Day three. In the morning fog my knees ache from shaking, and a tightness clings to the space between my neck and my back. My hands quiver as I trace the brush down my cheekbone, blending dark face paint into my skin, and I can barely tell in the glistening gemstone I have for a mirror if it is blended in all the way.

I arrange the bottles and brushes in their green bag, tighten the cord and hide them by the skeleton cook's hip. The food I bought yesterday lies hidden near the opposite collar bone. The egg stands splattered with mud, beside the bone toes, pretending to be a stone like all the other stones in the fake burial mound.

Even though it's not.

That heartbeat inside has gone softer, like a call for help answered. But I don't even know what it holds, what help it thinks I'm giving it, aside from dragging it out of the snow. Out of the snow, into the mud, into these deadly hands.

Boots crusted, I trek down the hill. And it begins raining, for real, fat drops like liquid rocks that I savor soaking into my skin. I didn't bring the cloak. So the face paint will probably be ruined, trails of wood brown and dark cream melting off my skin. Like rain-repelling face paint doesn't even exist.

I glance back up the hill--should I have brought the egg? No, it is too visible. In this city. With a meat plague, surviving everywhere but in the travelers' camp, in cold storage boxes and on kitchen tables and coming out of many, many stomachs.

Oh. Those senses recoil back into myself. If the meat in the city is diseased, but not in the travelers' camp, the city people will probably blame them for their problems. I nearly rub my hands up my cheeks. Run them through my damp hair instead. I've done a terrible thing, haven't I?

I've done a terrible thing, and there's nothing I can do about it now.

***

Oh heart. Oh, heart. Just push it into the past. It's in the past.

The first time you went to a city, as a child, people were dying. Some disease carried in by the trading boats. Bodies lay in the streets, blood dripping from their mouths, some still weakly coughing. You hardly dared breathe from the way you could sense it in the air, drifting on wind gusts but never flying far.

Until Tulimaq nudged your shoulder. You jumped, inhaling accidentally. "It's okay." He pointed at the air. Even though it wasn't something you could see. Or point at, really. "They know we're friends," he whispered.

The realization came before then, but you'd refused to acknowledge it. You wouldn't have kept walking through the streets if you knew the disease was going to attack you too. Another warm body wracked into coughs, and you shut your eyes, sighing. "What if I don't want to be friends with a lung-devouring disease?" you whispered.

Tulimaq reached for your arm. "At least it comes with good perks."

You let him tug you through the streets, avoiding...piles. The number of skeletons there. You counted them, to distract from the coughing.

***

I slowly exhale, and rap on the door, fearing my touch might knock over the decaying building. This is certainly the right place, on the fringes of the town, far from the market. Whether or not the same person lives here...

The door squeaks open, and the scent of withered leaves and musty air floods out, invades my lungs, filling my memory. Oh, it's the right person. And I am not ready for this. I was not ready for this any of the three times I came here before. But this is the only person I know that would know what a speckled egg holds and where the creature inside belongs.

He steps into the light, wrinkled skin and white hair no less, no more ancient than years ago. He takes two blinks at me. "Miss," his voice rasps, "I do believe you are in the wrong place."

"Actually." I restrain flighty fingers from testing if the face paint is melting off. "I'm pretty sure you can help me."

His eyes morph into pairs of hooded reptiles. "Nothing I have is of any help to you." The door creaks.

"Wait," I say. "I can pay you. You identify things, don't you?"

The door stops. His golden eyes grow more like predatory birds, circling. "How do you know anything of my business dealings? It's not like I advertise it." He glances up, at what I assume is a lack of a store sign. Which gives away that he's familiar with store signs, something only someone who's ever left this city is.

"I just need you to identify one thing," I say, "then you can forget all about me."

He grips the door, staring hard. How muddled is the face paint? My backside prickles. "I see nothing to identify," he says. "Unless we are discussing you."

I shake my head. "I didn't bring it here. I didn't want to attract any...unwanted attention."

He snorts. "Come inside, then. I'm familiar with this deal."

***

Ridiculous brain, do you think he knows? Perhaps, it wasn't wise asking a master identifier for help when I'm supposed to no longer exist. I should've left the egg in the snow, let whatever happens to lonely eggs in the tundra happen, no matter how much skeleton cook would blame me.

But he lets me in, rubbing his eyes, and I pad carefully through the doorway; dear you, if you shut your eyes, that man would still be standing in the doorway, ancient, rattling, staring at both of you like you were blue fish walking. You and Tulimaq squeezed each other's hands, the look in his dark gaze repeating the question swimming around your head--was this actually the right building, actually the right person? But the man motioned you inside, hands gnarled and bent, so you hesitantly went.

He shut the door, wooden and creaky, dragged three deadbolts across its length with three squeals to make you wince.

"So, um," Tulimaq began.

The ancient guy silenced him with a lifted finger. "Kolariq sent you."

You both nodded.

"What's it about?"

You both blinked.

He leaned against the paint-peeling wall. "Kolariq sent you for something."

"Um, well, actually--" you began.

"--he just said we were supposed to learn from you," Tulimaq finished.

He actually gaped. Pushed himself away from the wall. Pushed past the both of you, the top of his head brushing leaves, dry and violet, hanging from a ceiling basket.

"Learn from me?" The ancient guy yanked a walking stick from the corner. Hobbled to the stairs on the other side of the still-swinging basket. "Does he mean to replace me? Have a pair of his students pick my brain"--he glared, all vicious heat, and you gulped--"so he can stop paying for my services? Inspect those relics he drags from the sea for him, and after I went through the work of training you how to do it?" He spun, stabbing at you with the stick. Tulimaq stumbled back. "I think not!"

"Okay, we'll just leave then," you stuttered, heart thrumming in your throat.

"Yeah." Tulimaq was already undoing the bolted door.

"See you!" you said to the quavering walking stick in your face. And you both fled into the streets.

***

"You haven't told me your name," he says, shutting the door behind me. He slides three deadbolts into place, and I wonder what he's afraid of. He opened the door when I knocked.

"You haven't told me yours." I fuss with my shawl that doesn't need fussing with.

He treads past, beneath the hanging basket that is still there, only this time it holds something faintly blue-ish beneath browned leaves. He turns, gripping a walking stick. "True. True. What do you need me to identify?"

"It's an egg. I found it in the snow. Covered in magenta speckles."

"How big?"

I put my hands about as wide as my abdomen. "This large," I say. I try to tell if his eyes bulge or not.

"Not many things that could be," he mutters, walking stick thumping the floor on his way to the staircase. He wordlessly steps up, joints popping, free hand clutching the solid railing.

He ascends without another word, and I look around. The room is small, barren, the floor sagging with nothing to decorate it. I assume there is more to the house than the dead hanging plant and the brick walls, but the only way out is up the stairs. There is also, of course, nowhere to sit. So I lean against the bolted door, arms folded, dripping wet to the warped wood.