“Colin!” Lizzie chided, gesturing with her head toward the “mindless sheep” who were sitting with their wounded children—children who had been wounded for the Mechanics’ political display.

The bus slowed again as we neared Lizzie’s neighborhood. Lizzie grabbed my arm and said, “We must go—now.” Colin swung me off the bus after her, and I let her drag me down the street toward her boardinghouse.

Once inside her room, Lizzie shoved me into a chair, took a towel off a hook, poured water over it, and wiped my face. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Getting you cleaned up.”

“But why?”

She scrubbed the blood off my hands. “We need a reporter on the scene who can blend in as an ordinary citizen. You’re our best bet for that.” She leaned back to check her work, plucked a bit of hay out of my hair, and gave me a wry grin. “I doubt the soldiers will forget the mad redhead who harangued them. You’re less memorable.”

“Thank you very much,” I said dryly.

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You’re respectable. No one would imagine you to be a troublemaker. You look every inch the governess—and don’t you dare take offense at that.”

She attempted to smooth my hair, but gave that up as a lost cause. “Your dress doesn’t look too bad, and the blood doesn’t show on the dark blue, so you shouldn’t stand out as someone who was on the Battery today. Well, without that.” She removed the Mechanics’ insignia from my bodice, dropped it in my bag, then handed me the bag and said, “Now, head for Broadway and Eighth. Watch what happens and write an article tonight. We’ll get it from you in the morning.”

She went downstairs with me, pushed me toward Broadway, then ran uptown. Too exhausted to run, I settled for a brisk walk. It was only a block to Broadway, and there didn’t seem to be anything happening yet.

The crowd grew denser as I approached Eighth Street, and the signs of protest became evident. Some people held sticks with red paint–smeared white cloth tied to them. Others held placards printed with the words “The Blood of Our Children.” The ink was still wet, and men moved through the crowd, distributing signs. Most of the protesters looked like the Mechanics I knew. A few had tried to dress as though they represented the people of the slums, but having seen the actual slum residents, I could tell these were merely costumes.

Not everyone present was part of the protest. When someone asked, “What is this?” I realized that some of the bystanders didn’t even know what was happening.

“It’s those damned Mechanics,” a nearby man muttered. “They’re causing trouble again.”