His lungs burned. His chest ached. And his spine had no interest in straightening. He’d served them well all these years, hadn’t he? Why would they have decided to take him out?

He nodded at Yūrei. “After the game?”

3

Margot put down her pen and stretched out her lower back, knowing well it wouldn’t be so sore if she would listen to her mother and mind her posture. And she tried. But over the course of the day, she always ended up hunched over her desk.

The walk home would loosen all her tight muscles though. Not that it was time to go home yet. She checked the dainty little watch on a pendant that her brother had given her for Christmas last year and saw that it was only noon. She’d made good progress today.

Noon. Blast. She’d been planning on pausing to eat, but if she did so now, she’d find herself surrounded by all the secretaries on their lunch breaks.

“Ah, what good timing today, oui?” Maman slid Margot’s latest decrypt off her desk and gave her a far-too-knowing smile. “You can eat with us.”

She stifled a groan. Barely. “But I really ought to get through one more telegram—”

“Nonsense.” Obviously not trusting her to do anything other than pick up her next assignment and get to work, her mother tugged Margot away from her desk. “Come.”

“But Maman—”

“Do not make me say it again, Margot. No matter how brilliant, you are still a young lady. You need to associate with other young ladies now and then.”

Margot made no reply to that. There would be no point, and she wasn’t one to waste breath that could be better spent on other words.

“Here.” Maman bustled to her own desk, slid Margot’s decrypt into the In basket, and handed her the neatly typed stack of papers from the Out basket. “Hold these a moment, will you? I need to deliver them to the commander on our way out.” She reached for the bags that contained what little food they’d been able to find on their last trip to the shops. Grains were getting far too scarce. And sugar . . . sugar was a luxury Margot missed like nothing else.

Margot jostled the stack of typed decrypts until their edges all aligned. “I can run them over now.” There’d be little hope of slipping away at this point, and no real purpose to it. And it wouldn’t be too bad, if she could just sit with her mother and perhaps Lady Hambro. It was only the younger women, the secretaries, she’d rather avoid.