A wilting evergreen wreath hangs on our back door, and a fox ornament, which I twisted together as a child with wire and nails, sits crouched in the window. My mother apparently believed in these talismans. Papa says she would spend hours tying pine boughs together with thread or polishing her ancient wooden figurine of the Sorceress—a graceful figure with a clock in one hand and a knife in the other—that sits in the windowsill for protection, longevity. A similar statue, though much larger and less beautiful, stands near Crofton’s west wall, where the devout—or desperate—ask for blessings. Even though he doesn’t say so, I know my father keeps these things around to honor Mother’s memory. He doesn’t believe in them any more than I do. If the Sorceress exists, she’s not listening to our prayers.

Inside, I linger in the unlit kitchen, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the dark, dreading the moment when I will face my father empty-handed. It’s not that Papa will be upset with me—he never is—but I am ever painfully conscious of his spindly frame, the tremors in his hands. What will he have forgotten while I was gone—my name? My face? In my panic over Liam Gerling and the commotion he caused, I forgot all about the rent. And now, with Duade taken to Everless to be bled by the Gerlings’ time lender, what hope do I have of selling him more before the collector arrives?

An unfamiliar voice floats in from the other room, and I freeze. The words are muffled by the crackling fire, but I can tell the voice is male. Fear lances through me again. Did Liam recognize me after all? Did he send someone to come after me?

I move to the threshold and pull back the curtain. And stop.

It takes me a moment to make sense of the scene before me. The rent collector, a Crofton man who travels from cottage to cottage every month like illness, sits across from my father near the hearth. He’s early, at least earlier than normal. Between them on a rough wood table is a line of objects: a small brass bowl, a glass vial, a silver knife. The same tools that litter the time lender’s counter in his glass-fronted shop. The tools to withdraw time.

Papa looks up at me. His cloudy eyes widen. “Jules,” he says, struggling up from the table. “I didn’t expect you back until dark.”

My heart hitches; it’s already dark.

“What’s going on?” I ask, voice shot through with tears, even though I know. The collector glances my way, seeming much too large for our small home.

My father sinks back into his chair. “I’m paying our rent,” he says calmly. “Why don’t you wait outside, enjoy the warm day?”

Before I can reply, the collector cuts in. “Four months, then.” His tone is businesslike, slightly bored. “For this month’s rent and the last.”

“Four months?” I take a step toward the table, my voice rising. “Papa, you can’t.”

The Gerling man looks briefly at me, then shrugs. “That’s the penalty for being late.” His eyes sweep over me once more before he turns back to his tools. “Time is for burning, girl.”

It’s a familiar expression in the village—why hoard time when every day is dully brutal, the same as the one before and the one that will come after? To hear it from a man who’s never known hunger or cold makes my fingers twitch toward a fist. Instead, I take the hour-coin from my pocket and hold it out to him. “Take this, and I’ll—”

The collector cuts me off with a short, humorless laugh.

“Save your hour, girl,” he says. “And don’t look so upset. After your father’s time runs out, you’ll inherit these debts. I’d hate to be on bad terms.”

The curse I’d been about to spit at him freezes in my throat. After Papa’s time runs out. As if he expects it to happen soon. Has he measured my father’s blood?

My father looks away, his jaw working, as the man reaches for the knife, but Papa seizes it first.

He draws a line neatly across his own palm, as calmly as if it were charcoal on paper instead of knife on skin. Blood wells. “Four months, yes,” he echoes as he picks up a glass vial and holds it against his palm, catching the small stream of blood. “I have plenty to spare.”

But I don’t think I’m imagining the way his face gets paler and paler by the second, the lines seeming to become more deeply etched; or the way he sags a little when the filled vial leaves his hand, corked, and disappears back into the Gerling man’s purse. I reach out and grab his wrist before he can pick up a second vial.

“No.” With my other hand, I sweep away the knife until it’s out of my father’s reach. The collector watches me with eyebrows raised, and I address myself to him now. “Four months for two months’ rent? There has to be another way.”

“Jules.”

I ignore my father’s soft admonition and turn to the collector. He looks bored, which infuriates me almost as much as the fact of his taking my father’s time. But I push the anger down and make my voice as honey-sweet as I can, hoisting on a smile to match. “Let me sell my time, sir. You can have five months.”

Interest sparks for a moment in the man’s eyes, and I can imagine what he’s thinking—he could pass the rent along to the Gerlings, pocket the extra month for himself. But then my father cuts in. “She’s sixteen.”

“I’m seventeen,” I say, hating myself for how my words make Papa’s brow crease in confusion. “Papa, today is the eleventh day of the month. I’m seventeen.”

The collector looks back and forth between us, unsure who to believe, and then grunts and shakes his head. “No. I won’t bring the Sorceress’s wrath down on my head for bleeding a child.”

The Sorceress’s, or Liam Gerling’s?

“Please.” I turn halfway toward Papa, addressing both men at the same time. “I’ve never given time. I can earn it back later.”

“Easy to say you’ll earn it back,” Papa says stubbornly. “Harder to actually earn it. Collector, hand me another vial.”

“I’m to work at Everless.” The words leave my mouth before the idea has even fully formed in my mind. My father’s head snaps toward me, and he stares at me with a warning in his eyes.

The collector hasn’t moved. “And?”

“And . . .” I blink, trying to remember what Amma told me in the marketplace. “They’re paying a year on the month. If you forgive us a little this time, I’ll pay double what we owe you. And I’ll pay two more months in advance,” I add, trying to hide the desperation in my voice.

A bribe. I’ve caught the man’s interest. He looks me up and down, evaluating me in a way that makes my skin seethe, but I hold my chin high and bear his eyes on my body. I know how the Gerlings value youth and beauty. I’m no Ina Gold, but at least I inherited my mother’s long legs and shining hair. In different clothes, I could pass for an Everless girl.

“Jules!” My father struggles up from the table, grabbing his cane. Standing, he towers over us, and for a painful second I see the man he used to be—proud and strong enough to give pause to any Gerling crony. I look down at the tabletop. It hurts me to ignore him like this. But I don’t know how much time he’s sold, how much he has left.

“Absolutely not. I forbid you to—”

“Sit down,” the collector says impatiently. “I’ve better things to do than listen to peasants bicker.”

Slowly, my father sinks back into his seat, anger and fear clouding his brow.

“I’ll let the two of you sort this out,” the collector says, condescension thick in his voice as he pushes back from the table. “If you plan on going to Everless, I’ll see you at the market tomorrow at dawn. We’ll see if you’re fit. Otherwise, I’ll come back tomorrow to collect the rest of the rent.”