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and discipline, but he was both lazy and a coward.
    And mancy—or grace—didn’t forgive cowardice easily.
    Am I a coward now? How would I know? “You sure, Salt? You don’t sound too convinced.”
    “It warn’t me, dammit!”
    He eased up a little. “And of course you wouldn’t know anything about it, would you.”
    The chartershadow began to struggle again, heaving under him. “First time I’ve heard, now leggo! ”
    Gabe did. He was on his feet and observing a cautious distance by the time Salt heaved himself up, his face choked with dust and bright beads of blood from several scrapes. The gun was back in Gabe’s holster—but his hand still itched for it.
    “Evenin’, then, Mr. Salt.” He touched the brim of his hat.
    “What, you ain’t gonna shoot me? Threaten me some more?”
    “No point. I discover you ain’t been honest, it’s easy to find you. You havin’ such a nice little nest and all.”
    Salt actually paled, his wasted frame visibly trembling. Whether it was rage or fear was an open question. He wore no guns, but Gabe was sure there was a knife or two handy. It would be just like the little bastard to slit someone in a dark alley.
    He would have to be more careful now. Why had he drawn a gun, for God’s sake? Salt wasn’t enough of a threat to justify that.
    Sir, your head is none too organized right now. He imagined Miss Barrowe’s clipped, cultured tones, how a single eyebrow would lift fractionally, but those dark eyes would hold a different message. She likely thought she was hard to read, the schoolmarm, but those eyes were windows straight down to the bottom of a clear pond.
    Windows to the soul, Jack? Just like Annie’s.
    The door was still open, a night breeze redolent of horse, dust, and Damnation breathing into the chartershadow’s room.
    “Sheriff?” Salt wiped away the blood around his thin lips. “I saw a new face out my window today. Dressed in yellow, and pretty as a picture.”
    A cold hand clenched in Jack’s guts.
    “Wonder if she saw anything she liked,” Salt continued.
    He kept his expression a mask. “Not likely.” And with that he was gone, but the sweat on the back of his neck and the tension in his fists were unwelcome symptoms.
    It’s nothing. People love to gossip, and they’ll stop talking if you don’t give them anything to talk about. Just leave it alone, Jack.
    Unfortunately, he wasn’t sure he could. And that was almost as worrying as a Chinois sneaking into a chartershadow’s workroom late at night and asking for mancy. Jack headed for Russ Overtons lodgings for the fourth time that day, the shapes of the twisted charter-symbols he’d seen in Salt’s back room fresh in his memory.
    It was maybe time to do a little book-learning.

Chapter 8
    M iss Bowdler’s books had said nothing about this.
    It was hot as Hade Nen,se>
    There were too many of them to count, and she still had not managed a semblance of a roll call. More than half the tiny savages had no shoes, and could not sit still for more than a moment or two. Less than a quarter had seen some version of soap and water in the last fortnight, and she had the suspicion none of them were literate or numerate even in the most basic sense. The older savages bullied the younger unmercifully until Cat lost her temper and her Practicality sparked. The novelty of an adult throwing mancy in a classroom bought her precious moments to compose herself, and she thought grimly that her mother’s experiences with Charity Work and the Noblesse Oblige of a Lady were going to stand her in better stead than any d—ned book, as Robbie would say.
    At least while she was corralling a group of tiny uncivilized animals, she did not think of Robbie’s locket in the pawnshop window, and how to obtain such an item without the entire town remarking upon her movements.
    “That is quite enough,” she informed the group of boys who had been tormenting a younger child. “You are to sit there , sir, and you there