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Ernesta and I went through the motions of being alive, but we moved carefully, as if we’d planned these slow dance steps, picking our way through the house, our eyes sliding over the closed doors. We lit a fire in the kitchen for light—the black curtains blocked the sun, and the oil in the lamps would run out quickly. In the stifling heat, I spread open the book Master Ostrum had given me.

I read every word Bennum Wellebourne had written on those pages. I studied it closer than I’d studied any book before. But there was nothing about the plague.

Ernesta opened the trunk at the end of the hall, the one that held Mama’s crafts—gifts she had been making for us for when we married or moved away from home. Mama had started working on it when I first received my acceptance letter from Yugen, but already there were two quilts inside, one for me and one for Ernesta. Nessie took hers and lay in bed, clutching the cloth against her chest as if it were a doll.

My eyes blurred as I struggled to read. I didn’t want Wellebourne’s words. I wanted Papa’s. I felt guilty to put aside the text Master Ostrum had given me, but maybe there was something else on Papa’s shelves, something like my great-grandmother’s journal.

I sprawled on the hallway floor, pulling book after book from Papa’s shelves. His organization system was chaotic, and some books had handwritten notes on scraps of paper inside.Reserved for Rocwyn, orA gift from Aunt Gaitha; don’t sell.

The ones closest to the kitchen—and the back door—were those he intended to load onto his cart for his next trip out. The books nearer his bedroom were more valuable tomes, some of them wrapped in leather or protected by specially sized wooden boxes with bronze latches. Some he intended to sell for the right price; some were priceless.

There was a slender book of poetry in cheap cloth binding nearest to the bedroom. I slid it off the shelf, turning it over in my hands. It didn’t look particularly special, a cheap volume of mass-produced saccharine drivel made popular by the Emperor or some other important mainlander. Not at all the kind of thing Papa would usually cherish.

I flipped it open.

To my darling love, it said in my mother’s handwriting.

•••

The days ticked by.

I wondered if Yugen was open again, if they would let me know when I could come back.

I’d take Ernesta with me. They wouldn’t let her in the dormitory, but we could sell Papa’s cart and find a small apartment in Whitesides.

I hoped someone was feeding Jojo.

Once I returned to the city, I could get a job as a medical alchemist even without officially taking the robes, and eventually we could afford a better place to live. And if not, we could travel the outer regions together, working to help stop the plague.

Or we could leave. Sail the world.

Go anywhere but here.

•••

I clawed at the edges of the house, trapped like a rat in a crucible. It was strange how death turned a home into a prison. I couldn’t stand the walls, the heavy black cloths that blocked out the light.Keep me here, fine, but let me see the sun.

Ernesta stayed in bed, wrapped in our mother’s quilt and her own sorrow.

The food on the table dwindled.

We didn’t touch the bread.

I read.

•••

I stuffed tablecloths into the cracks around the door of the front room.

It was starting to smell.

•••

After poring over the books on the hallway shelves, I ventured into my parents’ room. The bed was unmade; unusual for them. A sharp pang sliced through my stomach. My mother cared so much about things being neat. I shook out the crumpled quilt and straightened the sheets. I fluffed the pillows and arranged them just right.

I tried not to think about the long dark hair on my mother’s pillow, or the way my father’s side smelled of his shaving soap. I tried not to think of the lies that whispered up to me from the bed, promisingthat my parents weren’t gone, that I’d see them again. After all, here was their bed, their room, their life—right here, waiting for them.

Papa had books lined up on a shelf in his room, too. These were his treasures, his personal library. Some I recognized from my grandparents’ house before they passed away, some he simply kept for sentimental reasons. They were Papa’s “finds” in his travels, the books he’d picked up on the road that were so valuable he kept them out of reach, even from us.