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.Dust specks and dirty air polluted what sunlight made it inside the old jail.The bits of abandonment floated smoothly, silently, stirred only by Rector’s presence.His foot kicked against something that clinked.When he looked down, he saw the jailer’s key ring, cracked and crumbled almost to dust.It’d been discarded by the door and forgotten for almost as long as Rector had been alive, but it was a token.A relic more than an artifact.He picked it up because it seemed rude to leave it.Maybe he’d give it to Zeke.Maybe he’d put it on a saint’s card.“He’s gone.”Rector whirled around.He knew the voice, but it nearly stopped his heart since he’d thought he was alone.“I know the inexplicable’s gone.Me and Zeke took it outside yesterday.What are you doing here, Miss Angeline?”She leaned against a brick support post, arms folded and gas mask showing nothing but her eyes.She wore what she always wore: menswear that had been tailored down to fit her.Her silver hair was braided and coiled back, and today it was mostly covered by a scarf, except where snowy tendrils peeked out around her ears.Rector looked back and forth between the woman and the empty cell.“Where are Zeke and Houjin?” she asked.“Still in bed, I expect.”“Everyone’s had an exciting couple of days.Some more than others.But I’m glad you boys are all just fine.I’d have felt pretty bad if any of you’d gotten hurt.I’d feel responsible, a little bit.”“Why’s that?”“I was the one who helped you learn your way about, and roped you into helping with the sasquatch.I urged you to poke your noses around the tower.Everything worked out for the best, I reckon, but even so, you don’t want anyone to get shot up over it.”Rector had been wondering something, though it only just then sprang to his mind.And since the princess was standing right there, he went ahead and asked.“Where were you that night at the tower, Miss Angeline? I didn’t see you anyplace, once the fighting got started.” Quickly, he amended the question to include, “I’m not accusing you of chickening out or nothing—’cause I’m real sure you didn’t.Or wouldn’t.I just didn’t see you, that’s all.”She smiled inside the mask, her eyes crinkling up tight.“Funny thing about being an old lady … sometimes, it’s like being invisible.I was there, honey.Trust me on that one.And I saw you and Zeke up on the old governor’s mansion.You two did a real good job.”“Thank you, ma’am.” He figured he wouldn’t get a straighter answer out of her, so he didn’t press for one.It was easier to change the subject.“Where do you think the sasquatch went, once he got outside the wall? Do you think he’ll be all right?”“Where’d he go?” She unfolded her arms.She stepped forward and came to stand beside Rector, staring into the empty cell right along with him.“If you forced me to give you my best guess, I’d say he had a long nap and woke up feeling better—feeling clearer, and stronger.I’d say he pulled off the mask, or his lady friend pulled it off him.He’ll have to eat and drink.One of ’em will take care of it.”“You think they’re that smart?”“I think instinct is an interesting thing, for all the things it can tell a body.What are your instincts telling you, these days?”He frowned at her.“What?”“You heard me.What do your instincts say about being here, staying here? You going to hang around the Vaults, or go to the Station? You going to stay inside Seattle, or seek your fortune someplace else?”“I’m gonna…”He thought of his small room in the Vaults, not unlike the room he’d had in the orphanage a few weeks before.He considered the Station and Yaozu and Bishop, and Zeke and Houjin, and earning an honest living or a dishonest one, but earning something, somewhere.“It looks like you folks need a few good men around here.”“We do,” she replied too solemnly to imply anything.“The place is falling apart.Yaozu’s got money, but not as many people as he needs.And those docks—the ones the captain’s setting up at Decatur—he’ll need people to man them.The patch job where the wall’s broke—what’d they use, canvas? That won’t hold anything, and it’ll take a lot of fellows a few weeks to fix it, at least.Never mind all the tunnels falling down and the buildings rotting where they stand, if they still stand.There are jobs in here, that’s all I’m sayin’.And there aren’t any jobs out there, in the Outskirts.Not for someone like me, unless I want to go back to selling.” He said it offhandedly, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to him.Angeline went ahead and asked.“Do you want to go back to selling?”Why lie? “Yeah, I do.It’s easy, and everyone’s always happy to see me.”“But?”“But,” he paused.“I can’t handle the sap anymore.That’s not to say I don’t want it, but I know I can’t have it.It’ll kill me.”Which didn’t stop him from promising himself, in the back of his head, that next year, on the anniversary of leaving the orphanage, he’d treat himself.On his birthday, he was allowed; that’s what he’d decided.That was the only thing that held his cravings at bay, the prospect that this lull was only temporary and it couldn’t possibly last.He hoped maybe he’d be strong enough, come next birthday, to put off any indulgence until the birthday after that … and then the birthday after that.Each year it might get easier, or it might not.But for now … for now he needed to think.He needed to figure things out.He’d resolved to survive another year, and he’d need his brain if he wanted to make that work.So.Yes.Just for now.No more sap.Not until next year.Next year he’d give it a shot, or he wouldn’t.Next year he’d start seeing ghosts again, or they’d leave him alone.Next year, maybe he’d have a better idea of what he wanted, or where he wanted to be, and what he wanted to do.But for now …EpilogueMercy Lynch adjusted the electric lantern, propping it atop a stack of weathered, damp-swollen books.The light burned brightly across the desk in her office, in her clinic, in her city; it spilled across her hands, and it cast weird shadows across the woman who stood behind her, overseeing her progress.Mercy frowned at the paper and tapped her pen’s nib into the inkwell.“Miss Angeline, how do you spell your name? I’ve got the first part, but I don’t know about your daddy’s.”“You could just spell it ‘Seattle’ if you want to.”“I’d rather do it right.”Angeline smiled, and patted the younger woman’s shoulder.“You don’t have the letters for it, not in English.But when I write it down for white folks, I do it like this…” she said, taking a pencil nub and scratching Sealth on the nearest scrap of unused paper.“And that’s close enough.”“Thank you, ma’am.That’ll work just fine.And thank you for keeping an eye on that redheaded boy.”“Somebody had to do it.”“I’m glad it was you
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