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	Her father's house still stood.  Houses all around it, on either side of the street, had been burned to the ground, but her's was singed.  Catherine felt the tears well in her eyes and she let them fall.  Sarah slipped an arm around her waist and breathed a lungful of smoke into the chilly air.
	“There's still something to fight for,” she said.
	“They can't take it away from us now,” Catherine said.
	“I hope not.  But I thought Jacob would stay with Marcus to the end,” Sarah said.
	At the midnight report the army had made it all the way to the Cathedral, where the last of the Keppler loyalists had barricaded themselves.  The crash of falling masonry made them turn and they watched as the Cathedral's bell tower fell to the ground  It was punctuated by distant shouting and the sound of gunfire.
	“The question is, would Marcus have stayed with him?” Sarah said.
	“He's too stubborn to run,” Catherine said.
	But there was no reason to believe that.  Marcus had never lost anything in his life and there hadn't been anyone he couldn't buy if brutality didn't work.  Only it wouldn't work this time, and everyone knew it.  Richard wouldn't stop for a mansion full of gold.
	“What about--”
	“Jess?  She's on her own,” Catherine said.
	“You don't mean that,” Sarah said.
	“I have to.  She doesn't deserve it, but who does?  When the world is falling apart, you have to hold on to what you can, and let the rest go,” Catherine said.