Ash & Bramble by Sarah Prineas

I carefully get to my feet, bow my head when the Overseer hisses her orders, and slide out of the room.
    Outside, the sky is dark gray and snakes of freezing fog slither across the courtyard. On the way to Shoe’s room, I stop at an out-of-the-way closet I found when fetching the candles, and collect my other supplies, carrying them in my apron.
    It is time.

CHAPTER
5
    S HOE IS JUST FINISHING ONE OF THE FUR SLIPPERS WHEN Pin knocks on the door and slips into his workroom.
    She is different now; he can see it at once. Before she was sharp and a little teasing; now she looks sharp and determined.
    â€œYou were right, by the way,” Pin says. She dumps a pile of things out of her apron. A wax candle rolls across the floor and bumps against his foot. Then, to his alarm, she bends over and, pulling her skirt up to her knees, reaches under her dress. He relaxes a little when he sees that she is unwinding a thin rope from around her waist; it falls in a heap at her bare feet. “There. I think it’s long enough.” She crouches and starts coiling the rope.
    He sets an awl on his workbench and clears his throat. “I was right about what?”
    She glances up at him. A lock of her short, dark hair falls over her eyes, and she brushes it impatiently away. “That there are worse things than the post,” she says shortly.
    He nods. After Pin’s visit, a Jack had come with a requisition for some leather, and whispered to him that a Seamstress had dared the wall. For a moment he’d felt a stab to the heart; he’d been sure it was Pin.
    â€œNo, not her,” the Jack had said. “Not that girl you were with. A different one. Our Overseer took us Jacks to see her, stuck on the wall. She’s meant to be a lesson.”
    His own Overseer, an over-busy, rat-tailed man, hadn’t bothered taking Shoe to the wall. Shoe had already learned his lesson at the post.
    The Jack had glanced furtively around. “Tell her, your girl. Tell her the hook is ready.”
    Pin has finished coiling the rope, and stands. “I came to say good-bye,” she says.
    He bends and picks up the candle, holding it out to her. When their hands meet, he feels the searing heat of her lingering touch. She gives him a long look, and he knows she is asking again. I can’t , he wants to say, but the words stay caught in his throat. She nods and adds the candle to her pile of things. Feeling as creaky as an old man—he’s been hunched over his workbench for too long—he pushes himself to his feet and goes to the darkest corner of his workroom. From under his bench he pulls the boots he cobbled together when he should have been making glass slippers. “Here,” hesays, and thrusts them awkwardly at her. “They’re for you.”
    Pin’s eyes widen. “Oh.” Abruptly, she sits on the floor and pulls a boot onto her left foot. “It fits perfectly.”
    â€œOf course it’s perfect.” He’s used her foot for a model, after all. He’s lined the boots with sable, for warmth, and he’s made them sturdy, too, not dainty or fragile like the dancing slippers he has to make for the Godmother. They are boots for walking long distances, boots for running while pursued by trackers.
    With quick fingers she is slipping the other boot onto her right foot and tying the laces. “Won’t you get into trouble?” she asks.
    â€œNo,” he answers. “They’re cobbled. I only used leftover scraps.” In truth, if she gets away clean, he’ll be fine. If she is caught, though, as she is sure to be, with his boots on her feet, he will be in trouble—they all will. But he knows that even if the Godmother herself questions Pin, she won’t tell that he made the boots especially for her escape. He might get another trip to the post for it, and that will be bad enough, but there are worse things.
    She stands and stamps each foot to test the