Page 189 of Phoenix's Fire

But if trying to kill our suitors worked, then why wouldn't we? Right, because the surface was supposed to be where we died. I was the only one who realized there were people up there who'd help us. Well, and the hunters. After Ayla had made the Dragons so dangerous, the information I had only supported my fear they wouldn't keep sending us women up to them. For all they knew, we'd make things harder down here!

I leaned over my knees, knowing there was an answer somewhere if I could just find it, when the outer door creaked. The whisper of voices was soft but obvious as they came in.

"I need to be crying," one woman said. "Mrs. Worthington said extreme grief might be enough to delay things, but my list was bad before. It hasn't gotten any better, and I only have two months left!"

I casually cleared my throat so she wouldn't think she was in here alone.

"Hello?" another woman called out.

"I'm sorry, I was getting a pitcher," I said, grabbing the metal thing and pushing to my feet. "I was just on my way - "

Two widows came around the corner. One of them I recognized. She was the brazen woman from my first visit to the wives' laundry. Beside her was a younger girl, maybe twenty-three at most, and possibly the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen.

"Callah, right?" the brazen woman asked, guiding her friend past me and to the bench where I'd just been sitting. "Do you happen to know any tricks to cause tears?"

I calmly set my pitcher down again, realizing I was needed. "Yes. I do."

Fifty-Nine

Callah

"Vinegar," I said, moving closer to the pair. "And my name is Callah Atwood."

"Felicity Baldwin," the brazen woman said, proving Tobias had been right about her name. "This is my friend, Abi - er, Abihail. Abi, she's the woman who helped Helah. The one who warned us this was coming."

"You..." Abi breathed, looking up at me. "How did you know?"

"She seems to be the one person with all the right connections," Felicity said. "Her intended is an imbecile who tells her anything that crosses his mind. She works in the infirmary, so she hears firsthand what happened with the hunters. She's protected in the girls' wing, and now we wives are relying on her."

"Widows," Abi corrected. "We're not married anymore, Felicity. That's the whole problem. They're going to make us marry some fungus farmers if we aren't bred, and I'm not ready to be thrown around by a husband again!"

"I know," Felicity grumbled. "I just wish I knew how they were going to do it."

"The same way they do when we turn," I said, moving to claim an open section of the bench. "It sounds like we'll get a set date, and we'll have to choose by the end or our decision will be made for us. Tobias said they'll use our lists - updated, of course."

"They'd have to, since most of those men are now dead," Felicity grumbled. "The widow's table is nearly full! I can't remember that ever happening before."

"Don't complain," Abi scolded.

Felicity huffed. "They blame us women for there not being enough Righteous in the compound, but they're throwing away our men as if they're never-ending."

"As if they're in the way," I corrected.

Which made both women look over at me. "What?" Felicity asked.

"Who makes the decisions?" I asked. "The elders, then the leaders of each task. Men, all of them."

"Except Ms. Lawton and Mrs. Worthington," Abi countered, looking at me with big, beautiful blue eyes. I could see why she'd be worried about her prospects. Men would clamor to get her as a wife.

"Yes," I said gently, "but Ms. Lawton and Mrs. Worthington don't get much say. When it comes to the decisions in the compound, the men and the leaders of each task decide what they need. The elders are the ultimate authority, right? The same elders who always marry girls who have just turned, not widows. The same elders who are rumored to have beaten their wives to death. Punishment, they say. To keep the Devil from them."

"Okay?" Felicity asked.

"And while young men are encouraged to marry, they aren't required to," I explained. "Women are. We are bred over and over until our bodies give out or the latest baby kills us."

"It is the Lord's way," Abi mumbled, sounding like she didn't believe that any more than I did.

"But what twenty-year-old - or, well, I guess younger now - girl is going to long for a man in his eighties? Even his fifties! No, we want men our age, who we can relate to. Maybe someone we have a history with in sermon, or a man we've grown closer to while performing our tasks."

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