Sasha was washing dishes in lukewarm sink water when Rosa approached her and grabbed her by the arm. 

"We need to speak," she said. The serving platter Sasha had been scrubbing slid to the bottom of the sink, and Sasha flinched as it rattled. The last thing she needed was to owe more because of a dropped dish. Rosa's eyes were impassive as she tugged on Sasha's upper arm.

"I know Rannok didn't think things through," she said, keeping her voice low and even. She still maintained that this wasn't his fault, not really. "Where's Adelaide?"

"With her mother," Rosa replied. "The poor girl's got her arm wrapped in plasters up to the elbow. But that's not what we needed to talk about." 

Sasha shot Rosa a questioning look as the woman pushed her toward the corner of the room, far away from the door. A moment later she withdrew something from her pocket. The edge of it glinted in the light spilling in from the kitchen window, and Sasha pressed her back against the wall.

"Why do you have a knife?" Sasha hissed. It wasn't the sort of knife one used for cutting meat or peeling vegetables. This one had a mean-looking edge, and a blade made practical and cut on both sides. Rosa tucked it into Sasha's pocket.

"You two need to leave," she said quietly. "I don't care when or how. But you need to get out of here before Pirya and Mantu make it so you can't leave at all." Rosa's eyes darted around the room. Her irises were dilated, her eyebrows arched, like she expected a wild animal to come crashing through the window and eat them. 

"What do you mean?" Sasha asked, before it dawned on her. Her eyes widened as she stared back at Rosa. "How long have you been here?" 

It explained Rosa's tolerance for Pirya's shouting, and the saccharine sweet way in which she talked to Mantu. It explained the worried glances out the doorway and the only pretending to protest before bending to whatever she had been told. 

"Ten years," Rosa said, voice still low and quiet. She turned away from Sasha and toward the door before turning back. "It started with a broken dish. Then a fire that started in the kitchen. No real damage, but..." She sighed. "They burned my contract. The local constable wouldn't dare cross Mantu."

Sasha remembered the sword again. It was still stashed in the bushes behind the house. She let her thumb run across the hilt of the knife Rosa had shoved into her pocket. That wasn't the only thing she'd left behind. The horses and their gear were still in the mountains, and probably long gone by now. Sasha's heart sank. "Why are you helping me?"

Rosa's eyes darted around some more, like they were hidden in a dark alley trading something obscene rather than standing in a kitchen Sasha had been working in more than a month. Her lips pursed, and Rosa paused in thought for a moment before answering.

"Because once I was young and like you," she said quietly, looking toward the window. "You deserve happiness. Both of you do. A mistake when you are young isn't justification for ruining one's life."

"What's going to happen to you?" Sasha asked. Her hand wrapped around the hilt of the dagger. She hadn't used such a small blade since she was a girl, but the weight of it felt good in her palm. Rosa's eyes got dark and she turned away again, then plucked the dish from the sink that Sasha had left before grabbing a rag to scrub it.

"I have nowhere else to go, and no one else to look after," she said, not looking in Sasha's direction. "This is my life now, it has been since I came here." She sighed in a world-weary sort of way. "When I arrived this was an opportunity, rather than a curse. I'm not sure if it is anymore, but it's what I have."

"Pirya is awful to you," Sasha said, touching Rosa's arm for a moment before dropping it again. The woman laughed softly and placed the dish down again before wiping her hands on a rag.

"There's a group of ielarum smugglers that dock here every month or so in the middle of the night," Rosa answered. "They'll allow you passage if you explain yourself thoroughly and are willing to help them. I can't fathom why Mantu allows it and don't want to ask. Anyway they next dock at the end of the week."

Sasha could think of several reasons, but voiced none of them. "Where are they going?" 

"Don't know," Rosa responded. "Somewhere far enough away from here that it won't be worth Mantu's time and trouble to get you and the boy back."

"What if they find out you helped us?"

"You need to make sure you don't leave soap spots on the dishes," Rosa replied. She picked up a dry rag and began rubbing at the dish. "Crystalware is expensive."

There was something terribly frightening and sad in Rosa's expression. Like Sasha had touched on something awful and painful, a sore spot that had never quite stopped being bruised. There was a sheen of water over Rosa's eyes, and she sniffled a little bit. Sasha turned away from her. It felt like an intrusion, like she'd stumbled into a conversation she wasn't intended to ever hear.

"I'm sorry," she said, then tucked her hand into her pocket to make sure the knife Rosa had given her was still there. "It must be hard."

"They're the only family I still have," Rosa replied. 

Sasha thought back to the family she had left, to the screaming and shouting and swearing and hitting. She thought back to the nights spent curled with her brother so bad things couldn't happen to her at night. And for a moment she couldn't help but wonder if for Rosa, things were just as tough, just in ways that were less violent. She couldn't help but wonder if Rosa would run only to feel the call back here, to a six year old and a broken marriage and to a woman who could not help but gripe at her every move.

"What happened to your real family?" she asked gently. Rosa turned, and her eyes were serious. Sasha leaned back a little and wanted to eat the words back, because Rosa looked as if Sasha had just told her she'd killed her favorite puppy.

"My mother died when I was young. I never met my father. Family is what you make of it. It's who you choose, not who produced you." Rosa's eyes softened, and she tucked a strand of her greying hair back into her bun. Suddenly she looked very tired, worn and old, like she'd gained ten years in an instant. 

"Do you miss them?"

"I was too young to," Rosa responded. She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment, then backed up against the countertop. "You have a good life. It's a shame neither of you seem to realize how lucky you really are."

Sasha opened her mouth to say something, but the words died before they could form in her head.

"Get out of here before you can't," Rosa said. She picked up a new dish and dunked it into the sink. "Make something of yourselves. And go fetch more eggs from the market, please."

Sasha nodded, then picked up the basket and headed toward the door. She'd have to talk to Rannok.