herself looking around as they did. Even though the sounds of people hunting for them had gone, a part of her was convinced that someone would leap out at them the moment their feet touched the ground.
They picked their way through the streets, trying to keep out of sight as much as they could. It was impossible to avoid people in Ashton, though, because there were simply so many of them. The nuns hadn’t bothered to teach them much about the shape of the world, but Sophia had heard that there were bigger cities beyond the Merchant States.
Right then, it was hard to believe it. There were people everywhere she looked, even though most of the city’s population had to be inside, hard at work, by now. There were children playing on the street, women walking to and from markets and shops, workmen carrying tools and ladders. There were taverns and playhouses, shops selling coffee from the newly discovered lands past the Mirror Ocean, cafes where people seemed to be almost as interested in talking as in eating. She could hardly believe to see people laughing, happy, so carefree, doing nothing but idling the time and enjoying themselves. She could hardly believe that such a world could even exist. It was a shocking contrast to the enforced quiet and obedience of the orphanage.
There’s so much, Sophia sent to her sister, eyeing the food stalls everywhere, feeling her stomach pain grow with each passing smell.
Kate was looking around it all with a practical eye. She picked one of the cafes, moving up toward it cautiously while people outside laughed at a would-be philosopher trying to argue over how much of the world it was possible to really know.
“You’d have an easier time if you weren’t drunk,” one of them heckled.
Another turned toward Sophia and Kate as they approached. The hostility there was palpable.
“We don’t want your sort here,” he sneered. “Get out!”
The sheer anger of it was more than Sophia had expected. Still, she shuffled back to the street, pulling Kate with her so that her sister wouldn’t do anything they’d regret. She might have dropped her poker somewhere in running from the mob, but she certainly had a look that said she wanted to hit something.
They had no choice, then: they would have to steal their food. Sophia had hoped that someone might show them charity. Yet that wasn’t the way the world worked, she knew.
It was time to use their talents, they both realized, nodding to each silently at the same time. They stood on opposite sides of an alley and both watched and waited as a baker worked. Sophia waited until the baker could read her thoughts, and then told her what she wanted her to hear.
Oh no, the baker thought. The rolls. How could I forget them inside?
Barely had the baker had the thought than Sophia and Kate burst into action, rushing forward the second the woman turned her back to go back inside for the rolls. They moved quickly, each snatching an armful of cakes, enough to fill their bellies almost to bursting.
They both ducked behind an alley and chewed ravenously. Soon, Sophia felt her belly full, a strange and pleasant sensation, and one she’d never had. The House of the Unclaimed didn’t believe in feeding its charges more than the bare minimum.
Now she laughed as Kate attempted to shove an entire pastry into her mouth.
What? her sister demanded.
It’s just good to see you happy, Sophia sent back.
She wasn’t sure how long that happiness would last. She kept an eye out with every step for the hunters who might be after them. The orphanage wouldn’t want to put more effort into reclaiming them than their indentures were worth, but who could tell when it came to the vindictiveness of the nuns? At the very least, they would have to keep clear of the watchmen, and not just because they’d escaped.
Thieves, after all, were hanged in Ashton.
We need to stop looking like runaway orphans or we’ll never be able to walk through the city without people staring and trying to catch us.
Sophia looked over at her sister, surprised by the thought.
You want to steal clothes? Sophia sent back.
Kate nodded.
That thought brought an extra note of fear and yet Sophia knew her sister, ever practical, was right.
They both stood at the same time, stuffing the extra cakes in their waists. Sophia was looking about for clothes, when she felt Kate touch her arm. She followed her gaze and saw it: a clothesline, high up on a roof. It was unguarded.
Of course it would be, she realized with relief. Who, after all, would guard a clothesline?
Even so, Sophia could feel her heart pounding as they clambered up onto another roof. They both paused, looked about, then reeled in the line the way a fisherman might have pulled in a line of fish.
Sophia stole an outer dress of green wool, along with a cream underdress that was probably the kind of thing a farmer’s wife might wear, but was still impossibly rich to her. To her surprise, her sister picked out an undershirt, breeches, and doublet, which left her looking more like a spike-haired boy than the girl she was.
“Kate,” Sophia complained. “You can’t run around looking like that!”
Kate shrugged. “Neither of us is supposed to look like this. I might as well be comfortable.”
There was a kind of truth in that. The sumptuary laws were clear about what each grade of society could and couldn’t wear, the unclaimed and the indentured. Here they were, breaking more laws, tossing aside their rags, the only thing they were allowed to wear, and dressing better than they were.
“All right,” Sophia said. “I won’t argue. Besides, maybe it will throw off anyone who is looking for two girls,” she said with a laugh.
“I do not look like a boy,” Kate snapped back in obvious indignation.
Sophia smiled at that. They salvaged their cakes, stuffed them in their new pockets, and together, they were off.
The next part was harder to smile about; there remained so many things they needed to do if they wanted to actually survive. They had to find shelter, for one thing, and then work out what they were going to do, where they were going to go.
One step at a time, she reminded herself.
They scrambled back down to the streets, and this time Sophia led the way, trying to find a route through the poorer section of the city, still too close to the orphanage for her tastes.
She saw a string of burnt out houses ahead, obviously not recovered from one of the fires that sometimes swept through the city when the river was low. It would be a dangerous place to rest.
Even so, Sophia headed for them.
Kate gave her a wondering, skeptical look.
Sophia shrugged.
Dangerous is better than nothing at all, she sent.
They approached cautiously, and just as Sophia stuck her head around the corner, she was startled as a pair of figures rose up out of the wreckage. They appeared so soot-blackened by staying in the charred remains that for a moment Sophia thought they’d been in the fire.
“Geddout!
