We cannot reclaim what is ours without the help from those who oppress us.
Dew nodded, thinking, considering.
This could end us.
This could also restore us.
You are too young to be speaking like an elder. Finish your bread and go.
Hassa was relieved. The smile across Elder Dew’s face was all the approval she needed.
—
Sylah couldn’t find Hassa. She had tied up the eru by her mother’s villa and gone to search the Dredge. Sylah left Boey chewing the leaves of their neighbor’s precious joba tree. She was only sorry she wasn’t going to see Rata’s crestfallen face as she caught Boey with a mouthful.
Turin had closed up shop for the day, the one day in the year she ever did, and the Maroon was empty. All the plantation workers had the day off and were likely spending it with their families.
They weren’t alone. The thought rattled around and around Sylah’s mind. It made her frantic in her search as she pushed through happy groups of families and tripped over carefully laid offerings. There was more out there. There was more.
She wanted to tell Jond, but by telling him she’d need to give up the other journals to the Sandstorm, and she hadn’t showed the passage to Anoor yet.
The sun had begun to set, and still Sylah couldn’t find her friend. For a horrible second she wondered if the sleeping sickness got her. The illness was plaguing the Ghostings en masse.
But there had been no black cross on Maiden Turin’s door. That was something, at least.
As night fell, Sylah gave up.
She headed back toward her mother’s house in the Duster Quarter.
“Sylah, is that your eru in front of my house?” Rata screeched.
Oh, goody, Sylah didn’t miss the show after all.
“No,” she replied.
“Then why are you emptying stuff from its packs?”
“They’re gifts, would you like one?”
That shut her up.
“What’s in them?” She crept forward from the stoop of her villa.
“Dresses, jewels, some scarfs, some shoes.”
“Oh.” Rata moved forward and began to pick at Anoor’s clothes. “They’re very fancy.”
“Take them, give them out to your friends. Trade them, for all I care.”
Rata placed a hand on her chest, torn between insult and gratitude.
“Thank you?”
Sylah was pleased she’d managed to get rid of the items before entering Lio’s. She didn’t want to see her mother look for the threads of her real daughter in the clothing.
Lio was already at the door by the time Sylah got there.
“You talking to Rata?” Lio said.