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“First of all, like I said, everybody knows
the Dollhouse doesn’t exist. Second, even if they did, even if the
rumors are true, they say Dollhouse slaves cost a small fortune.
Now, look at me.” I held out my hands, inviting people to take in
my clothes. I was dressed decently, but in the manner of a
middle-class resident of the third quadrant, not like an aristocrat
from the hill, and thanks to our time in Donato’s house, my clothes
were more soot-stained than usual. “Do I look like I could afford
something that expensive?”

The crowd murmured in agreement, and I kept
talking, wanting to keep the momentum on my side.

“You know where I’m staying.” I pointed at
Ceil’s inn. “If I had enough money to afford a Dollhouse slave,
don’t you think I could afford a decent inn? Do you think I’d be
eating fried fish and stewed rat like the rest of you?”

This time, the crowd laughed. A few began to
heckle Tino. I’d made myself one of them, and Tino had already set
himself up as the enemy. I had a feeling they’d have been throwing
rotten fruit if fruit of any kind weren’t in such high
demand.

Tino seemed less sure of himself, but he
wasn’t ready to back down yet. “Anybody can see that boy isn’t from
Davlova.”

“You’re right. He was born in Deliphine. But
that doesn’t make him a slave.”

“Leave the boy alone!” somebody from the crowd
yelled, and others quickly joined in.

“Yeah, mind your own business!”

“He’s done nothin’ to you!”

Tino was losing his footing and he knew it. He
scowled, glancing around for support. Nearly half of his own men
chose to stare at the ground rather than face him. For all of
Tino’s blustering, he wasn’t an effective leader.

I had a feeling it would prove to be his
downfall.

“What about those beggars you got working at
your inn?” he asked, trying once more to gain the upper hand. “If I
find out they’re freed slaves—”

He was interrupted by another voice from the
crowd. “Aw, give it a rest, you overblown windbag!”

Tino and his men turned, looking for the
heckler, and I took the opportunity to duck into the bystanders,
making my escape. I’d spent my life in the plaza, learning to be
invisible in a crowd, and I made the most of it now. By the time I
reached the western edge of the plaza, I knew I’d escaped, but the
encounter with Tino worried me.

I had a feeling my trouble with him was only
beginning.

My misgivings about Tino proved to be correct.
Over the next few days, he and his gang of followers became more
outspoken and more antagonistic than ever. People in the plaza went
out of their way to give him a wide berth.

“He’s rounding up slaves,” Uri told me one day
as I sat in his tavern, ignoring the small glass of whiskey I’d
paid for. I’d found Uri to be a good source of information, and if
buying a drink I didn’t want was the price of his knowledge, it was
one I was willing to pay. Most of the time I ended up giving it to
one of the penniless wretches who lingered hopefully outside the
tavern door. “Nobody knows where he’s keeping them,” Uri said, as
he wiped a glass with a rag that was none-too-clean, “but I’ve
heard from more than one person that he’s taking people by
force.”

“Maybe he isn’t keeping them at all,” I said,
my heart in my throat. “Maybe he’s killing them
instead.”

“Maybe.” Uri put the glass on a shelf. He
placed his gnarled hands on the edge of the bar, letting his weight
fall forward, causing the muscles in his broad shoulders to nearly
brush his ears. “I doubt it, though. I figure if he was killin’
them, he’d do it out in the open. Make it a public spectacle, like
some kind of warning.”

“That’s a good point.”

“I reckon he’s planning to take them back to
Deliphine and make himself a tidy profit by selling them back to
the slavers.”

“If he can’t prove ownership, the slavers will
hang him for his trouble.” A man had wandered into Uri’s tavern and
stood staring at the wall, the hopeless look in his eyes all-too
familiar.

“Here,” I said, handing him my drink. “On the
house.”

His eyes widened. “Thank you, sir! I don’t
like to beg, but—”

“You’re welcome.” Whiskey wasn’t what he
really needed, but it was what he wanted, and I wasn’t going to
drink mine anyway.

“Would they really hang him?” Uri asked,
bringing me back to the conversation at hand.

I shrugged. “Maybe they’d make an exception,
knowing he came from Davlova. They must know most of the
slave-owners died in the revolution. But I have a feeling it’d be
easier for them to hang him than to pay him.”

“It’d serve the greedy bastard right too.” Uri
chewed his lip, watching me. “What about that boy of yours? You
think Tino’ll come after him?”

“It’ll be the last thing he ever
does.”

My bravado faded quickly though in light of
the fact that I couldn’t protect Ayo every minute of every day. I
worried too about Hugo, Benny, Agnes, and Karina. Ceil had allowed
them to live in the upper floor of her inn while repairs were
underway, but nobody was ready to address what would happen when
the work was done. How could we kick them out, knowing the
persecution they faced? And yet, how could we continue to house
them, knowing the danger it put us in? The only solution was to
deal with Tino, but killing him would mean starting a war I wasn’t
prepared to fight.

I left Uri’s with a troubled heart.

I went out into the plaza, searching for
things I might buy. It had become a bit of a habit, searching for
fruit or preserves or tools or nails or a bit of soap. Sometimes I
found myself buying an extra shirt for Ayo or Ceil, or a hammer for
Hugo, simply because I could and I knew the people selling needed
the money. Sometimes I didn’t even have to go looking. More than
once, people had shown up at the inn with goods, asking if I’d buy.
Today I managed to find a small bag of flour — “barely squirming,”
as Ceil would say — and a dress I thought would fit
Karina.

I returned to the inn only to find Frey
outside the front door, leaning against the wall.

“Were you waiting for me?”

“Nah. Just thought I’d stand here and hold up
this wall for a while.” He smiled, his mirth somehow at odds with
the “missing” posters plastered to the bricks behind
him.

“Did Anzhéla send you?”

“Does it make a difference?”

“I suppose not.”

“Feel like taking a walk?” he asked. He was
still smiling, and I found myself smiling back.

“I suppose.”

I dropped my purchases inside, then fell in
next to him, our boots on the cobblestones creating a matched tempo
as we made our way north before cutting through an alley to the
west, into the heart of the third quadrant. The sun was high and
hot at our backs, but the alleyway felt cooler than I
expected.

“So,” Frey said at last, “it seems like your
meeting with Anzhéla didn’t go so well.”

“I guess not.”

“Did she give you the ‘bloodlust’
speech?”

I nodded, feeling ashamed for no reason I
could quite explain. Maybe simply because I had a cock. “She
did.”

He shook his head, chuckling. “She doesn’t
give it often, but when she does…”

“I hope I never hear it again.”

“You and me both, brother.”

Brother.
I wondered when that had
happened. I liked the way it sounded, coming from him. “Maybe she’s
right. Knowing Anzhéla, she probably is, but…”

“But?” he pushed, when it became clear I
didn’t know what to say. “You’re still not sure?”

I sighed and shoved my hands into my pockets.
“It doesn’t change anything. The trenches are still the trenches.
People are starving down here, and men like Tino are taking
whatever they can grab, while the rulers on the hill just keep
working for themselves and themselves alone.”

He stopped, putting his hand on my arm to turn
me toward him. “You know her better than that, Misha. She isn’t
ignoring it. I know it may seem that way from down here, but she’s
doing everything she can, and none of it’s been easy.”

I remembered what Mama B had said about women
being expected to disappear now that the revolution was over. I
remembered Anzhéla herself telling me the governors were fighting
her at every step. “She’s meeting a lot of resistance?” I asked, as
we resumed walking.

He nodded, squinting up past the buildings at
the cloudless sky. “She did more than anyone to bring down the
nobles and the mayors, and now the new governors are doing
everything they can to shunt her to the side.”

“Even Aleksey?”

“Aleksey more than any of them, to be
honest.”

“But he’s her brother, right?”

“That only allows him to be more condescending
than the others. He acts as though bullying her is his
Goddess-given right. They keep trying to make up new offices they
can give her to appease her. Ambassador to Lower Davlova. Secretary
to the Board of Governors.”

“Secretary?
I bet that pissed her
off.”

Frey laughed quietly. “I thought she was going
to rip somebody apart with her bare hands. The thing is, they take
her advice more often than not, but then they do their best to
pretend it was their idea. Like a couple of weeks ago, she
suggested that one or two of the governors go to Deliphine. She
thought it was time the new Davlovan government started making
contacts over there. She lined the whole thing up, but Aleksey
edged her out at the last minute. He fed the Board some bullshit
about how Anzhéla was a known criminal and that wasn’t the face we
wanted to present to the Deliphine governors.”

We reached a cross street and turned left,
walking shoulder-to-shoulder in the thin strip of shade cast by the
buildings.

“So, Aleksey went to Deliphine in her
place?”

“Him and one other.”

“Anzhéla must have been livid.”

“That’s putting it mildly.”

We walked in silence for a while, and I took
the time to study our surroundings. I hadn’t been past the border
of the third quadrant since before the revolution. Most of the
buildings were brick, varying only in color. On the ground level,
most seemed intact, but when I glanced up, I could see that many
had lost their thatched roofs, much like Ceil’s inn. I spotted
members of Davlova’s working class as we walked, glimpsed through
windows and in doorways, all of them watching us, hope and a touch
of desperation shining in their eyes. These weren’t the trenches.
Nobody here was starving, but they weren’t thriving either. Tailors
and cobblers and bookbinders and lacemakers weren’t in high demand.
One shopkeeper saw us coming and met us on the sidewalk, bouncing
nervously on his toes as we approached. He must have been nearly
ninety, with stopped shoulders and arthritic hands.

“A new hat, gentlemen?” he croaked. “I’m in a
position to give you a real bargain.”

“I’m afraid I’ve no need of a hat at the
moment,” Frey said.

“How about you, sir?” the shopkeeper asked,
turning to me. “Perhaps some gloves? I have the finest leather in
Davlova.”

“Why not?”

Frey and I spent a good half hour trying on
hats. I didn’t actually need one, but the old man was clearly
desperate for a bit of business. In the end, I picked one that I
thought would fit Ayo. The shopkeeper insisted on throwing in a
pair of kid gloves out of sheer gratitude. They were too small for
Ceil, but I figured Lark could find a use for them. If nothing
else, she could trade them for a bit of food. It wasn’t until I’d
paid for my purchase and was waiting for the shopkeeper to wrap
them in a sheet of ragged paper that I spotted the sign tacked to
the door of the shop.

CARPENTER NEEDED

FAIR WAGES FOR HONEST LABOR

The shopkeeper saw the direction of my gaze.
“Are you looking for work?” he asked, as he handed me my package.
“I doubt a gentleman like you needs to stoop to laying roofs, but I
sure could use the help.”

I blinked in surprise at being called a
gentleman. It was a first for me. “Not me, no, but I know somebody
who might be interested.” But would the fact that they were free
slaves matter to him? “You haven’t been able to find anybody?” It
seemed unlikely in a city so full of desperate men.

The shopkeeper shook his head. “The thing is,
I can’t pay much. Most men who can work are either working for more
than I can afford to give, or busy rebuilding their own homes. Had
a few folks come ’round asking, but when they heard what I was
offering, they turned away. Said they couldn’t afford to feed their
families on so little, but if I pay what they’re asking, I can’t
afford to feed my own. I’d fix it myself, but you can see I’m too
damn old.”

“You don’t have any family who can help?” Frey
asked.

“Never had any sons. Lost my wife years ago,
and then my daughter in the fire. Her husband’s been missing since
that night too. I got their three kids here with me though, all of
us sleeping without a roof over our heads. It’s hard enough to make
ends meet, what with no one buying.”