Chapter 46. Orla’s Quiet

“Open,” said the old woman, and tapped my front teeth with a bone spoon as if I were a child in need of an herb that would both cure and punish.

It was still morning. Dawn hadn’t finished deciding whether to forgive the city for being itself. Orla had decided. She was not in the forgiving business.

“You look like a broom,” I said around the spoon.

“And you look like a vow that forgot to eat,” Orla replied. “Teeth?”

“A winter’s worth of ache,” I said.

“Good,” she said, as if I’d told her I’d finished my vegetables. “Cold tells you where the work went.”

We sat in a cellar under a chapel that had learned humility. Orla’s hair was a cloud of white spun into a knot with a ribbon faded to the color of old parchment. Lines had been carved around her eyes by laughter she didn’t loan easily. Her hands were nimble and stained, because anybody who gives firm advice should also own dirty fingernails.

“You’ve been holding power like a fist,” she said, ru