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law—”
    â€œFather doesn’t. Neither does Granddad.”
    â€œBut you’d die.” Josephine’s voice cut through. She leaned toward Grey, hunching her shoulders. The fabric of her crimson blouse gaped over her pronounced collarbone. “You can’t give him all of your ration, honey. You’d die.”
    Realization flickered like a candle burning at the edge of Grey’s sight. The shadows under Josephine’s eyes. Her skeletal wrists. Whit wasn’t strong because he took after his father or because the mine built his muscles. How long had Josephine been pouring her own ration into Whit’s bottle and swallowing just enough to keep herself alive?
    â€œWe don’t know that Grey can go without it like you.” Mother’s words, meant for Father, drew everyone’s focus.
    â€œOf course she’s like her father.” Granddad stood in the arch between the kitchen and living room, shrugging out of his coat. His yellow hair brushed the low ceiling.
    The tight laces around Grey’s heart loosened a smidge. Granddad was here. Safe.
    He winked at Grey before turning to his daughter-in-law. “Look at her, Maire.” His gruff tone reverberated from his barrel chest. “More than a head taller than you. As blonde as her Viking ancestors and built for war.”
    Grey’s cheeks burned and she dropped her gaze. The arms resting in her lap were thick compared to Josephine’s. A coil of streaked blonde hair had escaped her chignon and clung to the strained fabric over her chest. Next to the brunette waifs in the Foothills Quarter, she looked like a doughy giant.
    â€œWhat do you mean ‘like her father’?” Josephine’s eyes shifted between Grey and Father.
    Granddad bellowed into the cramped space. “My son and I are not dependent on Chemist potion to stay alive. Our bodies are different. We still digest food normally.”
    Josephine turned her attention from Granddad to Grey. “And you?”
    â€œThey’ve never let me go without. Underage or not, the penalty for giving away your ration is—” Her voice faded. Again her eyes found the corked bottles near the door. One. Two. Three. Four.
    Only four now.

CHAPTER
    3

    G rey lay in bed and wished the tears would come again. This—this staring at the ceiling only to picture Whit’s back, only to imagine the number of stripes they would cut into his skin—it was like stuffing her beating heart into a thimble.
    The bandaged gash on her calf itched. She wanted to tear at the wound, make the stupid thing bleed again, make it really hurt. Or cut matching lines up her leg. One for each of Whit’s stripes.
    Foolish thought. Pain stalked as close as the nearest patrol. No sense borrowing it early.
    The same rationale behind why she took her daily potion and kept her head down, just like everyone else. Everyone except Father and Granddad. But they wouldn’t let her help. Father refused every time she offered to send some of her ration to the refugees in the mountains.
    And Granddad only humored her schemes of donating her potion toward his efforts to reproduce the mixture. When he left for his lab hidden beneath the shop on Colfax, he never took the ration she offered.
    Grey flopped to her side. The springs beneath the thin mattress creaked with every movement. She wrapped her arms and legs around a pillow, squeezing as hard as she could. It didn’t help. Nothing blocked out Whit’s face.
    He hadn’t touched her after she turned ten, as Mercury City law dictated. His smoky blue eyes had been wide on that birthday. His mouth a serious line as he set a bracelet made of buttons on the table and retreated before she reached for the gift. The withdrawal pricked her young heart. Why was the boy who raced her down the street and shared biscuits, marbles, and jokes suddenly afraid of her?
    She and Whit hadn’t understood the law at the time, but it