On the evening before the receiving-yard job, Nadir sat on his bed rubbing a piece of blue cloth between his fingers.
Henry had watched him for some time before noticing that the cloth was changing. The place beneath Nadir's thumb had faded to a dull grey, leaving a pale oval in the blue.
"Did you put something on that?"
Nadir held it up to the window. "No. I'm trying to get it to match."
Beside him lay his coat, turned inside out. One cuff was worn almost through.
"It's called [Bleach]," he explained. "It takes a little colour out of whatever I'm touching. A very little. I've been doing this since we came upstairs, and I still think it'll look worse than the hole."
Henry moved closer. He could see the difference now. The coat had once been brown, but years of washing had left it nearer grey. Nadir pressed his thumb into another part of the patch.
"Does it clean things?"
"I wish it did. Mrs. Vautrin thought so when I first came here. She gave me an apron to try it on. I made a white spot beside a stain, which made the stain look worse." He lowered the cloth. "It's only level one. Perhaps it would do more if I could raise it, but I'm not going into a cellar after anything like the creature we saw."
"Neither am I."
Henry said it without embarrassment. He remembered the shape beneath the canvas and the woman's bound arm. If that was the lowest rank, he would happily let somebody else deal with the others.
Nadir turned the patch over and inspected the back.
"Ivo would go. He told me he wants to ask about carrying equipment for the slayers. Apparently, you can start with that and get proper training later."
"Is that why he keeps cleaning his shoes?"
Nadir laughed. "Probably. He was brushing them before breakfast. They were filthy again by noon."
"You could make them white."
"I'd rather he kept speaking to me."
Henry smiled. Nadir noticed, but continued arranging the patch against his sleeve.
"I'm going to buy boots," he said. "That's all I want out of tomorrow. Two that fit and stay attached to their soles. I asked at the second-hand shop, and the woman there said she'd put a pair aside until the end of the week."
"Do you want to work there again?"
"At the receiving yard? If the pay stays the same. I don't particularly care what they keep in it, provided somebody else makes sure it's dead." He looked toward the door, where Ivo's clean shoes stood beneath a peg. "I'd like a regular place somewhere. Besson can tell us to go home whenever there's nothing to do. A workshop would be better. They could teach me something while I worked."
Henry had thought very little about what came after the next day's streets. Until recently, the weeks had been measured by what his family could afford at the end of them. He had expected that to continue for years.
"I don't know what I'd do," he said.
"You don't have to decide tonight." Nadir folded the cloth around the cuff. "Would you hold this while I put the first stitch in? Mrs. Vautrin lent me a needle, and she'll want it back before she goes to bed."
Henry held the patch against the sleeve. Nadir sewed slowly, drawing each stitch tight before beginning the next. They talked about the shops that sometimes hired children, and the ones that made them wait until evening before admitting there was no work.
By the time the cuff was finished, the blue patch was still visibly blue. Nadir put the coat on anyway.
The next morning, Henry went to the market alone.
It was familiar work. He cleared the passage, swept beneath the empty stalls, and moved aside when the first deliveries arrived. The drain remained open. When the cloth seller began putting a basket across it, Henry pointed with his broom. The man grumbled, but moved it elsewhere.
There was less to do without the heavy clearing. Henry finished before noon and sat beside the water trough to eat the bread he had brought.
He had often eaten there before. Across the square, a shopkeeper was hanging bright lengths of fabric from a pole. The wind kept folding one over another, hiding a yellow strip beneath a length of red. Henry watched him straighten it three times before giving up.
Nadir would have had something to say about that.
Henry finished his bread and went to find Besson.
At the receiving yard, Ivo had been rehearsing his question since morning.
The woman in charge was called Mrs. Aksoy. She wore an apron over her coat and carried a pencil behind one ear. She had shown the boys where to leave the rubbish, which channels to wash, and which doors they were not to open. After that, she had largely left them alone.
Beyond a roofed passage, older workers unloaded carts into a long stone building. Some carried ordinary supplies: lamp oil, folded canvas, bundles of straps. Others went through a separate entrance beneath a red board.
Ivo had picked out one word on it.
Awakened.
The rank above Feral. He wondered whether there was something of that rank inside, but the door remained closed, and nobody offered to show him.
Nadir was more interested in the other workers. He had learned where they ate, who paid them, and that the yard's cook gave away the broken biscuits from the bottom of the tins. By the afternoon, he had acquired three and saved one for Henry.
Ivo waited until their tools were washed and stacked before approaching Mrs. Aksoy.
"Besson said you might need boys more often. I wanted to ask whether any of the slayers are looking for somebody to carry equipment."
She finished checking the rubbish cart before answering.
"Occasionally. Most bring their own people. What can you do?"
Ivo explained [Grip], including its level. He had considered showing her on the yard wall, but she was looking directly at him, and climbing away halfway through the conversation seemed foolish.
"I've helped kill a Feral," he added. "My father did most of it, but I didn't run away. I'd be willing to learn whatever they needed."
Mrs. Aksoy nodded. "Can you read?"
"Some."
She reached into her apron and took out a folded slip.
"Tell me where this delivery goes."
Ivo opened it. He recognized south, and a number. There were two names beneath that, one crossed out. The rest was written in a cramped hand, with several words joined together.
"The south gate," he said.
"Which entrance?"
He searched the lines again.
Mrs. Aksoy gave him time. That made it harder. He would have preferred her to take the paper back at once.
"I can't read the writing," he admitted.
"You'll get worse than this in the field. If someone asks you to fetch dressings and you come back with the wrong packet, being able to cling to a wall won't help them." Her tone was matter-of-fact. "It's useful to have a talent. You also need to understand orders when the person who wrote them isn't standing beside you."
Ivo folded the slip along its old crease.
"Do you only take boys who've been to school?"
"I take boys who can do the work. School is one way of learning." She pointed toward the storeroom. "There may be work in there next week, sorting returns. If you can read the labels and keep a count, you can put your name down. After that, somebody might be willing to recommend you."
Nadir had come over while they were speaking. At Mrs. Aksoy's request, he read the slip aloud, stumbling once over a surname. He then read the entrance instructions, including the change beneath the crossed-out name.
"You can come back on the first day of next week," she told him. "In the morning. I'll speak to Besson about it."
Ivo watched her write Nadir's name in a book.
"Could I keep the paper?" he asked.
Mrs. Aksoy looked up. "It's an old delivery. You can have it."
He put it carefully inside his coat.
When the boys returned, Henry was in the orphanage yard helping to take down the washing. Nadir came through the gate with the air of somebody who had several things to announce and could not decide which to say first.
"There were three buildings," he began. "We only worked in the first yard, but you should have seen the carts. One had wheels as tall as my shoulder. They use it for the heavy ones, apparently. Oh, and I brought you something."
He produced the biscuit. It had broken again in his pocket.
Henry took the pieces while Nadir described the receiving yard. He asked about the red board, but Nadir had seen no more of the building behind it than Ivo had. Neither could say what the higher-ranked creatures looked like.
"I'm going back next week," Nadir added. "For a trial in the stores. She hasn't promised anything after that, but it pays better than sweeping, even at the ordinary rate."
Henry glanced toward Ivo. He had gone inside without stopping.
"Is he going too?"
"Not yet. You have to read the labels."
They carried the dry sheets into the house. As they passed the office, Ivo's voice came through the open door.
"I can read printed words. It's the writing I have trouble with."
Mrs. Vautrin was seated at her desk, the delivery slip spread before her. Ivo stood opposite, one hand braced against the chair he had declined to sit in.
"Then we'll start with the writing," she said. "I've told you before that you can join the younger ones when they have their reading."
"They sound out letters. I can do that already."
"Some of them are past it now. You haven't been to see."
Henry slowed. Ivo saw him through the doorway and straightened.
"I don't need to learn all of it. I just need to read things like this."
Mrs. Vautrin took a small book from the shelf behind her.
"This has examples of letters and receipts. You can use it at the table after supper. Bring me anything you can't work out, and I'll go through it with you when the little ones are in bed."
She opened the book. Henry could see lines of neat script arranged beneath printed headings. He could read signs and familiar names well enough, but he doubted he would have done much better with the slip than Ivo.
"Could I have a look at it too?" he asked.
Ivo's hand closed on the back of the chair.
"I asked for it first."
"You can both use it," Mrs. Vautrin said. "The table is quite large."
Henry carried the sheets away before Ivo could object again.
After supper, he found the book at one end of the dining table. Ivo had already opened it, placing the delivery slip beside the first page. He looked up when Henry sat down, then moved the lamp into the space between them.
Nadir joined them a little later. He listened as they worked through the first line, and when Ivo asked him to read a word, he leaned over the book to look.