I ate my way through three platters of meats flavored with sauces, but more than that I relished the talk, the laughter, the freedom to say what I wished or to get up and take a turn around the trolls’ courtyard had I the desire to do so, which I did more than once before the trolls went to bed at nightfall. Kehinde appeared late, having conveyed the components of the jobber press to its next hiding place. Rory slipped off to talk to the young man I had seen him with earlier.

I ate an entire tray of mouthwatering pastries while everyone else was debating the question of whether women could bear the burden of having the same rights as men, because if I had not kept my hands busy I would have punched every man who argued that women simply could not have any independent legal capacity separate from their fathers, husbands, or sons. I could have sat there all night, listening to Bee and Kehinde eviscerate them, with Brennan tossing in the occasional joking remark to assuage male vanity. We almost did sit there all night, talking under the gleam of lanterns because the Parisi prince, in concert with Two Gourds House, had forbidden the installation of gas lighting anywhere in the city or its outer districts.

The first birds chirruped a dawn song as we staggered to our rest. Brennan and Kehinde had taken a narrow room above the kitchens whose window looked over the trolls’ courtyard. Here rooms were cheapest, since the trolls made many people uncomfortable. Chartji and Caith slept elsewhere.

A screen divided the room to create privacy. On the side where Kehinde and Bee slept was a bed just wide enough for two, supplemented by a narrow pallet, which Bee set on the floor as Kehinde took off her shoes by the light of a candle.

“Let you and Cat share the bed, Bee. I shall take the pallet for as long as Cat is with us.”

“Are you sure, for we surely do not mind taking the pallet,” Bee said with such solemnity that I gaped at her downcast gaze and folded hands. Tension bled between the two women, yet their polite respect toward each other seemed sincere.

“There are two of you. It is unreasonable of me to take the larger space.” She glanced at the door as Brennan came in, looked our way, then vanished behind the screen. He whistled as he fussed around getting ready to sleep. A chair clacked as he shifted it. Ropes squeaked as he lay down. The tilt of Kehinde’s head made me think she was blushing.

Bee slanted a portentous glance my way. “Cat and I will be glad to share the bed.”

“Where is Rory?” I whispered as I settled onto the bed in my shift.

Kehinde chuckled. “He takes care of himself.”