The Book of Dead Days by Marcus Sedgwick

shivered.
    All afternoon they had been listening to Valerian’s curses and threats come floating down through the house.
    “You live here?” asked Willow, looking around her in wonder. The kitchen alone was vast, with unused implements and pots and pans hanging everywhere. It must once have fed at least a dozen people every single day. “Just you and him in this huge house?”
    Boy nodded.
    “But what are you? His slave?”
    “No!” he said fiercely.
    “Then he pays you?”
    He hesitated. “No, but-”
    “So you
are
his slave!”
    “I am his famulus,” Boy cried.
    Willow stopped. “His what?”
    “Famulus,” said Boy. “His famulus. It means I attend him in his studies and investigations.”
    “Is that what he told you?”
    Boy said nothing.
    “Isn’t there anyone else?” Willow pressed. “Who does the cooking? The cleaning?”
    “I cook when he tells me to. No one does any cleaning.”
    “But who taught you to wash clothes? To make fires? Someone must have shown you.”
    “He teaches me things, but not everyday things. I worked those out for myself.”
    “And before you came here? Who are your parents?”
    “I don’t have any.”
    “Neither do I, anymore.”
    “What happened to them?” he asked, wondering as he did so why he was bothering.
    “They were killed,” Willow said. “I was four.”
    Boy was about to ask how they were killed, but Willow carried on, “My aunt put me in the orphanage.”
    “That was nice of her.”
    “She wasn’t really my aunt. She was some old relative. I’m not sure what, exactly. But she couldn’t look after me, and she died not long after that. I lived in an orphanage near the Palace walls until I got a job with the Liverymen. I was eleven then, four years ago. How old are you?”
    “I don’t know,” Boy said.
    Willow looked at him, cocking her head. She waited for some kind of explanation. Finally she went on with her own story.
    “Then I came to the theater, but you know that,” she said. She looked hard at Boy. “What about you?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Your
parents,
Boy, your parents.”
    “I said, I haven’t got any.”
    “I know that,” Willow said, “but who
were
they?”
    Boy shrugged. He knew she was only interested, but really, he wished she’d shut up.
    “Look, I don’t know. Since I can remember I just lived in the streets, freezing and starving in the winter, all right more or less in the summer. That’s all there’s ever been. Then he found me.”
    “He treats you like rubbish,” she said.
    “At least I have a room and food and something to do.”
    “That’s not a room,” said Willow, remembering the boxlike space at the end of the tunnel where Boy had fetched the blankets.
    “So who taught you to speak, then?” she asked.
    Boy felt the clothes.
    “They’re dry, more or less,” he said, and Willow gave up.
    They turned their backs to each other and dressed quickly. The clothes were warm from the fire and Boy began to feel better than he had for what seemed like a very long time.
    “I’m hungry,” said Willow. “Starving.”
    “Let’s see if there’s some food here,” Boy said, but not very hopefully.
    He was right to be pessimistic. He found some dried biscuits, and they ate them slowly.
    “Boy,” said Willow suddenly, “what about me?”
    “You’ll have to go back to the singer,” he said. “You’re not short of food there, at least.”
    “But I can’t!” Willow cried. “I’m a wanted criminal! So are you, come to that.”
    He stared at the fire. “I know,” he said, “I know. Look, I’ll try and talk to Valerian again and see if you can stay. Then maybe you’ll be safe from the Watch.”
    “Would you?” asked Willow. “Would you really?”
    Boy looked at the hope in her face and felt himself shiver. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea, for lots of reasons. And wasn’t it like admitting she was guilty if she didn’t return to Madame Beauchance? But something in him wanted her to