His wide eyes found mine. "Cass–"

I was already backing away, my heart roaring in my ears. The eyes of the red-haired boy burned my cheeks, blackening my skin so it crumbled off my face like a dilapidated statue. I left my basket there and turned before they could see me slap my hand over my mouth.

I heard him call me again, but I was already halfway down the alley; this time I didn't care about the mud, I didn't care that it caked my shoes in a cold slop.

I had almost reached the reins of the horse when Thomas grabbed my arm and pulled me back. "Cass, wait–"

"What?" I snapped. My mind was whirling. I lowered my voice to a hiss, lest someone hear and report us. "It's punishable by the death penalty, Tom. The death penalty!"

"I know," he said, too quietly. "I know I should never have let it get this far, but. . ."

I shook him off. "Don't drag me down with you, Thomas. Does anyone else know?"

His silence was all the answer I needed. I sighed heavily, hugging my arms to my chest. The cold was slowly leaching all feeling from my toes.

"Please," he said, and his voice was so small and scared. "Please, I can't tell anyone."

He was holding my basket in his hands. I'd never seen him look this frightened. This was Thomas - my Tom. And no matter what happened, he was still my friend. I bit my cheek firmly and pulled him into a hug, so tight that he dropped the basket. He gripped me, and only then did I realise that he was trembling.

I sighed against him, knowing that the red-haired boy was likely long gone. "What are we going to do?" I murmured to him.

"Please," he said against me. "You can't tell anyone."

I ran my tongue over the inside of my cheek, tasting the familiar tang of blood. What would I do? I couldn't tell anyone of this, not even Connor; that would see Thomas sent straight to the gallows.

Though I desperately, desperately wanted to tell Connor. I told everything to him. But I didn't know how he would react; I didn't know his views or opinions on it. No, Connor couldn't find out.

I ran my hand over Thomas's hair. "Okay," was all I said. "Okay."

*

A few days later I took my siblings out for a walk in the city. As the days wore on I grew more certain of my choice to move out, but the greatest difficulty would be telling the children. Ryan held my hand as we walked, swinging my arm back and forth, while Meredith walked at my other side, arms firmly by her sides. She had long since grown past the age of wanting to hold my hand, and while I knew it was going to happen eventually, I wondered to myself if this was why I silently doted on Ryan.

If Meredith knew my thoughts, she didn't show it as she looked up at me, a grin crossing her impish face that reminded me painfully of my grandmother. Grey light bounced off her golden braids beneath her bonnet, and the silver buckles on her shoes gleamed with every step.

Ryan played with my fingers as we passed bakeries and toy shops, and I knew he was working himself up to asking me to stop at the windows. I pretended not to notice this, and kept walking past them as casually as if I were by myself.

Eventually he said timidly, "Sassy?"

"Yes, darling?"

"Can we look in a window?" 

I smiled down at him. "Of course, my dear. Which one would you like to see?"

He dragged me to the wide window of a toy shop; Meredith followed along quite happily. The toys were displayed on swathes of red linen: soldiers and china dolls and even an old German nutcracker that looked at least a hundred years old. Little carved figurines - bears; horses; deer; wolves - chased each other around an advertisement for Voltaire's latest book, which I took immediate interest in.

Ryan let go of my hand and pressed his face against the glass. With a laugh, I gently pulled him back before he could all but lick the window. Meredith was more patient, and peered in from a careful distance.

"See anything you like?" I asked her.

My sister shrugged and continued to examine the display. A few months ago she had decided that it was her dream to be a nun, so already she had begun pawning off her possessions on her friends and, on occasion, me.

"Go on," I urged her. "Pick something."

She pursed her lips and took another dutiful look around. "I think I'm rather too old for toys."

"Oh, please." I rolled my eyes. "You're ten years old."

"You didn't have any toys when you came here," she pointed out.

"I had to cross an ocean," I said, "and I wasn't ten."

"Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon Earth," she said, "where moth and dust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal."

"Merry, darling," I said with a sigh, "I'm sure He allows children to have toys." She only gave me a look, and I gave up. "Fine. Stand there and recite the Bible to me. Ryan's getting a toy, aren't you?"

But Ryan wasn't by my side.

"Ryan?" I checked behind me; I moved my skirts; I checked behind Meredith. He wasn't there.

My breath snagged in my throat. Don't panic in front of Merry. I faced the street: it was a Saturday morning and the street was packed with people, strolling through the nicer parts of town or popping in and out of the quaint little shops.

The little boy standing by the bakery window wasn't Ryan; the small figure clinging to a lady's skirts wasn't Ryan; he wasn't at the next toy shop up the street; he wasn't petting the stray dog on the corner.

Meredith's eyes were wide and frightened. I began to imagine the worst possible things. Ryan had been snatched off the street. Ryan had been trampled by a horse. Ryan was crying in some dark alley, cold and alone and afraid.

"Ryan?" I called again, but my voice didn't sound like my own - thin and reedy, and it was drowned out by the din of the busy street. I muttered a prayer, trying to keep control of my breathing, and looked around again, but everything was going by too fast, whirling, spinning like it had lost control, but I was the only one standing still. Pressure was mounting in my chest–

"Excuse me?" someone said. "My lady?"

I looked for who had spoken. It was a soldier, only a few years older than I, with a sharp, elf-like face and a red scar running down his cheek.

He flashed me a smile that made his green eyes dance. "Might you be looking for this little chap?" He brought forward his arm; he was holding Ryan's hand, and my brother was wiping his teary eyes with his other.

"Oh, darling." I knelt to embrace Ryan, who flung himself into my arms with a sob. I heard Meredith sigh and give thanks. Trying to keep a lid on my emotions, I let out a long breath to centre myself before looking up at the British soldier, still holding Ryan against me, and said, "Thank you."

He smiled. "You look a little young to be his mother."

"He's my brother," I said. Meredith stepped forward to hug Ryan, who gladly turned himself to her embrace. I stood and dusted my skirt off, trying to keep my hands from shaking.

The soldier shook his head, and his pale golden hair was so at odds against the blood-red of his coat. "Poor fellow got lost in the crowd. Don't be too harsh on him."

"I could never be harsh on him." I ran a hand through Ryan's dark hair. "Well, not for long, at any rate."

"Still." The soldier's teeth glinted in the sun, and the scar on his cheek stretched with his smile. "You know how sisters can be."

"I'd say Ryan knows better than I," I said with a laugh. "He has two."

The soldier bent down before Ryan and offered a friendly smile. "Now, little man, don't be wandering off on your sisters again, you hear?" When Ryan sniffed and shrank behind Meredith, the soldier laughed and ruffled his hair before standing.

As he adjusted his rifle over his shoulder, I said, "I really must thank you again. I don't like to think of what I might do had you not come forth with him."

He took off his hat and gave a bow. "It was my pleasure. I couldn't leave a lady by herself."

And I couldn't let him leave without showing him how much his help meant. "Please, good sir. Is there any way I can show you my gratitude?"

He thought for a moment, green eyes cast up in thought. "Buy him something nice," he said.

The soldier stayed with us as Ryan calmed down, and I bought my brother a toy soldier, whom he instantly likened to his saviour in red. Against Meredith's wishes, I bought her a small pastry from a neighbouring bakery (as I couldn't buy Ryan something without buying a gift for her, too). I didn't have enough money left to buy Voltaire's book, but I swallowed that disappointment with a firm dose of Responsibility.

But this didn't satisfy the soldier. "Will you not buy something of your own?"

"One can only have so much money," I said with a laugh. "I have no need to buy something for myself."

"O, reason not the need," he said. "Our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous."

"Allow not nature more than nature needs, man's life is cheap as beast's," I finished.

His smile split his face in two. "You are well-read, my lady."

"Don't call me that, I am no lady." I waved him off. However, he told me to stay put and ducked into the shop. Minutes later he emerged with. . . with the book.

I kept my composure as he said, "A well-read lady deserves a gift that should feed her ambition. There is nothing more powerful than an ambitious lady."

I felt heat rising in my cheeks. "I cannot take this gift, you have already done enough for us."

He pressed the book into my hands. "Please. I insist."

I looked up at him as I took the book, cradling it gently against my chest with one hand, and holding Ryan with the other. "I cannot thank you enough."

"Please," he said and waved a graceful hand. "Take it and remember me as the stranger who showed an unexpected act of kindness."

"I'd prefer to remember you by your name." I let go of Ryan (and Meredith took hold of him) and offered him my hand. "Cassandra."

He bowed low and brushed a kiss over my knuckles. "Tobias."