Dove opened her eyes so fast that the wooden stall vanished before she could touch it. Kael stood beside the cot, holding the cup she had nearly dropped.
"You stopped answering," he said. "Were you dizzy?"
"Mostly tired. Apparently dying outside really takes it out of a girl."
He did not laugh, and she was too worn out to make the lie prettier. Once he had checked her and moved away, she asked Sprout what had happened. The answer arrived inside her head, mercifully quieter than its usual sales pitch.
"Your mind entered the space. Your body remained on the cot. You may leave by choosing to return. Outside time continues normally."
So her secret refuge came with an abandoned woman attached. Brilliant. She could own a whole imaginary shop and still get robbed while browsing it.
She waited until Kael was busy with the coughing patient, then tried again for a few seconds. Blue water filled a round pool beside the wooden counter. Empty shelves lined the wall, and a little basin rested on the edge.
"Healing, calming, or strengthening intent can be applied while drawing the water," Sprout said. "The pool replenishes. Containers and external delivery require your participation."
"Can it bring back a dead retail worker’s entire life?"
"That service is unavailable."
She returned before Kael noticed another silence and held the blanket tighter. The water could wait until she had somewhere private to use it. There was nothing inside her head that could make this cot her own bed.
Morning brought thick socks, worn slippers, and feet that complained but supported her. Kael gave her a bowl of oatmeal with dried fruit before checking the scrape on her palm. Supplies filled the shelves behind him, including sealed bandages and bottles with printed labels. Three months had wrecked the roads without erasing everything that had been on them.
Beyond the clinic, men carried cans toward a storeroom while others ate beside a broad fire pit. Dove counted ears, tails, and a truly offensive number of shoulders. She had seen more women in a men’s restroom after a broken lock.
"Where are the women?" she asked Kael. "Please don’t tell me they’re somewhere doing all the laundry."
He looked at her carefully. "Mostly in their rooms. There are four in the Warren, including you."
She waited for the rest of that sentence. When it failed to arrive, she asked how many men lived here.
"Four hundred and eighty adults. Six orphaned cubs as well, one of them a girl."
Dove nearly caught her slipper on a crack. Four females, and one was a child. Suddenly the staring made a horrible kind of sense.
"Women were rare before the freeze," Kael continued. "Many didn’t survive it. We protect the ones who did, whatever their age."
"Protect covers a lot of ground. Does it include deciding when we can use the bathroom?"
"It includes an escort near the outer passages. Ask about a route before you take it."
At the hall entrance, an elderly woman passed with a shawl around her shoulders and two adult males beside her. One carried a tray; the other held the passage curtain clear. Farther down, an open door showed a mattress, a lamp, folded quilts, and someone setting a cup beside another woman’s chair.
Those women had rooms. Comfortable rooms, judging by the pillows. Dove could practically feel a door handle in her hand, and she wanted it badly enough to resent the wanting.
A man looked up as she passed. His gaze caught on her white hair, followed it to her face, and stayed there until recognition changed his expression. He moved his coat off the empty bench and put it straight back again.
Near him, a small boy with brown ears pulled his blanket against his chest. Dove stopped before approaching, because the way he watched her was nothing like the way the men did.
"What did I do?" she asked softly.
Kael waited until they had moved farther away. "You told him his mother left because she didn’t want him. She died. I was there afterward."
Dove looked at the floor. The sharp reply she usually found had gone missing, leaving her with a child’s frightened face and nothing she could safely offer him.
"I won’t go near him," she said. "Not unless he wants me to."
Kael studied her again, then left when someone called from the clinic. Ash arrived before Dove had decided where to put herself. At close range, the old scars across his pale chest looked even harsher beneath his open collar. He had the sort of face a woman might ruin her judgment over, provided he never spoke.
"Your room is ready," he said. "The guard goes with you when you leave that passage."
"I’m going to work. I need somewhere people can find me."
"You have food, bedding, and protection. What are you performing for?"
The question hit harder because she had briefly thought he might ask what work she meant. "Myself. I’d like something that belongs to me without checking whether the owner is in a generous mood."
Three irritation coins brought her balance to twenty-three. Sprout suggested sustained contact. Dove mentally suggested sustained unemployment for Sprout.
She pointed toward an empty recess beside the wash passage. "That has walls and a warm pipe. I could put a counter across the front and sleep behind it. People already trade. They just waste half the day finding each other."
Ash glanced at the space. "You don’t get common stock to play shopkeeper."
"Then don’t give me common stock. Give me terms."
Sprout opened a Day Two quest: mark a stall and complete one barter. Accepting provided three soap bars and six cloths; completion paid fifty coins. She left it waiting while Ash stared at her as if effort itself was suspicious.
"You choose that recess, you live with the noise," he said. "Varek records the boundary. Keep the passage clear, and the watch still checks on you. This doesn’t release you from questions about where you’ve been."
Dove looked at the bare concrete, the pipe, and the space where she could fit a bed without asking anyone to want her nearby.
Then Sprout added a smaller notice beneath the quest: "Your new business requires a supplier. What will you tell them when they ask where the stock came from?"