To get a hold of myself, I hummed "One More Day" from Les Misérables.

I simply didn't fit in, and I lost my confidence trying. My shoulders slumped in resigned defeat. I still walked at a fairly brisk pace, my boots clacking onto the cobblestones. The whispers around me didn't help much.

I was halfway down the road when I heard:

"Wait!"

My fingers curled into a fist inside my hoodie. "Mr. Mulligan, first you gave me away at the shop, now you're attracting more attention by running after me? I swear to God, I will punch you, and ask questions later, or so help me—"

There was a tap on my shoulder, and I whirled around and raised my fist with a look of fury—but froze, my cheeks flushing in embarrassment when I saw who it was.

"Er, sorry, sir. I thought you were someone else." I shook my head, my anger abating.

Hamilton fell into step beside me as I resumed walking. "That's quite alright. I trust your encounter with my friends didn't go exactly as it had hoped?"

"I didn't know what it would go like—I only just met them, sir." I pointed to the building where people were rushing about. "Sir, what was the building back there?"

"Oh, that's where I go to school—King's College."

I felt like I had been winded. "Columbia University... of course..." I'm talking to a freaking Founding-Father-slash-genius.

"Pardon?" Hamilton had heard my statement, an eyebrow raised.

"Nothing, sir." I didn't look at him for fear of showing him through my eyes that I was clearly hiding something. I was, and still am, a horrible liar.

"Call me Alexander."

I found myself looking at him full in the face, and my heart skipped a beat.

His eyes... wow.

"Um... but I haven't met you properly yet, s—Alexander."

"Any friend of the three at the coffee shop is a friend of mine."

My face went redder than my hair. I quickly returned the smile he gave me. There was a comfortable silence as we walked on.

"You hide many things, Katherine."

"Is that so?" I swallowed nervously.

"It's all in your appearance; you look different, you talk different—yet you're trying to speak formally—and you're carrying a satchel full of secrets."

For some reason, I felt a little offended. "Really, it's just textbooks, Alexander. And I do my best to speak formally when I meet new people."

Hamilton looked at the floor. "I apologize. I didn't mean to shoot off at the mouth. But what I mean is, you speak formally... in an odd way. Not quite like—" He broke off.

"It's all right, Alexander." I turned to him, but he wasn't looking at me. He was peering at a redhead man talking in front of a crowd.

Hamilton stared on with a look of absolute hatred. I slowly stepped back, a little scared of the expression on his face. "Er... Alexander?"

He didn't seem to hear me, but rather stormed off while I watched, dumbfounded. His voice rang out like the Liberty Bell as he confronted the man. A full ten minutes later, the redhead ran away screaming something that sounded like "For shame!"

I ran over to Hamilton. "What was that?"

"Samuel Seabury."

"Seabury?" The name was vaguely familiar.

"The Loyalist."

I nodded, not wanting to press the subject. "Anyway, one more thing: why are there only men walking around Colum—King's College?"

"Women aren't allowed an education," Hamilton said nonchalantly.

I stopped dead. "Excuse moi?"

"Les femmes ne peuvent pas aller à l'école...?" Hamilton looked at me with raised eyebrows, as if it was obvious.

"What do you mean, women can't go to school?" I burst out angrily. "I go to school!"

The dirty looks towards me intensified, and I instantly regretted speaking. Several people stopped and watched us as we headed down Broadway—suddenly, we jumped back. A man clad in some sort of magenta color was grinning at me.

"Well, well, who do we have here?" He had a Southern drawl to his voice. "I know you, Hamilton, but your partner... she's an interesting one, isn't she? Red hair, odd clothes..."

His eyes raked over my form, particularly my thigh gap. "With those clothes and that mouth, you'd want to be careful, miss."

"Jefferson," Hamilton said rather coolly.

Despite Hamilton's apparent hostility towards him, I found myself mesmerized by his face—particularly his hair. It was like a bomb had exploded near his scalp, and he had applied a hair curler and hairspray to just leave it there.

Well, you gotta admit, it's nice to not revisit the powdered wigs.

"Hamilton," Jefferson replied evenly. "What'd I miss?"

I had gone rigid with surprise. Was that really what Thomas Jefferson was like? No wonder Hamilton hates his guts...

"As for me, I think that women should only be educated in matters that make them a woman."

I was starting to like the man less and less. "And what do you define a woman as?"

"Soft, modest, passive, and whose interests are only childbearing and housekeeping; what are your interests?" His voice had gone steadily lower in pitch, and now it was almost threatening.

I didn't notice Hamilton shooting me a warning glance, but instead I walked up to him, fury bubbling inside my chest. "As of now my interests are mathematics, medicine, and mocking you in public."

And Thomas Jefferson leaned away, threw back his head, and laughed. Hard.

People stopped and stared at us—many men, few women.

"I don't suppose you think you're good at any of those subjects?" Jefferson was wiping a tear from his eye while chuckling. I glanced over at Hamilton, who made a motion to continue walking and ignore Jefferson.

That's so unlike him... doesn't HE love to talk?

I was about to explode, and I needed something to lighten the load. I strode back over to the Virginian, grabbed his coat lapels, and pulled him close to my face. I didn't care that people were shouting, some of them making their way over to me. Jefferson stopped laughing abruptly.

"Look me in the face and tell me this: I don't know how you die. I have knowledge beyond anything you could imagine—"

I still regret saying that. I just wanted to pull out my History book and shove it in his face at those exact pages.
David Walker, the preacher, had praised Jefferson as a "man of such great learning", but now I wasn't so sure about that. It was now a big overstatement to me.

Hamilton tugged on my arm forcefully, I complied to his request, and we continued walking down Broadway without so much as a backwards glance. When we were out of Jefferson's eyeshot, Hamilton turned to face me, glaring.

"You can never be too harsh about your actions, Katherine! You would have been in jail if I hadn't pulled you out of there." Hamilton's eyes blazed with an angry sort of concern.

I looked downward in shame. "I'm sorry, sir—"

"I appreciate you trying to stand up for what you believe in, but in this century you cannot just say something that would either force them into standing for you or scare them off!"

I regained my temper easily at those words. "Isn't that what you did with Seabury?! Didn't you say something that drove him off his pedestal somewhat like I did with Jefferson?"

"Yes, but that's different—Seabury supported the British. Jefferson is on America's side!" There was a tense pause.

"Would that stop you? If you hate Jefferson more than anything, if you had a quill and parchment in front of you, would you hesitate to criticize Jefferson?"

Hamilton froze. "No, I wouldn't... how do you know I like to write that much?"

I stared at him, wide-eyed. "I-I... I can't say, sir. My apologies."

Hamilton sighed. "As to you, Katherine. There are some things we can't tell our friends or lovers, things that have to be kept a secret no matter what the cost." He slowed his pace to a stroll.

I adjusted my backpack and thought about this.

He's very good with words...