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“So, what do we do today?” Seated at a low table in the college’s library, Erik stirred sugar into a mug of tea before handing it to me.
I took a long, careful sip, relishing the sweetness. “I have to do something to keep busy, or else I’ll worry about Moll and cry over Amity, and I’m not in the mood to do either of those things.”
He bumped his shoulder against mine. “Want to go shopping?”
“Shopping?” I said, voice pitched high with surprise.
“Looting, foraging, trading, stealing...” Grinning, he shrugged. “Whatever you want to call it.”
“What do you need?” I studied my toast, slathered in marmalade. My mouth watered, and I was dying to eat it. But once I did, it would be gone, and who knew when I’d get to have such a delicacy again?
“I’m almost out of food at my place, and Dwivedi’s supplied me with some things to trade.”
I tossed back the last swig of my tea, grabbed my toast, and pushed my seat back. “Let’s go.”
For our first stop, Erik took me to a family of Solo Practitioners who kept a quail coop on top of their apartment building. Quail eggs tasted like chicken eggs, but they were tiny, and it took three times as many to fill me up. I waited near the roof access while he bargained with a little girl around eight or nine years old. She wore her silky black hair in long pigtails, and I could tell she was giving Erik a hard time. At the end of their bargaining, Erik produced a crock of goat butter from one of his ubiquitous coat pockets and traded it for two dozen eggs. Before we left, an older woman peeked out from the coop and gave the girl an approving nod.
“She’s quite the businesswoman,” I said as Erik led us from the building.
“The woman watching from the coop is her grandmother. She’s taught her well. They give me a harder time than other Solos, though.”
“Why?” I was miffed on his behalf.
He motioned to his scars. “They think there’s something unnatural about me that makes me immune. For anyone else, that crock of butter would have been worth at least another half dozen eggs.”
“Why don’t you make them treat you fairly?”
He sighed as we stepped onto the street into glaring sunlight. If we were lucky, it would keep the Non-Breathers hiding deep in their dark places. “Unnatural or not, I do have an advantage over most people. I’ve got immunity and blood to trade because of it. I get a lot more comforts with my currency than they do, and it’s enough of a concession that I don’t mind letting the wary ones jilt me a little if it makes them feel better.”
I paused in the street, eyes wide with astonishment. “Do you have a single selfish bone in your body? I mean, do you ever do anything entirely for yourself?”
Erik kept walking. “I wanted you, and I got you, didn’t I?”
Rolling my eyes, I hurried to catch up to him. “I’d like to think I had some say in it.”
“I’m very selfish, if you want to know the truth, when it comes to the things I want.” He gave me a sidelong glance. “I won’t ever let go of you again. Not for any price.”
With that said, we continued on, but I noticed he was leading us somewhere other than home. “Where are we going now?”
“I have one more thing I want to trade for.”
“What is it?”
Grinning, he waggled his dark eyebrows. “A surprise.”
He stopped us several blocks later at the edge of what used to be, and perhaps still was, China Town.
“Wait here.” He stopped us outside of an empty dry-goods store. “You’ve got your guns on you, don’t you?”
“Never leave home without one.” From my apron pocket, I pulled out the pistol Shep had given me the previous night during our escape. That moment seemed like it had happened weeks ago rather than hours. I hoped it would be a long time before I saw that much action again.
He nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
The fact that I stayed behind said a lot about my trust in him. I leaned against the storefront and whistled a tune Bloom used to play on her harmonica, but after I’d run through it a few times, I traded whistling for pacing. I passed back and forth in front of the store maybe twenty times before I began to mutter unpleasant and unrepeatable things about Erik and his surprises. Patience exhausted, I turned for the doorway with the intent of going after him, but he happened to reappear at that same moment.
Reading the expression on my face, he snickered. “Getting worried, were you?”
“I was going to make sure no one had left any trace of your body before I took off to claim your train car for myself.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” He snorted. “It already belongs to you. What’s mine is yours.”
Ignoring the gale of emotions his words churned up inside me, I folded my arms across my chest and huffed. “Are you going to tell me what took all that time, or are you hoping I’ll beg first?”
“Would you beg?” He waggled an eyebrow at me. “I might like to see that.”
“I bet you would.” I held out my hand. “Now, give it up.”
Erik dug both hands deep into his coat pockets and brought them out, palms open and empty, giving me a look of confusion. He tucked his hand into one breast pocket then wrinkled his brow and rolled his eyes as if befuddled. His silly act worked. I was giggling with anticipation.
His eyes popped wide as if he had just remembered where he put whatever it was he’d been searching for. He reached into another interior pocket, but before he brought it out, it gave itself away with a high-pitched “Mew!”
Turning over his hands, he revealed a tiny orange kitten, barely old enough to hold its eyes open. “Mew!”
“A kitten?” I gasped, my voice squeaky with delight.
“His mom is the best mouser in the city, or so say the people who traded him to me.”
“What did it cost you?” Taking the proffered kitten, I snuggled him to my cheek. He purred, and the sound went straight to my heart. I hadn’t known I wanted such a thing until I saw its sweet, furry face.
“Not much,” Erik said. “A jar of marmalade.”
“Marmalade?” I laughed. “What a perfect name for an orange cat.”
“It is, isn’t it?” He stroked a finger over the tiny soft head. “I know you can get feral cats anywhere in the city, but this one came from a tame mother, so he should be good to you.”
Romantic gestures aside, cats were useful agents for dealing with the other unpleasant critters infesting the subway tunnels—the pink-tailed, bewhiskered kind. He would earn his keep and be handsomely rewarded.
I cooed at the kitten. “Erik’s a romantic sap, isn’t he?”
“Hey,” Erik objected, but laughter lit his eyes.
“It’s a good thing we like romantic saps, isn’t it, kitty?”
“Mew,” Marmalade agreed.
For a whole day, Erik and I managed to stay safe and out of trouble. We traded half our eggs for a small packet of salt pork from a family of Italian ancestry. Then we traded one more container of jam—gooseberry this time—for a small jar of cream and a wedge of cheese from a family of goat keepers. We came home with talk of omelets for supper and found a note from Dr. Dwivedi pinned to the tapestry Erik used as a front door.
Dear Cy and Miss Blite,
I respectfully request your attendance at a ceremony to pay tribute to the life and death of your friend, Miss Amity McCall. I look forward to seeing you after sunup in two days’ time. The event will take some planning and forethought.
We have decided Moll Grimes’s people should deal with her death and interment. I have sent word to your sister, asking her to send a representative from Mini City to assist in the matter. Preliminary results from testing of the residue in the immunity serum vial supplied to Ms. Grimes revealed that she had been supplied with a counterfeit. The basis of the antitoxin in her vial was not formulated with Mr. LeRoux’s blood but rather with the blood of unknown origin, but likely animal in nature. My hypothesis is that it was pig’s blood.
Any further questions concerning Moll Grimes should be addressed to Bloomington Blite and Mini City’s senior leadership.
I look forward to seeing you soon.
Yours most dearly and truly,
Dr. Anand Raj Dwivedi
“Moll was set up,” I said, breathless with shock. “Who do you think was the culprit?”
Erik scratched his jaw contemplatively. “Dunno. A lot of people could’ve benefitted from her death. It’s not a mystery I’m particularly interested in solving either way.”
“Why do you suppose Dwivedi has contacted Bloom about all of this?”
“Why not?” Erik rifled his cooking area for bowls and pans. He cracked eggs and gave me a cutting board and a knife for the cheese. “Bloom is suited to take Moll’s place, don’t you think?”
I paused, knife blade hovering over the block of goat cheese. “Whoever sabotaged Moll might have something to say about Bloom stepping into Moll’s shoes. Bloom is smart enough, but is she cutthroat enough? I dunno...” I tried to think of my sister in that role, living that kind of life. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that hard to imagine, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
Erik poured a dollop of cream into the bowl of eggs and whipped them into a froth. Marmalade sat at his feet, mewing contentedly after having slurped down a saucer of goat milk mush. “I get the feeling the others will appreciate having anyone as long as that person is willing to take care of them. A woman like Moll didn’t delegate power, and none of her people will know how to lead. They are too used to following.
“Bloom spent most of the last few years of her life taking care of you, thinking for herself, surviving on her own. That’s more than most people in Mini City can say.”
“I hope it doesn’t turn out to be something bad for her.” Having new authority and power could do funny things to people.
Erik set his whipped egg mixture aside. “She’s your sister. You know her best.”
“It’s a lot of responsibility, but she’s not a bad person. I think things will be better for everyone with her in charge.”
He plopped a soft kiss on my cheek. “Mmmm, sweet.” He drew me into his arms and brushed his lips against mine. “What do you say we have dessert before dinner?”
Just like that, my worries faded away, and for the first time since we’d met, Erik and I had no place to be and no one to distract us. No hungry horde, no demanding scientists, no supplies to scavenge. A warm tingle started in my toes and slowly crawled to my knees, then higher. I returned his kiss, opening fully to him.
Thoughts of omelets faded, overcome by a different and urgent hunger. A desire for something much more satisfying than food. Yes, I thought as Erik’s hands skimmed over me, the omelets could definitely wait.