“Widowed,” she said. “It’s Mrs. Lynch if you like, or Mercy if you can’t be bothered.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Cly. I have a ship, and I swing through every now and again. If you ever need anything, you can let me know, and I’ll try to pick it up for you.”

“Thank you for the offer. I’ll likely take you up on it one of these days.” She used the back of her hand to shove a stray bit of hair out of her face. Her locks were lighter than Jeremiah’s, on the dark side of blond and worn in a braid that was knotted at the back of her neck. Even though she was seated, Cly could see that there was something of her father in her shape. She was too sturdy to be called slender, and her strong, straight shoulders were a direct inheritance.

Zeke made a muffled umph noise when she dived back in with the needle, stitching a long, jagged gash with swift, sure strokes. He said, “Sorry.”

Mercy said, “You’re doing just fine. I’ve seen bigger, older men be worse babies than you by a long shot.” It was probably true. Before coming to Seattle at her father’s behest, she’d worked in a Richmond hospital, patching up wounded veterans.

Zeke knew this, and he said between gasps, “I could be a soldier, you know.”

“What are you now, sixteen or seventeen?”

“Sixteen.”

She nodded, and squinted. “Old enough,” she said, but something in her tone suggested she’d seen younger. “I don’t recommend it, though.”

“I ain’t looking to join up,” Zeke assured her, then bit back another yelp.

Cly noted that Zeke’s mother was not present, but he assumed she’d return before long. He went over to a seat — in the form of an old church pew someone had hauled down to the underground — and made himself comfortable. Swakhammer joined him. Between the pair of them, they occupied almost half of it.

“It’s just as well you’re not interested in fighting,” Cly told the boy. “You’d give your momma a fit.”

Zeke gave a pained laugh that ended in a gulp. “Shit, Captain. You know her. She’d probably sign up and come to war after me.”

“I do admit, there is a precedent,” he said. He leaned back and made a halfhearted effort to get comfortable. “What happened to you, anyway? And where’s your partner in crime?”

Mercy answered the second question before Zeke could unclench his jaw again to answer the first. “Houjin went back to Dr. Wong’s to pick up some balm for the bruising that’s going to come with this cut. Mostly I needed him out from underfoot. He was hovering like a hen.”

“Feeling guilty,” Zeke mumbled. “He’s the one who dared me.”

“Dared you to what?” asked Cly.

Zeke sighed, a ragged sound that was drawn in time to the needle threading through his skin. He craned his head around to look at the men on the pew, giving himself an excuse not to watch what was happening to his leg. “We went hiking up the hill, where there aren’t so many rotters. Hardly any of them, really. But there are a lot of big houses, where the merchants and sawmill fellows used to live — and Houjin said some of them hadn’t been bothered since the blight.”

Swakhammer shook his head. “I find that unlikely.”

“You never know,” the boy replied, a hint of his opportunistic optimism shining through even now. “And even if someone had already gotten inside, people miss things. So we thought we’d go take a look.”

Mercy murmured, “And how’d that work out for you?”

“We found a whole drawer full of viewing glass.” He referred to glass that had been polarized, so even trace amounts of blight gas could be detected. This glass was helpful to have around for the sake of detecting leaks, but it was worthless aboveground — given that the gas was absolutely everywhere. “And we found some canvas, a whole bunch of it folded up inside a wagon.”

“Would this be the same wagon you fell through?” Mercy asked.

“I thought it’d hold! It was one of the old covered kind, abandoned back behind a real tall house near the wall’s east edge. Someone had been using it to store junk, but junk is sometimes useful. Houjin said he wouldn’t climb inside it, and I said he was chicken. So he dared me to do it instead, and I did. But the floor didn’t hold, and—” He gestured at his leg without peeking at Mercy’s activities.

The nurse paused and reached for a rag inside a bowl of water. She wrung it out with one hand and wiped at the wounds, which had mostly stopped bleeding. “And congratulations, fearless explorer. For your reward, you get thirty stitches.” She lifted his leg by the ankle and turned it over to get a better look at his calf. “Maybe more than that.”

He groaned. “My mother says she’s going to kill me, but she’ll wait until I can run again, so I can have a head start.”

“Mighty generous of her,” the captain said. “Considering all the times she’s told you not to go exploring on the hill.”

“Exploring on the hill by myself. I wasn’t by myself. Momma said I was obeying the letter of the law, but not the spirit. Apparently that ain’t good enough.”

“Speaking of your mother, where’s she at?” Cly said with all the nonchalance he could muster. “I thought she’d be here, pacing around you.”

From the doorway, Briar Wilkes responded. “I went to hit up the bottommost storage room, looking for a pair of pants no one wanted so I could cut off one of the legs.” She held up a pair of Levi’s that had probably once belonged to a logger. “They’ll swim on you, so you’ll have to belt ’em. But I don’t think anyone will miss these things, and if anybody does, he can take it up with me. Hello, Jeremiah.”

Andan Cly stood up, but Swakhammer only nodded in her direction. He figured she wouldn’t begrudge him the gesture, since his leg was still on the mend. But the captain couldn’t stop himself, and didn’t try.

“Weren’t you down here just last week?”

“It’s a slow season, and I felt like coming back.”

“You must be the strangest man alive,” she teased.

“Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just looking for the company of my own kind.” He smiled, and since he was up, wandered over to Zeke’s leg to take a look at the damage. The boy’s skin was snagged and torn, but his muscles were intact, and Mercy Lynch was a formidable seamstress.

Zeke winced as the curved needle dipped again, and shuddered as the thread slipped through his skin.

Cly said, “Before long, you’ll have one hell of a scar to show off. Girls love scars.”

“They do?”

“They’re always a conversation-starter.”

“I just bet they are.” Briar only half stifled her smile as she added, “Except, come to think of it, I don’t believe we’ve ever heard any stories about your scars. I assume you have some, somewhere.”

Cly tried not to look at her and mostly failed, his gaze darting back and forth between the morbid sight of Zeke’s mangled leg and the petite, curly-haired object of his truer interest. “None of mine are very interesting.”

“I find that difficult to believe,” she pressed. Her eyes followed him as he shuffled from foot to foot.

“Captain,” Mercy Lynch said sharply. “You’re standing in my light. Am I going to have to send you errand-running like your junior crew member?”

“Um—”

Before he could form a smarter reply, the nurse declared, “All of y’all, this is silly. I don’t need an audience, and neither does my patient. Everybody out, except you, Miz Wilkes, if you’d care to stay and look after him.”

“Funny thing is, I don’t care to,” she said. She brought the pants over to Zeke, who stretched out his hand and took them. “I’m glad he’s all right, and I’m glad you’re here to take care of him — but I’m still none too pleased with him, and anyway I don’t think he needs the comforting.”

“I could use a shot of whiskey,” Zeke tried, because hope springs eternal.

“You could use a boot to the rear end, but you’re not going to get that, either. Yet.”