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𝐊𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐦, 𝟏𝟕𝟗𝟗
The swim back from the Reaper's Barge had been Juniper's rebirth. The children she and Kaz had been had died of firepox. The fever had burned away every gentle thing inside her.
Survival wasn't nearly as hard as she'd thought once she left decency behind. The first rule was to find someone smaller and weaker and take what he had. Though – small and weak as they were – that was no easy task.
They shuffled up from the harbour, keeping to the alleys, heading towards the neighbourhood where the Hertzoons had lived.
When she spotted a sweetshop, she waited outside, then waylaid a chubby little schoolboy lagging behind his friends. Kaz knocked him down and Juniper emptied his pockets, and took his bag of liquorice.
"Give me your trousers," Kaz said. "They're too big for you," the boy had cried. Kaz bit him. The boy gave up his trousers.
Kaz rolled them in a ball and threw them in the canal, then they ran as fast as their weak legs would take them. He didn't want the trousers; he just wanted the boy to wait before he went wailing for help.
He knew the schoolboy would huddle in that alley for a long while, weighing the shame of appearing half-dressed in the street with the need to get home and tell what had happened.
Kaz and Juniper stopped running when they reached the darkest alley they could find in the Barrel. They crammed all the liquorice into their mouths at once, swallowing it in painful gulps, and promptly vomited it up.
He took the money and bought two hot rolls of white bread. He was jacketless and filthy. The baker gave him a third roll just to stay away. When they felt a bit stronger, a bit less shaky, they walked to East Stave.
They found the dingiest gambling den, one with no sign and just a single lonely barker out front. "I want a job," they said at the door. "Don't have any, nub."
"We're good with numbers." The man laughed. "Can you clean a pisspot?"
"Yes."
"Well, too bad. We already have a boy who cleans the pisspots."
They waited all night until they saw a boy about their age leave the premises. They followed him for two blocks, then hit him in the head with a rock. Juniper sat down on the boy's legs and pulled off his jacket and shoes, then slashed the soles of his feet with a piece of broken bottle.
The boy would recover, but he wouldn't be working anytime soon. Touching the bare flesh of his ankles had filled them with revulsion.
They kept seeing the white bodies of the Reaper's Barge, feeling the ripe bloat of Wylan's skin beneath their hands. The next evening, they returned to the den.
"I want a job," he said. And they had one. From there they'd worked and scraped and slaved. They'd trailed the professional thieves of the Barrel and learned how to pick pockets and how to cut the laces on a lady's purse.
