Chapter 11: The Part That Thinks

She had four new friends. Or five. The fifth one had horns — little ones, right up at the hairline — and she had asked first, because Ms. Yarrow said you always ask first, and he had said yes, and she had touched them with two fingers, just to see.

She got the door open, climbed up into her dad’s truck, and buckled the belt with both hands, and then she started.

“Dad. Dad. So there’s a kid in my class with horns. Little ones. Right here.” She held up two fingers to show him where. “I asked first, because Ms. Yarrow says you always have to ask first, so I asked, and he let me, and they’re warm. Like a goat, but not a goat. And then we did the game with the parachute and I got to go at the front and I got to be the one who runs under—“

“Don’t touch them unless he says it’s okay.”

“I said I asked!”

Her dad pulled off from the curb. He’d been parked way up the block, past the sign, which meant he’d been sitting there a while. It was almost always Mom.

“Dad, did you get the bad guys?”

“Not today.”

“Dad.” She turned as far as the belt let her. “Do you think the new kids are gonna get tired of me?”

He answered before she finished asking. “No.”

She hadn’t expected that. He said it like a fact and not like something a dad is supposed to say. “No?”

“No.” He glanced at the mirror. “You’re like your mom at that age. Cute.”

Rennie sat with that for a whole block.

“That’s you being nice about Mom,” she said finally. “But Mom’s not here, so it doesn’t count.” She sighed the way she sighed when the grown-ups needed managing. “It’s fine. I’ll pass it on when we get home.”

“Mom knows.”

“Oh.”

She let him drive a while after that, watching the town go by, and then she said, “How come she didn’t come get me?”

“She’s talking to Master Halloway.”

Rennie sat up so fast the belt caught her. “She got through to him?”

“Mm.”

“Is it about my fire?” She’d been waiting on this for weeks and everybody knew it. “Is he sending me one?”

Her dad thought about it. He actually thought, long enough that she could hear him doing it. “Probably.”

“Yes.” She kicked the back of his seat, which was not allowed. “I have to tell Wren. When’s Wren coming home? I haven’t seen her in a hundred days.”

“Soon.”

“Is she gonna stay this time? Because I want her to start school with me.” She had a snack box under her bed for Wren, full of all the good things, and every time she added something she had to sit on her hands so she wouldn’t eat it. “I saved her a whole box of stuff. If she leaves again, I’m eating all of it.”

Her dad almost smiled.

“Ask her,” he said. “If she wants to go, she can go.”

Rennie sat back. That wasn’t the question she’d asked, and he knew it, because he turned the radio on.

“She’ll want to,” she said. “Kids go to school. That’s the law.”

Her dad didn’t answer that one. Rennie took the quiet for a yes, because it usually was.

At home her mom called her in from the kitchen — “Rennie, come here, somebody wants to say hi” — and Rennie went and stood up straight in front of the phone propped against the fruit bowl.

On the screen was Master Halloway: her mom’s master, the only person her mom had ever listened to. He looked like the drawings in the old book. Long and pale, and he never moved unless he had a reason to.

Rennie folded her hands the way she’d practiced. “Master Halloway.”

“Rennie.”

“I’ve been practicing,” she said. “Every morning and every night. I haven’t missed a single day. Not even when I had the fever.”

“Good.”

That was all he said. It was the best thing anybody had said to her all week.

“Thank you, Master Halloway.”

Behind her, her mom laughed. “Will you look at that,” she said. “I did it every day for years and never once got a good out of him.”

“Vesper,” said Uncle Wick. “He can hear you.”

His voice came out of the kitchen, small and quick — the voice he used when there was somebody on the other end who could hear him. Uncle Wick was her mom’s fire. He had been in the house longer than Rennie had, and he called her mom by her name the way he always had, and Rennie had never called him anything but Uncle Wick.

On the screen, Master Halloway’s face did something very small. Rennie caught it, because she was watching for it. It happened every time somebody brought up the night Mom took her own fire outside and cooked dinner with it, and when it happened, Mom found a job for her hands.

“You were diligent,” Master Halloway said. “With the fire. And a skewer.”

Her mom didn’t say anything.

Rennie hid a smile behind her hand. It wasn’t often that somebody got the last word with Mom.

“Master Halloway.” She couldn’t hold it any longer. “Am I getting a fire?”

“The fire can wait,” he said. “When you hold your first ring. Not before.”

“Okay.” She said it fast, before he could change his mind. “I’ll work hard.”

She wasn’t worried. Master Halloway didn’t say things he didn’t mean, and he’d just said it was going to happen.

In Rennie’s opinion there were three people in the world who could do anything. One was her mom. One was her dad. The third was her mom’s master, who lived so far away that a call cost credits by the minute and the picture went soft in bad weather. It didn’t matter. He was on the list.

The next morning she did her practice like always — the whole thing, both hands and both feet where they went — and then she put on her backpack and went out front.

It was her first time on the bus. The other kids all rode it, and she’d been asking for weeks, and her mom and dad were both busy right now, and it was a whole production to drive her over and come back for her. Rennie decided the bus was better for everybody.

She got a window seat and watched the town go by the wrong way around, which was the whole point.

At school the buses let out one after another onto the blacktop, and the teachers came out with their lists. Rennie got off with everybody else and looked for her line.

That was when she saw him: the delivery guy, out past the fence on the sidewalk where the buses pulled out, hands in his pockets, nothing in his hands. That was the strange part. He was always carrying something — a crate, a bag, a stack of paper sacks. Today he wasn’t carrying anything at all, and Rennie had no idea why he’d be at her school.

She liked him, though. He was the one she’d given the candy to. When he asked a question, he waited for the whole answer. Most people asked a question and then answered it themselves. Rennie found that very rude.

She told Ms. Yarrow she’d be right back and ran over to the fence.

“Hi! Morning.”

“Morning.” He looked past her, at the doors, at all the kids going in. “Where’s your mom.”

“She didn’t come.” Rennie nodded at the bus pulling away. “I took the bus. First time ever.” She looked up at him. “Do you need her for something?”

“Something like that.”

“Okay. Then come over after school.” She said it like it was already arranged. “She’s home after work.”

He didn’t answer. That wasn’t new. He didn’t answer a lot of things.

“If you want her to teach you, you should ask her soon,” Rennie said. “She’s really good. She’s the best one there is. And I’m getting a fire, and if you started now you could probably get one too. I’m getting mine really soon.”

He looked at her then. Straight on, for the first time, not past her at the door.

“You’re going to bind a hearth-fire.”

“Mm-hm.” Rennie nodded hard. “Not yet. When I get to my first ring. I’m gonna get there really fast.”

“Why do you want to be an alchemist?”

“Because Mom helps people.” She had a lot of reasons and they all came out at once. “She makes stuff that actually works, and people come from everywhere for it, and she gets paid for it too, so she helps people and she makes money, and I want to do both, and also—“ she took a breath “—when you have a hearth-fire it’s like having a best friend. Mom and Uncle Wick do everything together. I want one like that.”

He was quiet for a second. Then he said, “A hearth-fire doesn’t live in your hand. You put it inside you, and you keep it there, in the part of you that thinks. If you’re not strong enough for it, it comes back at you.” He watched her. “That doesn’t scare you?”

“What’s that mean?” Rennie tilted her head the other way. “Is that when you get in a fight with it?”

“Worse than a fight.” He waited. “A fight where you’re the one who gets hurt.”

“I wouldn’t fight it.” She said it the way she said most things, like it was obvious. “If we got in a fight, I’d say sorry first, and then we’d be okay.”

He didn’t say anything for a long moment. Rennie waited, because he always waited for her, and that seemed fair.

“Do you know where that is?” he said. “The part of you that thinks.”

Rennie shook her head. Mom had said something about it once, and it had gone over her head.

“It’s the most important place you’ve got.” He said it low. “If it gets torn up, you turn into a little idiot.”

That stopped her. She stood there with her backpack on and her mouth open.

“What do I do?” she said. “I don’t want to be a little idiot.”

He looked at her for a second. Then, quiet:

“Before you break through. Tell me first.”