Chapter Nineteen
The Market
“Never underestimate a cleaner.”—Cleaner One
The Voted In had spent a lifetime stamping approval on amendments with no thought of the results. And the market, so they had heard, was one of the results of careless stamping. It was a place the Voted In had looked at from on high, a place talked about by many, and now filled the Voted In with dread; apparently it was full of mechanical monster rats and loud, Earthy women selling things and not taking no for answer.
Opposite the market hidden behind a hedge was the courtyard of greatness: a courtyard with statues of past leaders and the odd great hero. Beryl’s was covered up and Hilda’s was in the making, while any male statues had been moved to the dark corners with “no flower” scrawled across the bottom. To en
