Free The White Rose by Amy Ewing Page B

bowler hats and long overcoats and carry silver-topped canes. The women are in colorful dresses made of velvet or silk, with fur stoles around their necks and sleek leather gloves. Servant girls dressed in brown trail behind them. One carries a birdcage with a brilliant green parrot inside. Her mistress sees the Cobbler and stops.
    “I was on my way to your store,” she says. “I need a new pair of shoes to match the gown I bought for the Magistrate’s Gala.”
    “Of course, Mrs. Firestone,” the Cobbler says. “I am making a delivery. Then I will be happy to attend to you.”
    “Come to the house,” Mrs. Firestone says. “This is a special order. And don’t send your apprentice like last time. That boy was all thumbs.”
    The Cobbler’s shoulders tense, but he nods. “As you wish.”
    The woman breezes past us, her servant hurrying along in her wake.
    “She seems lovely,” I mutter.
    The Cobbler fixes me with a cold stare. “She is better than most.”
    “Is that why you’re working for—” I stop myself from saying Lucien’s name just in time. “Him?”
    “Now is not the time for questions,” the Cobbler says. I grip the box so hard my knuckles whiten. I am tired of hearing that.
    He walks away and I have no choice but to follow.
    Eventually, we leave the wide boulevard of upscale housesand turn onto smaller streets. We pass a theater with a gold marquee proclaiming, THE LONG WAY BACK: A NEW PLAY BY FORREST VALE. ONLY TWO PERFORMANCES LEFT ! and a restaurant with large glass windows and linen-covered tables.
    We reach a street made of rough cobblestone. The buildings here are big and boxy, with metal awnings and dirty windows with iron bars on them. A wagon sits under one of the awnings as two men haul large slabs of meat off it under the watchful gaze of a butcher in a stained white apron. He glances down at the clipboard in his hands.
    “Four diamantes more per pound than last month,” he says to himself. “What is the Exetor playing at with all these new taxes?”
    Then he seems to realize he’s speaking out loud and glances worriedly at the men, but they are too busy lifting a long cut of ribs onto the loading dock to notice.
    The Cobbler stops in front of a small warehouse with chipped green paint and a sliding iron door. “This is where I leave you,” he says, taking the package from my arms. “I do hope the Black Key was right about you.”
    “Why are you doing this?” I blurt out. “Why are you helping me, helping . . . him?”
    The Cobbler looks away. “They took my son,” he says. “Because he was large and strong. He liked making shoes, but they wanted him as a Regimental. He is theirs now.” His eyes meet mine and I see years of anger in them, of loss, and of the desperate need for hope. “But their time is over.”
    I never thought about how the Regimentals came to be Regimentals. Did I think it was voluntary? Is anything in this city voluntary?
    “I’m sorry,” I say.
    He huffs. “Don’t be sorry. I don’t need your pity. I need my son back.” He yanks the door open. “Someone will come for you. Do not trust them until you see the key.”
    Without another word, he turns and walks back the way we came.
    “Violet?” Raven’s voice pulls me away from the Cobbler’s retreating back. I step inside the warehouse and slide the door shut.
    Raven throws herself into my arms, and I can feel the sharp points of her shoulder blades as I hold her. The small mound of her stomach presses softly against me.
    “You’re real, right?” she whispers in my ear.
    “I’m real,” I whisper back.
    She pulls away and looks at me. “He said you were real, that you were here and coming back to us, but I didn’t believe him. They lied to me so many times; I don’t want to be lied to anymore.”
    I look behind her to where Ash is standing, healthy and alive and smiling at me. I don’t want to let go of Raven, so I hold out my hand to him. He takes it.
    “You made it,” he