Who still talks that way nowadays? Merrigan wondered.
A merchant's apprentice who reads the histories and studies how people think? Bib responded after a moment of thought. This is someone who isn't what he seems. Besides yourself, of course.
Oh, really? I hadn't noticed.
The magic book laughed, his pages vibrating enough to buzz through the bag where he pressed against Merrigan's hip.
The warehouse had been divided into smaller compartments. The massive tiers of shelves had been turned into beds. Scores of beds, each enclosed with boards and blankets for privacy and warmth. The beds, Merrigan soon learned, were filled with children. The shelves were high enough apart from each other, in effect each child had a small room of his or her own.
Aubrey was helping a dozen other people run an orphanage.
"You ..." Merrigan swallowed down the ridiculous accusation she was about to make, that Aubrey was going to let her stay there as an orphan. Maybe before Clara's spell she could have passed for eighteen, but certainly not now. "You want me to make clothes for the children, in exchange for shelter?"
Actually, it was a very kind offer. The young man had just lost the position he had probably spent his life working toward. How many other merchants in the city would take him on, after Master Gilbrick had expelled him? Yet despite this massive loss, the shock it had to be for him, he offered to help her.
"I hope if the children take to you, maybe you will become a teacher. Train the girls to become seamstresses. Who knows? Maybe if enough children are skilled enough, we could set up a shop here—" He grinned and gestured back into the shadowy depths of the warehouse, beyond the long line of lanterns hanging from poles on the shelves. "We certainly have enough room. If we could find several ways for the children to support themselves, we wouldn't have to depend on charity." The pleased, eager expression that made his face almost handsome faded into weariness and a type of frustration Merrigan knew all too well from personal experience. "Sometimes, I feel like we're invisible."
"So you want me to take on apprentices, so to speak?" She nodded, turning the idea over in her head. "I could do that."
At least she wouldn't be required to wash little hands and faces, change diapers, cook, or clean up after the ranks of children she saw scurrying around, attending to chores. She met the adults who acted as foster parents, overseeing cooking and cleaning and washing and mending, tending the ill and providing schooling. Some of these people were well-educated and displayed good deportment, erasing a fear of Merrigan's that this would turn out to be one of those horrid places that pretended to help the helpless and destitute, then used them for nefarious purposes.
Within an hour of walking into the orphanage, Merrigan decided the children were being taken care of very well. They were all neatly dressed, clean, and even if the food wasn't plentiful, no one was starving. As she watched, thirty or so children settled down at the long rows of trestle tables, pulling out slates and chalk and books. If they weren't so shabby, she could have compared it to her schoolroom in her father's palace, where the children of nobles joined her and her siblings for the best education possible.
An older man, who had been working over the massive kettles of soup for their supper, stepped up in front of the long rows of tables with a book open in his hands. The children raised their heads and quieted. Merrigan was impressed to see many of them even looked interested in what the man was about to say.
"Is he a teacher as well as a cook?"
"Nasius was one of the premier lecturers at the university in Krackenfranq," Aubrey said, lowering his voice and gesturing for her to follow him. "They let him go because they have some ridiculous idea that old things aren't as worthwhile as new things."
"He doesn't look all that old to me."
"Hmm, no. And he was let go five years ago. The new leaders of the university decided to rid out the library, and he protested them tossing out books that were more than one hundred years old." He grinned when Merrigan let out an involuntary cry of horror. "They were considered too old to be relevant."
"Krackenfranq has always been a nation of elitist idiots who want to be at the leading edge of any innovation. The only leading edge they have ever attained is stupidity, and the scorn of all their neighbors. My father only allowed their ambassador to speak to him for two hours at a time, once each moon." Merrigan froze, stunned at what she had let slip past her lips.
"I thought I recognized a touch of ..." Aubrey patted her shoulder. "We all have burdens and curses to bear. Some of us are cursed with invisibility and obscurity. Somehow, being invisible makes it easier for us to see everyone else, and to see more clearly. Mistress Mara, we would be honored if you would share your skills and help us give these children some hope for a better future."
"Thank you. Yes." She thought of the regimentation Gilbrick employed in his warehouse. There was something frightening in all the uniformity. Merrigan decided she much preferred the shabby, make-do conditions of this warehouse full of children who had been cast off. So many of them likely had minds and skills quite as good as the other children their age in the city, able to pursue an education to become scholars and diplomats, soldiers and artisans, merchants, wherever their skills led them. The only thing that stopped Aubrey's orphans was the lack of parents to arrange for apprenticeships, and funds to
