5
	 Catherine jumped up out her chair, to run after them, but she bumped the table with her hip and spilled Sarah’s drink in her lap.  Captain Thomas slammed the door and strode across the room to slap his hands down on the table.
	“I told you that you had to be careful, didn’t I?  You should have left her alone until I was around to help you,” he said.
	“Because you know everything, right?  If I had left her alone, the idiot would have gotten herself arrested and we'd have lost our chance,” Catherine said.
	“So you chased her away instead, yes?  Anyone Elizabeth thinks is smart enough to help us is going to be more than canny enough to make sure we don’t see her again if she doesn’t want us to,” he said.
	He pushed the chair that Jess had been sitting in back to the table and sat down with a flick of his tail.  Sarah grabbed a wad of paper napkins off of the table next to theirs and dabbed at Catherine’s soda soaked pants with them.
	“It's a good thing we did get to her first.  She'd never have trusted you, and you probably would have spooked her worse just by approaching her,” Sarah said.
	“You think so?” he said.  
	“I know it.  She’s a House girl, and you’re a soldier, and soldiers never mean girls like her any good,” Sarah said.
	She took another handful of napkins and scrubbed harder, until Catherine pushed her away in a fit of embarrassment.  Sarah never worried about where they were, or who saw them, and Catherine had always envied her that, but she had to worry about her father’s reputation, as well as her own.
	“We’ve all been stupid about this.  You don’t survive as a House girl without being suspicious.  Just grabbing her off the street was a stupid strategy no matter who did it,” Catherine said.
	“We don’t have time for much else,” Thomas said.
	“We have to make some time, then,” Catherine said.
	Thomas thumped the table again.  Sarah’s glass tipped over for a second time and rolled onto the floor, where it broke.  That earned them a glare from the otter, who pulled a white notepad out of his pocket and added the price of the glass to their bill.
	“I don’t see why we have to do it this way.  Elizabeth is on our side, and if we can find some of the girls who survived the Sunrise fire we would have plenty of help from them,” he said.
	“They won’t trust you either, for the same reasons that Jessamine won’t.  Besides, they all know her, and they know that if she’s willing to pay off the debt for one girl she might do the same for the rest of them,” Sarah said.
	“And they're all willing to wait while she earns the money?  You really think so?” Thomas said.	
	“Who knows?  But she's one of them, and that's what matters,” Sarah said.
	Thomas stared at her for a long moment with his ears flat against his head.  Sarah gave him a smile that showed off too many of her teeth and he leaned back away from her.
	“I’m going to go back and talk to Elizabeth again, to see if we can fix your mistake.  You find the girl and try to make friends again.  Start by offering her some money.  That's all girls like her care about anyway,” he said.
	He got up again and tossed a dollar coin on the table.
	“You already know what street she lives on,” he said, and he smirked at them.
	“Don’t be such a smug bastard.  You wouldn’t have done any better than we did, so you can save all of your barking for your soldiers.  You need us more than we need you,” Catherine said.
	“That used to be true,” he said.
	After he had gone, Catherine picked the coin up off the table and turned it over in her fingers.  It was difficult to tell, because she had never seen one before, but it looked like an actual gold dollar.  They weren’t that common anymore, because all the rich merchants had hoarded most of them away, but they were worth five times as much as a regular coin.
	“Anyone who uses this is going to be get noticed,” Catherine said.
	“You think?  I told you I thought that fox was fishy.  I don't know why you still humor him,” Sara said.
	“He's useful,” Catherine said.
	She bounced the coin off the table while she tried to decide what to do.  When she let it drop for the fourth time, Sarah snatched it off the table first and dropped it down the front of her shirt.
	“You aren’t going to use it.  We'll just have to find another way.  Thomas was right about one thing, at least.  We do know what street she lives on,” Sarah said.
	Catherine shook her head and waved the waiter over for the check.

	Romance wasn’t something that had really figured into Richard Keppler's life up until now.  Wives were arranged by older family members and anything else was to be taken care of at a House where all you needed was enough money.  He had read books on the subject, though, and he knew that things were more complicated than that for most people.  It also sounded much more interesting.  Hunting down and finding a girl who was interested in him for who he was sounded almost as much fun as hunting ferals in the forest outside of the city.
	Logically, then, the first step in any hunt was finding the right bait.  In the case of females, jewelry seemed to be preferred over anything else and that was why he was hunched over a small velvet tray of sapphire necklaces and earrings.  He didn’t like any of them, and he wasn't sure that Jess would, either, but he couldn’t afford better and he couldn’t leave the shop with nothing to show for the hour he had spent there.
	“Are you really going to spend this much money on someone you barely even know?  I’m sure she’s a sweet girl, but it might be worth seeing if she even likes you first,” Michael said.
	Michael perched, smirk and all, on top of one of the high stools that had been set up at the back of the store.  The stools were normally reserved for the store’s richest customers, but Michael was a margay and he wasn’t entirely comfortable on the ground, so Richard had tipped the shop keeper to let him perch there.
	“It’s not that much,” Richard said.
	This was almost true.  After a minute longer, he pointed to the cheapest necklace in the case.  It had a hair thin silver chain and the stone was the size of the tip of his least finger, but it would take everything he had in his pocket to buy it.  The impatient jeweler snatched the case away and disappeared into the back of her store, to do whatever it was merchants had to do to finish a sale.
	“If you try too hard, you could scare her off.  You said she was a mouse, right?  You know how skittish they are,” said Michael.
	“Jess is different.  I don’t think she’d run away from anything,” he said.
	“They’re always different.  You don’t know anything about girls,” said Michael.
	“She is.  You’d know, if you’d met her,” Richard said.
	“She’s a whore.  They’re paid to feed you pretty lies and make you feel good.  Go to her with diamonds and she’ll laugh in your face,” Michael said.
	“You’re just still bitter over that backstabbing lioness of yours.  Most girls aren’t like that one,” said Richard.
	“Try dating one first, and then you can open your mouth,” said Michael.
	He spun his stool around to watch the snow fall in the street outside, ears flat against his head.  Richard had known the boy since they'd both been kids and Michael could be painfully stubborn when he wanted to be.
	The raccoon jeweler came back in with a small white paper box wrapped in a cream colored ribbon.  She laid it on the counter in front of him and held out her hand.  He counted out a hundred and fifty dollars and dropped it, coin by coin, into her palm.
	“Your father won’t like it,” Michael said.
	“This is news?  He hasn't liked anything I've ever done.  If I only did what he wanted, I'd never leave the house,” Richard said.
	“I think it’s a sweet gesture.  If some cute young boy were to bring me a necklace like this, I can't say I'd object,” the jeweler said.
	She shoveled the money into her pockets and pushed the box across the counter to him with a little bit of a smile.  Richard grinned back at her and turned around to wave his prize at Michael’s back.
	“You see?  I'm not the only one who think it's a good idea,” he said.
	Michael shrugged and didn’t turn away from his vigil at the window.
	“You don’t think she’s one of the rebels, do you?  Your father has been out hunting again,” Michael said.
	Richard made it to the window in time to see his father strut past with his pointed muzzle in the air.  Behind him came two of his personal bodyguards, both grey wolves hired for the size of their muscles and their total lack of curiosity.  Between them walked a small female mouse in a torn red dress.  She had on a House collar and there were deep scratches on her arms and on the side of her face.  Richard felt a chill wash through him and his fists bunched for just a moment, but then he got a better look at the mouse.  Her fur was too white and she was too scrawny to be Jessamine.
	“I don’t care.  If she is, well who can blame her?  Everyone would be happier if we could just get rid of the Houses altogether.  Dad’s just too old fashioned to be able to see it,” Richard said.
	“What would the girls do?  You’d have hundreds of unemployed people then, not just the House girls but everyone who works in the Houses or guards them.  Would you pay to teach them a new job?” the jeweler said.
	“If that’s what it took to avoid a civil war, I would.  Unemployment is better than slavery, isn't it?” Richard said.
	“What about starvation?  What about leaving them with their dignity?  None of them were unhappy before fools like you started telling them how they were being mistreated,” said the raccoon.
	“That’s just an excuse,” said Richard.
	He thrust the box deep in his pocket to keep it safe and yanked the door open.  The bell over the door jangled in protest and the raccoon retreated in the face of the snow and wind that blew in, raising her arms over her face like a shield.  Michael jumped down from his stool and padded out into the snowstorm.  Richard slipped out after him, but stayed close to the wall until he was sure that his father was out of sight.  His father blamed Michael for every thought he had now, especially for his recent change of heart about the Houses.
	“You don’t have to come,” he said.
	“Don’t I?  If you’re going to go through with this silly idea, you need someone to help you pick up the pieces when she laughs at you.  Besides, I’ve always wondered what those places looked like on the inside,” Michael said, and he gave Richard a push out into the street.