
I push the thought away and wave at Amma when she catches my eye. She smiles, creasing the scar that runs down one cheek. It’s a relic of a bleeder raid on the village where she was born, an attack that left her father dead and her mother with only a few days left in her blood. She clung to life long enough to bring her daughters to Crofton before her time ran out completely, leaving only Amma to provide for her little sister, Alia.
To Amma—probably, to many of the schoolgirls I wade through—my hatred of the Gerlings would seem petty. They keep their towns free of bleeders and highwaymen like the ones that killed Amma’s parents, and oversee trade. For their protection, they expect loyalty—and, of course, blood-irons every month. Sempera’s borders are guarded to prevent anyone from slipping away with the secrets of blood-iron, which is why Papa and I stayed on Gerling lands even after we were expelled from Everless for burning down the forge all those years ago.
I remember Everless—its tapestry-lined hallways and gleaming bronze doors, its occupants flitting about in gold and silk and jewels. No Gerling would stalk you in the forest to slit your throat, but they are thieves all the same.
“I heard they’ve set the date, for the first day of spring,” one of the schoolchildren gushes.
“No, it’s sooner,” another insists. “He’s so in love, he can’t wait till spring to marry her.”
Only half listening, I know they’re chattering about what seems like the only topic on anyone’s lips these days—Roan’s wedding, the joining of the two most powerful families in Sempera.
Lord Gerling’s wedding, I correct myself. He’s not the sticky, gap-toothed boy I knew, who would join the servant children in a game of hide-and-seek. As soon as he’s married to Ina Gold, the Queen’s ward, he’ll be as good as Her Majesty’s son. The kingdom of Sempera is divided between five families, yet the Gerlings control over a third of the land. Roan’s wedding will make them even more powerful. Amma rolls her eyes at me.
“Go on,” she says, shooing the schoolgirls away. “Enough chatter.”
They scamper away in a swirl of too-bright colors, their faces aglow. In contrast, Amma looks exhausted, hair tied tightly back, dark circles beneath her eyes. I know she must have been up since before sunrise hanging and cutting meat. I pull out the measly trout to place on her scale.
“Long day?” Her hands are already moving to wrap the fish in paper.
I smile at her as best I can. “It’ll be better in the spring.” Amma’s my best friend in the world, but even she doesn’t know how bad things have gotten for Papa and me. If she knew that I was about to be bled, she’d pity me—or worse, offer to help. I don’t want that. She has enough troubles.
She gives me a bloodstained hour-coin for the fish and adds a strip of dried meat as a gift for me. When I accept them, she doesn’t take her hand from mine. “I was hoping you’d come by today,” she says, her voice lower now. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Her fingers are icy and her tone too serious. “What?” I say, trying to keep my voice light. “Has Jacob finally asked you to run away with him?” Jacob is a local boy whose obvious crush on Amma has been the subject of our jokes for years.
She shakes her head and doesn’t smile. “I’m leaving the village,” she says, still gripping my hands tightly. “I’m going to work at Everless. They’re hiring servants to help with preparations for the wedding.” She smiles uncertainly.
The smile slips from my own face and cold spills through my chest. “Everless,” I repeat after her numbly.
“Jules, I’ve heard they’re paying a year on the month.” Her eyes are bright now. “A whole year! Can you imagine?”
A year they’ve stolen from us, I think.