Savine cleared her throat and wiped her stinging lower eyelids carefully with one gloved fingertip. “I have started thinking it might be a fine thing… if the world was a better place for my existence.” Curnsbick had always told her she had a generous heart, and she had thought him a sentimental fool. Perhaps it had simply been hidden under all the pearl dust and ambition. Hidden even from her. “I find… I feel a little lighter for every mark I give away. That… is the angle.”

She tore her eyes from the queue and found her one-time business partner staring at her, pamphlet still in his hand, almost as surprised by that unguarded moment as she was.

“By all means you can give me the lecture now,” she snapped. “You will tell me nothing I have not told myself. That this is a feeble sponge to soak up the rivers of misery I spilled for my own profit. That this is the pinnacle of soppy hypocrisy. A woman who made slaves of children, handing out a few lumps of coal as though it makes her a heroine.”

Vallimir paused, mouth slightly open, perhaps trapped between denying it out of politeness or agreeing with the obvious truth. Then he turned to the queue, tucking The Darling of the Slums back in his coat pocket, and blew out a smoky sigh. “I suppose… it’s better to give it away than to keep it.”

And they stood together as the snow came down, and watched the loaves being given away.

“They tossed General Bell from the Tower of Chains,” called Leo. A moment later, Savine heard the clonk of his leg tossed onto the floor as he dropped back against his pillows.

She winced. Not just at the thought of the execution, but at the offhand way he spoke of it. “I heard.”

“Jurand told the court they should give me his position.”

She stepped into the bedroom, staring over at him, sprawled on the bed in the light of one candle. “You want it?”

“Not yet. When the time’s right.” He looked surprised that she was surprised, even though they had been throwing generals off the Tower of Chains almost as fast as they had bankers. “Command of the People’s Army, Savine. I could sway them my way. They’re in a wretched state, though, I hear. No food, no equipment, no morale.”

“We could send them blankets. Winter coats for the officers. Bread, maybe.” She still was not used to the shape his body made, under the covers. The one leg, the strange absence of the other. Like some fairground trick. It was a struggle not to stare. “Make sure they know it all comes from the Young Lion. To one set of heroes from another.”

The gap in Leo’s teeth showed as he grinned. “You always know the right gloss to put on things.”

If only. She looked at the floor, wondering how she could possibly put any gloss on what she had to say. “There is something… I need to share with you. Something I found out shortly before we were married.”