Page 15

The children of Scurry formed queues in front of the oak tables waitingat the hall’s far side. A kid shoved me from behind in my hesitation to move toward one.

Voices rose to the high ceilings and bounced around the open space so that one hundred people sounded like a thousand. Ahead, a boy strained to see better. A girl kept turning to grasp the arms of a friend and proclaim her need to be sick.

“You think it’ll taste bad?”

“What if I can’t drink it?”

“I heard that a boy dropped dead last year.”

“Me sister said it were like swallowin’ lightnin’.”

“Next!”

They shuffled up their lines in their handed-down church clothing, in their barely contained hairdos and cracked lips. When was the last time a child from Scurry had become an Artisan?

I couldn’t think of a single one.

Happens less and less these days.Dad had told me.It’s all about the bloodlines, you see? And you ain’t got the genes for absorbing idium. You got no chance.

“Next!”

I kept my hands in my pockets as I shuffled forward, my thumb sweeping over their tops and feeling the wax and cork alternately. Artisan and Crafter. Not a destiny, but a choice. It seemed an easy one to make.

But it seemed a dangerous one, too.

“Next!”

I wished I could see Patrick nodding at me. I wished my mother had never left.

“Next!”

Each child said their name, pulled the cork out, swallowed, waited. Nothing. Down the halls they left in single file. Back to a train that would take them northeast to little futures.

“Next!”

Inside my skirt pocket, I used my thumb and forefinger to peel the wax away from the cork. It only took a second.

“Next!”

I walked forward.

Behind the glistening oak tabletop, a man no older than twenty perused a lengthy piece of parchment. He did not look up as I approached.

“Name?”

“Harrow. Nina.”

He checked off the name with a quill and ink. I wondered vaguely how the man knew which names were Artisan and which were Crafter.

“Is this one for me?” I asked, lifting the vial for his examination.

The man squinted at it a second. “Ah…” he said. “Where—?”

“It was on the floor,” I said blankly. “Must have fallen from the crates.”

The man spared a glance sideways at the precarious stack of discarded boxes.

“Idium is finite. Thank God it didn’t smash on the tiles,” I said with a pointed look to the woman in the obnoxious heels. She watched the officials like a hawk.