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Rector "Wreck’e Grace Home for Orphans the week it opened, on February 9, 1864 His precise age was undetermined, but estiry, and shoeless, wearing nothing on his feet except a pair of wool socks soly knitted for him before the city went to hell Whether she had been randmother, no one knew and no one ever learned; but the child’s vivid red hair, pearl white skin, and early suggestions of freckles ily that he was no relation to the Duwaht hi with another child who did not survive the month Her own name was lost to history, or it was lost to incomplete records only sometimes kept in the wake of the Boneshaker catastrophe

The little boy who lived, the one with hair the color of freshly cut carrots, was handed over to a nun with eyes too sad for soe for someone so small The native woman who toted Rector told her only his name, and that "There is no one left to love him I do not know this other boy, or what he is called I found hi tiesture or make any sound at all, except to cry When he did, it was a strange cry--all the nuns agreed, and nodded their accord sadly, as though so sob like the desolate summons of a baby owl And when the dark-haired boy who’d been his circu, or typhoid, or cholera, or whatever else ravaged the surviving population that week … Rector stopped crying as well

He grew into a pallid, gangly thing, skinny like ees At first, people in the Outskirts had bartered for what they could and took ships and airships out into the Sound to fish; but within six row near the abandoned city And many of the children--the ones like Rector, lost and recovered--were stunted by the taint of what had happened They were halted, slowed, or twisted by the very air they’d breathed when they were still young enough to be shaped by such things

All in all, Rector’s teenage condition could’ve been worse

He could’ve had legs of uneven lengths, or eyes without whites--only yellows Heht’ve had far too ht have turned as his height overtook hi with tre in pain

But there was nothing wrong with him on the outside

And therefore, able-bodied and quick-minded (if sometimes mean, and sometimes accused of petty criminal acts), he was expected to become a man and support himself Either he could join the church and take up the ministry--which no one expected, or even, frankly, wanted--or he could trudge across the mud flats and take up a job in the nemill (if he was lucky) or at the orks plant (if he was not) Regardless, tie unknown, but certainly--by now--at least eighteen years

And that o

Today

So before breakfast--the time at which he would be required to vacate the premises--Rector awoke as he usually did: confused and cold, and with an aching head, and absolutely everything hurting

Everything often hurt, so he had taken to soothing the pain with the aid of sap, which would bring on another pain and call for a stronger dose And when it had all cycled through hiish, when there was nothing else to stihtmares … he woke up And he wantedeven the astonishing fact that he had no idea where he was going to sleep the next night, or hoas going to feed himself after breakfast

He lay still for a full , sla hiccup of discomfort, was an old friend His hours stuttered They stammered, repeated themselves, and left hi for more, even when there wasn’t any

Downstairs in the corandfather clock chi his head off the pillow AIt o o’clock in the , so he had five hours left before the nuns would feed hihts radually churned at a ether He listened over the thudding, dull bang of his heart and detected two sets of snores, one slu mumble, and the low, steady breaths of a deep, silent sleeper

Five boys to a room He was the oldest

And he was the last one present who’d been orphaned by the Blight Everyone else frorown up andelse by now--everyone but Rector, who had done his noble best to refuse adulthood or die beforeit, whichever was easier

He whispered to the ceiling, "One oddammit, he was still alive

In the back of his mind, a shadow shook It wavered across his vision, a flash of darkness shaped like soone He blinked to banish it, but failed at that, too

It hovered at the far edge of what he could see, as opposed to what he couldn’t