The biting autumn wind sliced through the thin wool of Sarah Sterling’s frayed coat as she walked along the gray concrete of Saint Claire Avenue. Her worn leather shoes had split along the outer seam, allowing the damp morning cold to seep directly into her socks with every step. Two days had passed since the catastrophic collapse of the Capital banking blockade, and the city moved with frantic, indifferent speed around her.
Far out on the eastern perimeter, in a windowless room inside a crumbling brick rooming house on Lower Mill Road, Evelyn lay curled beneath a stained blanket. Her mother had developed a hacking cough, yet she spent every waking breath screaming at Sarah to bring back warm broth and bread, cursing the ancestral lineage of House Hague for shutting their iron gates in th
