The stationery store smelled of ink and leather and musty paper. Nomi feigned interest in a stack of heavy cream paper with a gold foil border of twisting vines. A soldier appeared before the window on the street outside, so she moved to the back of the store, hidden from the door by a towering, precarious stack of boxes. In a dusty corner, she found a small, cheaply bound journal, with smooth blank pages and a coarse leather cover. She lingered over it a few more minutes, until the shopkeeper pointedly cleared his throat. On her way to the register, she noticed a jar of thick graphite pencils, each with a small razor for sharpening tied to it with twine.

“How much?” she asked gruffly, holding out one of the pencils and the little journal to the shopkeeper. She hoped she sounded like her brother, and not like a girl playing dress-up in her brother’s clothes.

“A silver,” the man said.

Nomi kept her head down as she rummaged in her pocket, never meeting his eyes. She had no clear idea what he looked like, only how he sounded: nasal and vaguely disapproving. Nomi slammed a silver on the counter and snatched her items up. She whirled and headed for the door before he could get a better look at her.

A peek down the street revealed that the soldiers had disappeared. She slipped out of the shop, the clank of the shopkeeper locking the door behind her loud in her ears.

It took her another twenty minutes or so to find the bakery Malachi had spoken of.

The store’s lamps were lit, and a small stream of customers slipped in and out, hands filled with paper boxes of cornettos and almond cookies, loaves of fresh bread and rich chocolate tortas. Nomi’s stomach grumbled painfully.

She slipped in among the shoppers, quickly surveying the layout along with the baskets of breads and pastries. The front room was small, but a glass divider showed a glimpse of the baker’s ovens in a room beyond, where his wife and daughter were busy cleaning. A hallway led away from the front room to a back door she could just spy the edge of, along with several darkened doorways. Perhaps one led to the basement. Nomi reached for a small round of savory cheese bread, paid for it as quickly as she could, and hustled outside.

She found a spot deep in the alley across the street, dark enough that her cloak made her disappear, and sat down on the damp stone. There was no breeze here, nothing to cool her overheated skin, but she didn’t brush the hood away from her face. She curled into the heavy night, ate her bread, and waited, comforted, at least, by the food.

Eventually, the owner of the bakery ushered the last customer out with a hearty “See you next week, Claudio!” and locked the door behind him.