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could get away, there’s nowhere to go.”
    â€œYes there is,” I assure him. “There’s the Before.”
    â€œNo.” He shoves his fists into his coat pockets and frowns at me. “There’s no Before. It’s gone.”
    â€œAn After, then,” I tell him, and point down the hall to where a door leads to the courtyard, past the post, over the wall, and beyond. “To whatever’s out there.”
    â€œThere’s nothing out there for you,” he says bleakly, and shakes his head. “It’s too much of a risk.”
    â€œStaying here is the biggest risk you could ever take,” I tell him.
    â€œI can’t—” he starts, then breaks off and closes his eyes. “There’s worse things than the post, Pin.”
    â€œShoe,” I say. “We get barely enough to eat and hardly any sleep, we’re not permitted to speak, we’re frightened all the time, and we will work here until the day we die.” Now I step closer to him. We are much the same height, and as I lean in to whisper into his ear, my cheek brushes against his,and he flinches. I put my hand on his shoulder to steady him. “We don’t touch,” I breathe. “We don’t kiss. We don’t love. How could anything be worse than that?”
    He closes his eyes. Then he bends his head, leaning against me, taking comfort. I can feel the tension in his body, the weight of his hand on my arm. I lean into him, giving him warmth for warmth. “Come with me,” I whisper.
    â€œPin . . .” After a long moment, he takes a shuddering breath, as if he’s going to say something else. But he doesn’t. He opens his eyes, steps away, and I see that his pale face has turned even paler. “Don’t do it. She’ll find out. She’ll catch you. You’ll end up . . .” His voice breaks, and he shakes his head.
    He really has learned his lesson. “You don’t have to come, Shoe,” I say, trying to keep my voice light even though I’m far more disappointed than I thought I’d be.
    And I leave him there and go back to the sewing room, where I will stitch and stitch and plan my escape, and Marya’s, into the Before, or perhaps the After, that waits for me beyond the Godmother’s fortress walls.

CHAPTER
4
    S HOE TRUDGES UP THE STAIRS TO HIS WORKROOM. H E takes off his coat and hangs it on its hook, gives the door a savage kick to close it, and sits down at his bench. The measurements of Pin’s feet are marked neatly on the piece of paper he’s left there.
    Pin. She is braver than he is, with her plan to escape. She has no way of knowing what is outside, beyond the walls of the fortress. Even if she manages to get over the wall, the Godmother will track her, and catch her. Then it will be Pin chained to the post, feeling the icy wind on her bare skin, and the deep bite and burn as the whip slashes into her back.
    On the day he was flogged, the guards left him chained to the post until the sky turned black with night. He’d gotten so cold that the blood from the lashes he’d been given hadfrozen on his back. The cold hadn’t been enough to numb the pain, though. He hunches his shoulders and presses the heels of his hands over his eyes, trying to put that memory back into the past, where it belongs.
    Taking a shaky breath and opening his eyes, he stares down at Pin’s measurements. A very neat foot, she has, and cold, he imagines, on the stone floors of the fortress.
    Outside, winter is coming.
    He has glass slippers to make for the Godmother—and fur ones, just in case. He picks up his tools and gets to work.
    S OMETHING PERHAPS ONLY a Seamstress—even a poor one like me—would know is that even though silk is light and lovely and flows as smooth as moonbeams over the skin, it is a very strong material. It is good for making ball gowns, and it is good for making ropes.
    In the sewing room, I