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Every quarter, the King’s Guard comes with a ledger and a new royal decree, authorizing seizure of labor contracts. They took three servants in one night, as if loading a sixteen-year-old boy into the back of a covered wagon was the same as handing over a sack of potatoes.

“Quick, put these on,” Arlo says, holding out his gloves. I shake my head, and he forces them on.

“But what about you?” I murmur.

“I have pockets.” He grins. Arguing is pointless when Arlo has made up his mind, at least on matters of protecting me.

He pulls his hat off and drags it over my head. Before I can protest, he pulls his hood up and tightens the strings until it covers half his face.

“Come on.” He tilts his head toward the barn doors, already moving.

I turn back to the bed. Sable hasn’t stirred, but her breathing hitches with that awful, wet cough. I shake my hand from Arlo’s and kneel to tuck the blanket around her thin shoulders. I press my lips to her temple. Her skin is hot, too hot.

“I’ll be right back,” I murmur against her hair.

She doesn’t wake, and when I turn around, Arlo is already waiting for me at the barn door. I head toward him, past the vacant stalls, past the hook where the lantern used to hang before we burned through the last of the oil, past where Mr. Crawly slit the farm’s last horse’s throat three months ago because there was nothing else left to eat.

Arlo eases the door open just enough for us to slip through. Cold air blasts us the moment we clear the barn. It’s the kind of cold that burrows deep into your bones and joints, making them ache. I grit my teeth to stop them from chattering and try to keep pace with Arlo as he cuts through the yard toward the front of the main house.

My heart stutters when I realize we’re headed for the gates.

“Arlo?” I dig my heels in and try to pull him to a stop. “We can’t! I won’t be able to see if the Guard comes. I won’t be close enough to get to Sable.” I nervously glance back.

“I know,” he mumbles, palming my cheek.

Sable and I signed our loyalty to Crawly in red ink when he bought our debts, but at the time, anything was better than the king’s cages. But now Crawly’s rules are as good as law until our debts are paid, and our contracts allow him to punish us in any way he sees fit.

“Look, I know you want to help your sister, so that’s what we’re doing.” His words are muffled into the hood that’s pulled tight around his face.

“Arlo, if they catch us . . .”

Madam Claudia has very strict rules about the separation of non-related men and women on the farm. She says a pregnant servant will find her way back to the flesh markets, and no one wants to go back there.

“They won’t catch us.”

I remember the last time Arlo was caught too close to me. He was helping with my chores after finishing his, and he was given five lashes in front of everyone. When it was my turn to stand before the others, shirtless, and take my five lashes, Arlo refused and stood in my place. He took my punishment along with his own.

We pick up our pace, traipsing through the fog that curls across the frozen fields, drifting through the empty rows where crops should be.

Arlo moves quickly, pulling me behind the tool shed, a leaning, half-collapsed structure held together by rust and ice, then we pass the skeleton of the old windmill.

“Arlo,” I whisper, my breath making small ghosts in the air. “Where are we going?”

He glances back at me. There’s something in his eyes I haven’t seen in weeks, buried beneath the exhaustion that lives permanently on all our faces.

Excitement.

“Fishing,” he says, patting his backpack.

I stop so abruptly that his grip on my hand yanks me forward, and I nearly slam into his back. He steadies me with both hands on my shoulders, and I stare up at him.

“Are you insane?”

He raises an eyebrow. “You are seriously the worst partner in crime. Now be quiet before you get us caught.” He nervously looks back at the main house before unlatching the fence just enough for us to fit through.

“We don’t have a fishing license,” I hiss.

Fishing licenses became law before the freeze. No one is allowed beyond the walls without an authorized permit.