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hazel gaze to his. Her eyes were the color of the sea and as full of the unknown. He'd never noticed…
    The moment was lost in the wake of Simon's next words.
    "I hereby assign you your first mission." Simon folded his arms. "
Together
."
     
    A few hours after the debacle in the arena, Rose traveled the tunnel toward her customary stint helping out with the Liar's Club meal preparation. She was hoping the main kitchen would be empty but for Kurt.
    Kurt was the biggest, hairiest, ugliest man Rose had ever seen, but she loved him dearly. Killer or no, he was the one she turned to when she felt she couldn't master the skills she needed, when she lost, and when she won. Clara was as dear as a sister, but Rose knew her friend still sometimes saw her as "poor little Rose."
    Kurt wouldn't say a thing about this morning's embarrassment, she knew. Of course, Kurt wouldn't say three words together at pistol point, but he was always able to spare the time to give her a bit of extra training in the arena. His undemanding silence would be very comforting this morning.
    However, when she entered from the tunnel door, through the storeroom, and up the short flight of stairs, she saw that Stubbs and Feebles were sitting at the worn oak worktable, having tea.
    Feebles? She'd never actually seen the wiry little pickpocket inside the club before. Usually he hung about the street outside, a fringe member. Rose had heard some of the Liars jest about the ragged fellow not being quite housebroken.
    Feebles was a curious sort of person. He was a small man dressed in tattered jacket and cap, yet he was an undisputed genius at sly information gathering and unassuming invisibility.
    To Rose, Feebles was like the fog. He'd be right before you one minute and gone the next, sliding from your attention the moment you forgot to look at him. She'd never actually seen him come and go. He was simply there, or not. She wished he could teach her how to do it, but when she'd asked him once, he'd said he'd been born with it. Then—while she'd been distracted by the mind-bending picture of Feebles as a tattered, sharp-featured pocket-picking baby—he'd slipped away.
    Even so, he'd always had a shy smile and a tip of his cap for Rose, and she liked him. More than once she had delivered something tasty from the kitchen to him as he held his chosen post outside.
    Stubbs was a friend as well. The sturdy young doorman had struggled to learn to read ably, just as she had. Although Stubbs had already been a Liar when the school had opened and had not been required to train with the other students, he and Rose had spent many hours at that very table, sharing a candle and a set of books.
    She'd not been completely ignorant of reading and writing, although she'd never managed to be really good at it. That is, until it occurred to Lady Raines to have her fitted with spectacles. Suddenly, the world came clear. Trees separated from blobby green masses into distinct and separate leaves. The city sharpened and enlarged about her—and best of all, the words on the pages flowed fast and beautifully beneath her vision.
    It turned out that she was neither clumsy nor stupid, but merely near-sighted.
    For his part, Stubbs was aiming to be a saboteur for the club. It was true he could dismantle any mechanism and put it back together with blinding speed. He'd been stalled by his inability to read, but once he'd taken it in, he'd progressed quickly. He was going out on his first mission soon with James Cunnington, as soon as James and his wife, Phillipa, returned from their honeymoon.
    Phillipa was already expecting, just like Agatha, so Rose didn't expect she'd have much to talk about with the new lady in the club. She sighed. Babies were everywhere suddenly. She wasn't exactly envious, although she wanted children… eventually. First she wanted to see what the rest of the Liars saw—adventure, purpose, even danger.
    First she wanted to belong.
    The three of them, Kurt, Stubbs, and