The bathroom takes the edge off my darkening mood.

  There is a toilet, for one. I’ve been using the woods or, when obligated, a chamber pot for so long that the presence of a commode is cheering. There is a sink, too, set into polished wood, and little bars of soap wrapped in tissue paper, and a pair of soft, white towels and bathrobes waiting on the counter.

  There is also a partition separating the toilet from the tub — presumably so a person can bathe and their cohabitant can relieve themselves without seeing each other. There is a gap between the partition and the ceiling about a foot wide for airflow.

  The bathtub is under a window and hung with a thin, white curtain. I strip, abandoning my clothes on the floor, then climb into the tub and draw enough water to scrub myself down. Once finished, I drain off the dirty water and fill the tub properly for a long, hot soak. I open the window and let the breeze tickle the curtains. There is no scent of flowers here; the window faces out over a nondescript walking path hosting only doorways to apartments. The building across the way isn’t as tall as the inn, but it ends at the third floor and so I am level with their highest windows. No roof gardens. No window boxes. No sign of anyone home. The next nearest buildings are all three and five storeys tall, their exterior walls flat plaster with cracks here and there to show the brickwork underneath.

  I slouch against the back of the tub. The heat of the water makes my ankle throb. I keep it below the surface as long as I can stand, then prop my foot on the tub’s edge and relax. On my shoulder, at least, the heat feels relaxing.

  I don’t fall asleep exactly, but I drowse hard enough that I’m surprised to open my eyes and realize the water is no longer steaming. I dunk my head under for one last rinse, then clamber out onto the bath mat and pull the plug. I decide I will be doing this daily until we leave. Not just because I love this bathtub and soothing atmosphere — he serenity is just a bonus. My shoulder needs it, probably.

  I drape my wet towel over the top of the partition, which takes a couple attempts; I have to throw one end and try to get it to land flat, and it slides back down onto my face twice before I’m successful. The bathrobe is thick and fluffy, and if I am going to be trapped at the inn I can think of worse clothes live in when I am not soaking in the tub.

  Ma sits at the window in one of the chairs when I hobble out, eyes focused on her thoughts and not the view. She is alone. “You can leave your clothes by the bathroom door,” she says. “I’ll be sending our things down for a wash before we leave.”

  I drop the clothes and hop on one foot across the short distance to the first bed. Ma pulls her thoughts back into the room and comes over to treat and bandage my ankle.

  “I’ve told Robert about you. Your fall, and that you’ve been traveling with us. He’ll make sure you get fed regularly if the boys and I are out handling business.”

  My feelings about staying behind while everyone else is doing things haven’t improved, but I don’t argue.

  “Robert’s a good man. He’s never spent time on the river, but he knows what we’re about.”

  “How does he know…um… our mutual friend?”

  Ma’s mouth quirks at my attempt to keep up with the oblique language we have switched to since leaving the forest. “They were friends back in the day. Robert’s always had a knack for work that connects people. He didn’t own the inn yet, but he was running it. Told me who to see about an injury — you know how that worked out. A few years later, once he and I were friends, too, he mentioned a pair of brothers who were about to be separated. The older one had been running errands for him and got caught ‘interfering with an arrest,’ if I remember right. Tripped an enforcer who was running down some kid. Still not sure if he didn’t make it look accidental enough or if the enforcer was just determined to arrest somebody. There we go…”

  She finishes with the tincture, pulls out a cylinder of wound cloth, and starts wrapping.

  “So Finch was marked for indentured servitude, and when he tried to appeal that he did nothing wrong, told them that he had a kid brother to take care of, they didn’t have mercy. They came here and picked up Thirsan. Robert saw what was happening, had a feeling what would happen next, and asked me if I could interfere. I bought Finch’s contract and went straight to the orphanage, where I adopted Thirsan.”

  “They just… let you do that?”

  “Shit, they don’t want to feed any more kids than they have to. Paid the fees, made a donation… Kid stopped trying to bite people as soon as he saw us, so if they had questions they didn’t ask.”

  “And Finch? He’s really your —”

  “He’s free. I never treated him as anything else, whatever the papers said.”

  I contemplate this while Ma finishes wrapping my ankle, tucking the end of the bandage into place.

  “What’s that mean,” I ask, “Being an indentured servant?”

  Ma double checks her work, closes up the kit, and sits on the other bed. “It means someone can buy your debt to society and you’ll work it off however they see fit. There are rules, the contracts define humane treatment, but... Proving inhumane treatment when you’re working in indentured servitude isn’t easy. The binding marks limit a person’s freedom, and each debt has a minimum sentence of one year.”

  “That sounds like an easy system to abuse.”

  “It is. And a sixteen year old with no parents is an easy target. Finch was lucky Robert was looking out for him.”

  I frown down at the thick layer of bandages wound around my foot and up my calf. Finch — and Thirsan, by extension — were downright blessed. How often did this happen? Who’s luck had been worse? “What do you do if someone’s got a binding mark and the… the person with their contract…”

  “Keeper.”

  “What do you do if their keeper isn’t treating them well?”

  Ma clenches her teeth disapprovingly. “Witness. If you can. Sabotage the keeper. But until the contract is released, there isn’t a lot to be done.”

  “There’s no way to un-mark them?”

  “No.”

  “How does it work, then?”

  “There’s the contract, the legal paperwork, which defines the crime and the sentence. Then there’s the mark itself. It looks like a red tattoo. When the mark is made, an expiration date is set into it and it’s anchored to something. Usually to the contract keeper, sometimes to an object. It depends on how they plan to use the servant.”

  The word ‘use’ turns my stomach.

  Ma continues, “When the contract ends the marks vanish on their own from both keeper and servant. If there’s an anchor, it neutralizes. Finch’s anchor was external, and I let him hold onto it himself. It was the best I could do, given the circumstances.”

  There’s a knock at the door.

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  “Ah, right, I forgot I’d ordered dinner.” Ma rises from the edge of the bed. “You hungry? Might want to put on some clothes.”

  I gently unpack tinctures from the basket to get at the trousers and a blouse Puck helped me construct out of scraps from where they have been protecting the glass jars from clinking together. I’d rather wear the bathrobe, but I don’t want to risk getting food on it, either.

  I’m too preoccupied with mulling over the conversation we just had to pay attention to the exchange Ma has with the kid at the door. I leave the bathrobe rumpled on the bed and stand. There’s so much material bound around my ankle that it barely moves. It also barely hurts.

  “Ah, no,” Ma says, turning to see me experimenting with putting weight on it. “Sit down, please. I’ll help you to the table in a moment, just wait.”

  Another door opens in the hall. “Is that food?”

  “It is. Take this, Akasha needs help getting to a chair.”

  I bite back the urge to insist I can do it alone. Sure, it doesn’t hurt, but she also applied enough tincture directly to my skin that maybe I wouldn’t know if it did, anyway. That aside, she said all those things about how stubborn independence is going to get me killed — and the impulse to prove her wrong is probably further proof she’s right.

  Ma finishes with the kid, then helps me cross the room to the chair. Finch and Thirsan carry in covered trays, which they set on the table before Ma sends them back to their room for more chairs, declaring they will not be eating on her bed. She and I wait for them to arrive before removing the lids and arranging the table. All four dishes are the same preparation of roasted bird and seasoned vegetables. After ascending the western wall and walking in the sun for half a day, it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.

  *

  We spend the rest of day doing very little other than sitting around, chatting as we would at a fire pit but with no other busywork. When we finish eating, Ma helps me to my bed and Finch immediately props his feet on the vacated chair. He and Thirsan must have taken time to bathe while I was snoozing in the tub; his feet are bare and clean, and both young men still have the dewy look of the freshly scrubbed. When Ma asks Finch to collect their dirty clothes to throw into the pile I’ve started, Thirsan steals Finch’s seat and foot rest and smirks at him in challenge when he returns. Finch doesn’t take the bait, sitting on the foot of Ma’s bed and lying back across it, arms outstretched over the open air between the beds to illustrate how few fucks he gives. He tilts his head to look at me upside down and smiles.

  I smile back as untimidly as I am able and avert my gaze before he can catch me admiring the way his shirt stretches taut over his chest and stomach, coming untucked from the front of his trousers. I would rather linger over this. There’s a hint that he has a trail beneath his navel which I’m immensely curious about. But I already decided I am not going to lose what little sense of self I have at the moment, not to a longing for his approval or to my own impulsive carnal thoughts. That means not looking. Not dwelling. Not inviting him to sit next to me where I can rest a foot against his leg just for the excuse to touch.

  The more time passes, the harder it is to act like I’m indifferent.

  Ma makes the briefest knowing eye contact but pretends she’s seen nothing, turning her attention to Thirsan. “You going out for some exercise this evening?”

  “I guess. Shoulders are sore from carrying Akasha all over town, though.”

  “I offered to help,” says Finch, folding his hands beneath his head.

  “Yeah, I know. Hey, why were you so eager to help, anyway?”

  “Because — I’m stronger than you, and I didn’t want carrying her to interfere with —”

  Thirsan is unimpressed. “Yeah, you’re a real hero. You’re not that much stronger than me.”

  “I will arm wrestle you right now.”

  “Tch, I can’t. My shoulders are sore.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Ma says, “Sounds like maybe you shouldn’t exercise tonight, after all.”

  “I’ll go,” replies Thirsan, dropping the banter. “Might use some of that tincture, if we’ve got an open jar anyway.”

  Ma goes to the medical kit where she left the jar. “Internal, or external?”

  “Internal.”

  Ma pours a very little bit into the remains of the water Thirsan sipped at all through dinner. He knocks it back and grimaces. “Ugh. That was strong.”

  “Puts hair on your chest,” Ma replies, returning the jar to the kit.

  I ask, “How does it work for both?”

  “I don’t know the specifics,” answers Ma, “But basically, if you swallow it, it goes through your whole body. If you apply it to the skin, it stays local.”

  “Saves me the trouble of bathing in it,” Thirsan remarks. “You’re no featherweight.”

  To this, I say, “Wow, I guess Finch really is the strong one, huh?”

  Thirsan shoots me a look that is satisfyingly storm cloud black, and Finch snickers. “I carried you through the woods, no complaints. And you’ve lost weight since then, too.”

  “I have?”

  Finch hurries to add, “Not that it’s bad or anything. Food on the river tends to be a little leaner, is all.”

  “Huh.” I try to remember if I’ve noticed any difference between what my body was like when I arrived and now, but I’ve only had it for about three months. I’m still getting acquainted.

  “Might want to buy some cheeses before we head back,” muses Ma. “I have a shopping list, but maybe there will be room enough in the bags for a couple cheese wheels, too.”

  I know enough about cheese to know that’s a very broad category of food, but I’m happy to learn it exists here.

  As the sun sets and the room darkens, I learn one of the key differences between the planet where I am now and where I originated is electricity. They don’t have it here. What they do have are domes holding bioluminescent… something. Moss, I guess. I barely register the one on the nightstand between the beds because its light grows as the daylight fades. It happens so gradually that I only notice the change after seeing the sky has gone dark.

  The moss is the same yellow I’d expect from a candle, or a low watt light bulb. Tiny bits of stuff float in the water with it. I’m fascinated, half tempted to pick up the dome and see if it looks different from the underside or if it really is just a lump of moss, half afraid that I’ll damage it.

  I get up and hobble to the window, which Ma protests immediately, and stick my head out. There is a lamp post at the far end of the building where it meets the wider street, and a glow from further down the other way which implies a second lamp at the other end.

  “Are all the lights like that?” I ask.

  “Like what?” Ma is bewildered by the question.

  “Full of… Moss? Is that moss?”

  “…yes? They’re pondlights.”

  “It’s algae,” corrects Thirsan.

  I stop myself before asking anymore questions, imagining how I’d take it if a grown adult were suddenly aggressively interested in light bulbs.

  “Square’s probably lit up,” Finch says. “We could go down and see if anyone’s playing tonight.”

  “Tomorrow,” says Ma, before anyone can get excited. “Robert mentioned he’s got some musicians lined up.”

  I sigh wistfully, glaring at my bandaged foot. “Probably lovely down there, with all those flowers.”

  “We’ll go down tomorrow,” Ma repeats firmly. “Tonight, you should rest. Anyone want to eat again before bed?”

  Finch agrees immediately. I nod. Thirsan says, “Order something for me, I’ll eat it later.”

  “You planning to rest up first?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ma nods. “Good. We’ll see you in the morning.”

  Thirsan lowers his feet and pushes out of his chair like he is still suffering terribly from carrying me around earlier and returns to the room he and Finch share. Finch props himself up on his elbows on Ma’s bed.

  “Kitchen should be open,” Ma says. “What do you want?”

  Naturally, I ask, “Do they have anything with cheese?”