Free When the Sea is Rising Red by Cat Hellisen Page B

soft.
    There would be scriv. A crashing dizziness threatens to send me to my knees, and I cling to the edge of the sink with both hands, waiting for it to pass.
    My stomach is a burning hole, but after a few long gasping sobs, I manage to push the pain down.
    Here I am in dirt-stiff tat, desperate to go pee in an outside latrine that seems to consist of nothing more than a wooden box-seat over a shallow drop and a handy bucket of ash. There is dirt worked into my skin, and my hands are wrinkled and white. My stomach growls at me all through the day. If I don’t eat something soon, I’m going to drop down right here and most likely drown in filthy dishwater. That’ll teach me to run away.
    I grab another bowl and plunge it into the water and scrub the tea stains with salt. If I go back now, I will be a disgrace, bringing shame and dishonor down on the Pelim name. The best I could hope for is that my brother would take revenge by marrying me off to some disreputable House, a name with nothing more than shallow rowboats in their fleets, or weak magic-lines. He’d make sure I looked back on Canroth Piers as a lost prize. Owen would see me disgraced, thrown down.
    When the old woman finally comes into the cramped little scullery and leans on the stone sink, I wonder if it would be better if she decided not to hire me. My hands are now red and stinging; deep cuts in my fingers bleed a pale watery red. I fold them over my stomach as if that will somehow settle it, stop the incessant twisting inside. My eyes feel peeled raw, and my cheeks burn.
    “Mrs. Danningbread,” she says, introducing herself. Obviously I’ve passed some secret test. “You’re to be here tomorrow morning at six sharp to help set up. Wages is five bits a day and all the tea you can drink.” She hands me a hunk of yellow cake. “It’s a mite stale,” Mrs. Danningbread says. “But I’m afraid the others got to the sweetbrown first. This is all that’s left.”
    I don’t care. I manage to thank her before I shove the wedge of gritty cake into my mouth. I don’t think anything has ever tasted this good. It’s sweet and dry, and it fills the hole in my belly.
    Outside the tea shop, Nala is sitting on a low flower-bed wall. There are no flowers growing there, just weeds and a few dead sea roses, their red-black leaves shriveled and dusty. Nala’s feet are splattered with mud, and the front of her dress has great muddy paw prints and streaks on it. She looks like she’s been attacked by half-grown sphynxes, but she seems happy enough and grins when she sees me.
    “Come,” she says. “We’ll have to run if we’re to get back before the storm breaks.”
    I groan. All day the skies have been black faced, the winds buffeting Pelimburg, so much so that Mrs. Danningbread had all the outside chairs and tables brought in to the already cramped shop and rolled up her awnings. Finally, the much-awaited storm has roared in, hours after the warnings were first sounded. The last thing I want to do now is run across town in my hated boots, with the wind—and more than likely the rain—slamming me around the whole way. Not to mention that just the thought of running makes me turn green. My ribs and cheeks are still aching. And I ate that Gris-damned cake a bit too fast.
    As it is, we don’t make it back before the rain starts. I limp into the squat and up the stairs, dripping all the way. I’m cold, I’m aching, I’m still hungry despite the thin slice of cake, and all I want to do is curl up tight and cry until I am dried and empty, an old eggshell.
    Nala doesn’t stop dancing. She bounds up the stairs, feet flying, her white soles flashing to me like sailor’s code. I think I hate her.
    The only thing that saves me from complete collapse is the smell of cockles and mussels frying in lard. I recognize it from the House kitchens, although I’ve never tried it myself. Right now, I’d eat dried cuttlefish if someone gave it to me.
    Lilya is sitting