“There’s nervous, and then there’s me.”
“Okay.” Viv rolled her eyes. “We don’t think less of you for being you, how’s that?”
Micah looked from Viv to Sasha. “I don’t understand either of you. None of this makes sense.”
“Look, I just had to deal with stories about mirror people who apparently hate me personally,” Viv said. “We all make more sense than that. Come with me to the weaving room, and we can use this cloth Nan brought to make you some more clothes. I need a distraction.”
“I could make the boat for your nephew,” Micah said, “if I had some wood, and cloth, and something to seal it so it doesn’t rot in the water.”
“I can get you all those things.” Sasha beamed. “You want clay, too? I can get you clay. I remember Zev saying half the shit you made was clay, and we have caves full of it.”
A tiny spark of hope lit in Micah’s chest. “Do you have a kiln? Or a glass oven?”
“I mean, there’s gotta be one somewhere in the Compound. There’s a glassmaker in the White family. Bet I can make your own oven if you tell me how, though.”
“It’d take up too much space,” Micah protested, but Sasha was already on his way out the door, grabbing a bag from a hook on the wall. Viv sighed and turned to Micah.
“Come on. Let him be useful. It’ll give me time to dress you.”
Micah sighed, still too jittery to say all the words that were rattling around in his head, and followed Viv into the weaving room.
* * *
It was best not to dwell on it.
Viv jabbed a pin through the blue-and-green coat Micah was awkwardly modeling. He looked nice in robes, so she let the coat extend a little past what was fashionable for men in the Compound. It wasn’t like he minded, based on how he kept running his hands over the fabric when he was supposed to stay still, and whyshouldn’tmen dress the way Viv liked, for once?
Theyweren’t being chased by mirror people.
Not that she was dwelling on it. She wasn’t. It didn’t matter if there was some fairy-tale villain scuttling around wearing her face. It would be winter soon, and that thing could freeze in the snow for all she cared.
“You’re afraid of it, aren’t you?”
Viv shot Micah a withering look, but Micah stared back at her, blinking slowly. She brandished a pin at him. “Don’t antagonize the tailor.”
“I wouldn’t. I just want you to know it’s all right to be scared. You have a reason for it.”
“And you don’t?” Viv gestured for him to unbutton the coat, and Micah took it off gingerly, as though it were made of spiderweb. Viv sat down with the fabric over her lap. “Fetch me a needle and the spool of blue thread.”
“You’re bossing again.” Micah found the thread regardless, and he sat down on the floor in front of her, letting the rest of the material drape over his knees. “I can take the other side. I sew clothes for the dolls, so I know how.”
Viv handed him the spool, then hunched over her own set of seams. “I don’t know how to feel, to be honest. If this thing is real—and Sasha isn’t given to flights of fancy, not about something like this—why would it go after me? Because I’m a witch? But you are, too, and nothing’s happened to you. And why now? I don’t like questions I can’t answer. I don’t like worrying about what will happen if I leave the house… even if I don’t, much, these days.”
Micah was sewing quickly, capably, frowning at the seam as he stitched it closed. “You’ve been sick.”
“Since I was a child, yes. I fell sick one day, and I never fully recovered. It was awful—they said my siblings died of the same thing. When it comes back, which it does, it’s the fever that’s dangerous.”
“And you’re scared of that, too.”
Viv glanced at him, but he was still looking down at the coat. “It’s been worse, lately. I don’t know how I broke the fever last time. Any attempt at healing myself falls flat.”
Micah must have guessed what it took for Viv to say that. Her failing health was always an unspoken subject between herself and Sasha, a looming wave ready to crash over their lives at any moment. But now that there was a tangible threat, something external she could shout down instead of her own body, she realized she didn’t want to go quietly that winter. She didn’t want to leave Sasha alone. She didn’t want any of it.
“Wait.”
Viv glared at Micah, her vision blurry, as he got to his feet. He pulled at his sleeve and leaned over to wipe her eyes, and Viv let out something that was more of a sob than a laugh. He kept brushing at her cheeks, softly, like he wasn’t sure he was doing it right, and then the coat was on the floor and he was holding her, rocking back and forth.
“I can help you,” he said. “I think. My book, it has recipes for the lungs, for the stomach. For the heart. For the blood.”
