Back at the Wellington, Rachel asked for a room and inspected it before handing over the payment. The landlord refused another cut to nine Ruma, and so Rachel begrudgingly slid twelve into his greasy fist.

"The Vigilant Men are in the process of taking over all private industry," Rachel muttered to me as we walked upstairs. "He'll just be putting that twelve Ruma back into the pot within a few days anyway."

Rachel's room was much the same as ours, but for her full payment she earned herself a room across the hall where the stench from the river wasn't quite as overpowering. Her room lay as barren as our own had, and we stood in awkward silence as she shrugged deeper into her coat at the chill.

I saw she wouldn't soon be having any dinner at the rate of her nearly emptied pocket and the state of her stove, and so I invited her to come over in an hour to eat with Ferdinand and myself. We didn't have much, but I thought I might be able to spread it thin for just one night.

Rachel accepted and offered to bring something, which I told her was not necessary. I'd seen the few small coins left over after she'd paid her rent. She'd need it all for keeping alive, and I'd been paid by the innkeeper that morning.

After we parted ways, I returned home and toasted some bread on the stove. Ferdinand arrived a few minutes later with a small iron pot and another stool. I smiled at the scent of rain and cold that he brought with him. He handed me the pot with a flourish.

"My payment for a few odd jobs around the city. They offered me a Ruma, but I thought these might be more welcome," he said. "The pot will make the food last longer."

"Thank you, it's perfect," I said, taking the pot to the window and hanging it from a hook in order to gather fresh water from the raining sky. While we waited, Ferdinand stripped his outer layers and hung them from the musty rope that divided the room. They steamed gently, and he sat down to hold his red fingers toward the fire in only a shirt and trousers.

"I couldn't find anything permanent," he said. "No one wants to hire."

"I ran into Rachel today-- you know the girl from the corps-- and she said that the Vigilant Men are in control of hiring laborers," I said.

Ferdinand grunted. "Figures."

"They want men in the army, so they try and fill the position with women."

He shook his head and blew on his stiff fingers. "This is ridiculous. They took down a government they said oppressed them, yet they make sure that you can't find even employment without them? They're practically forcing us into their army."

"I suppose they're afraid that the Lenotskaya and Prest kings might get the young men first," I replied.

The pot had filled with rain water by then, and I went to fetch it to place on the surface of the stove. As I waited for it to boil, I chopped up the meat Ferdinand had brought back that morning. While I worked, we began to talk about really nothing, just relating our days and other subjects that popped up. As we talked, and I tried to make a stew at least vaguely edible, I wondered at how freely I talked with him. This sort of talking, where it just flowed from me as easily as pouring tea, was not something I was used to. With Mr. Lennox, my conversation was mostly about dance, and with the others I met during the day it was perhaps a hurried greeting if anything at all. Now I was laughing about nearly stepping in horse dung, and jokingly complaining about the rain. Ferdinand told me of hauling bricks and boarding up windows of houses so that new families could be assigned to them. My lips kept curling up at the ends no matter what I did, and I ducked my head to try and hide.

"I invited Rachel over for dinner," I said while stirring the stew.

"Oh?"

"She was displaced and didn't have anywhere to go," I said. "I didn't think you'd mind."

"I don't," he said. "I'm only wondering why she finds us so interesting all of a sudden."

"She loves her cause, but I think it is a little lonelier than she anticipated," I replied. "She doesn't have family, and her friends from the ballet are scattered who knows where."

Just then, a knock came on the door. Ferdinand opened it to Rachel, and we all settled in for dinner. We had no bowls so we ate with chunks of bread from the pot. With three people crowded around the stool tonight, it was an even tighter squeeze than before. Ferdinand and I bumped hands more than once, but I soon stopped laughing when I noticed the narrowed eyes of Rachel always on us.

A minute went by in awkward silence, but then Rachel looked up from her stew with a determined glint to her eye. "Are you going to join the Cause?"

"I'd say no, but apparently work is being hoarded." He gave her a look. "So I don't know if I'll be left without a choice soon."

"We need everyone that we can get. The tyranny of the royals will never know that we are a force to be reckoned with until we have the strength of the people behind us."

"I know," Ferdinand said. "But I don't want to leave Nadia and I don't want to fight."

Rachel pursed her lips and fiddled with the last bite of bread in her hand. She peeked up through the tendrils of her dark hair that had escape from their bindings, and one corner of her mouth quirked upward. "I doubt they'd want you anyway."

Ferdinand ignored her, but I heard something in her words. It set my skin to crawling and my heart picked up pace. "What do you mean?" I asked, my voice sounding oddly strained.

Rachel, satisfied that at least someone had risen to the bait, sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. "Only that we're very cautious over what kind of nobles we let into our ranks. You see, they're betraying their families and their friends by joining our side, so we really want to make sure that they're joining out of honor and not... well, something a little more yellow."

Ferdinand's jaw jumped and I was afraid that he might lunge toward Rachel. My hand flew to his arm and I spoke as calmly as I could.

"How did you know about Ferdinand's parentage?"

Rachel snorted. "It's not that hard to find out that the most famous young dancer of our nation is descended from 'pure stock', Nadia. The corps girls found out he was a baron just before it all went kaput."

"It doesn't make him a bad person, Rachel. You know that he's been living on his own wages," I said. Rachel merely raised her eyebrows, looking less than impressed.

"Stew's good," Ferdinand said, changing the topic. I wanted to press Rachel, make her see that she shouldn't resent Ferdinand purely because of a title he carried tacked onto his name. He was still the boy who risked his career on a small company, the one who danced with such perfection that everyone felt the need to improve their own steps. The one who came back to make sure I was safe.

The conversation drifted away from Ferdinand, though, so I was left with only the arguments in my head. Rachel and Ferdinand talked of a few things, with chilly abruptness, but within a few minutes they lapsed into a tense silence. I bit my lip, watching my two friends, wondering if it had been a mistake to invite Rachel to live just across the hall from us.

As soon as the food was finished, and I'd set the pot outside the window to rinse with the rain still falling in sheets, Rachel took her leave with a brief hug to me and barely a nod at Ferdinand. She closed our door firmly behind her, shaking the frame, but that was just her determined way. A moment later we heard her slam her own door, and the sounds of her stomping around in preparation for bed.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but does all that noise mean that we're blessed to have Rachel as a neighbor?" He slanted his head and gave me an accusing look.

"I told you before, she doesn't have any other place to go. If this dump is going for twelve Ruma, imagine what the better places are charging in the city?"

"Why can't she just stay with her precious Vigilant Men in their reassigned housing? I'm sure she'd love to lounge around in some poor little girl's bedroom." He said it with bitterness, no doubt thinking of his own home now occupied by Anton and his smudged lover.

"Those houses are assigned to anyone and everyone. She said they aren't always safe, and she doesn't want to end up with a drunken old man as her roommate."

Ferdinand widened his eyes. "Hm, maybe she should have thought about that before she threw her lot in with those thieves."

"Ferdinand."

"No. She calls for me to support these people, yet she's too afraid to live in one of their stolen houses because they're violent and immoral. Do you think I'm going to just think that's okay?"

"I didn't say you had to, but I am asking that you at least try to get along with Rachel. She's alone in this changing city, the same as we are. We can offer her the olive branch, at the very least."

Ferdinand looked me over and then sighed and threw his hands up. "Fine!" He gave me a playful shove on the shoulder. "You're too cute for you own good."

I blushed and quickly stood to fetch the pot from the window and finish the washing up.

When it was time to sleep, we curled up next to the stove, huddled together under Ferdinand's fur coat. I'd stuffed the hole by the stove pipe with one of my socks, which kept a bit of the chill out. It wasn't enough to make the room comfortable, though, so we still slept close. Ferdinand's knuckles kept brushing against my back as he moved in his sleep, and sometimes I even felt his breath stir the hair on the back of my neck. It felt nice. Safe.

Sleep that night came easily and gently. I dreamed of dancing.