The door slammed open. "I'm here!" hollered a voice I knew too well. 

I stopped brushing my hair and turned around, my eyebrows furrowed. "Rosa?"

"Who else?!"

"You left five days ago!"

She shrugged, scratching her neck. She blinked her yellow eyes owlishly. "So? I can't come visit?"

"How'd you get here?"

"By carriage." Rosa chuckled. "I don't know where that carriage is now."

"Is that something to be proud of?!" I set my brush down. "But more importantly, it's still eight in the morning! What are you doing so early?" I was usually asleep at this hour, especially since the restaurant closed so late at night. I was only awake because I needed to pick up something from the apothecary's, and he'd insisted I come early before he receives customers.

"I'm kind of surprised you're awake," Rosa noted, strolling right into the bedroom. She looked around, humming. "Where's your  mom?"

"Taking a bath." I frowned. "So what. You're here to visit this early in the morning?"

"Yeah," she replied, hopping on our bed. "I needed to be gone before eleven."

"Why? Is there something at eleven?" I picked up the brush again and ran it through my hair, turning back to the mirror.

She nodded, her bright mood turning serious for a few moments. "I needed to. The knight event starts at eleven. According to my plans, I can't encourage any events with him."

"The knight event," I repeated. The brush snagged on a tangle and I winced. "Right."

"Drew Zimmerman. He's the easiest target, you know."

"Target?" I asked. "Are you aiming for someone?"

I saw her shudder through the mirror. "Please, not him."

"Why not?"

In a loud whisper, Rosa leaned towards me and said, "He's the playboy type."

With a grunt, I yanked the brush free from my hair. Urk-- that sudden movement was decidedly not good for my still-healing back. "That's not nice, Rosa," I chided absentmindedly. "You don't even know him." I considered trying the brush again, then decided I could just go with the hair tie I had in the drawer. I took one out.

"Oh, I know more about him than I ever want to be," she replied darkly. She shook her head. "But anyways. His events are super obvious and easy to remember, so I should be fine in avoiding his route."

"Route?" I echoed, tying my hair up. Hm. Low ponytail, high ponytail? That was always the question.

"Though I would like to see him at least once," she thought aloud. "I've never seen anyone with red eyes before."

My eyebrows shot up into my bangs. "He has red eyes?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "As expected of targets, you know."

No, I don't know, I was tempted to say, but it was way too early in the morning for me to start exhausting myself out with Rosa. Besides, I hadn't understood a thing about our conversation just now, and it hadn't mattered, didn't it?

"But more importantly!" Rosa shouted, drawing my eyes to hers. She flashed a grin at me through the mirror. "I have something here for you."

I gasped. "Ooh, a present?"

"Oh." She frowned. "No, but that's a good idea. I'll bring you something next time. Like a leaf or something."

Ha. A leaf? "Don't bother," I sighed, turning back to my hair. "So what is it?"

"It's a..." She reached to the back of her dress and pulled something out with great flourish, holding it up high in the air. "Behold! A letter!"

I turned around with a hair tie in my mouth and squinted at the object in her hand. Sure enough, it was white, rectangular, flimsy, and just the right size to be a letter. I snatched the ribbon from my mouth and huffed. "Um, did you forget that I'm illiterate and, oh, you know, can't read?"

Rosa flipped her hair behind her shoulder and smiled. "Of course not. I'm not giving this letter to you so that you can read it."

I was too busy tying my hair up to throw up my hands, but if I could, I would've. Because, what?

I turned back to the mirror. "Rosa, you're not making any sense at all. Then what's the point of giving me a letter if not to read it, of all things?"

"The point of this letter is," Rosa said, very seriously, "death."

"Gwah!" I cried out, a second too late. This habitual saying of mine-- "What's the point"-- needed to go, and it needed to go fast. I hurriedly finished tying my hair up into a now-messy ponytail and whirled around, hands on my hips now. "We're still not over that?"

She shook her head, solemn to the degree that it momentarily stopped me. "We will never be over that."

A pause.

My shoulders finally slumped in defeat and I lowered head. "Fine, you win. The point is and will always be death, is that right?"

Rosa only nodded.

"Okay, then, let me know what you're giving me that letter for, won't you?"

She broke out into a wide smile, looking almost childish, and raised the letter high in the air again. "This letter is given to you by myself, Rosey-Rose-Rose, for one reason and one reason only. It's for... your drawer!"

She looked at me so expectantly for an answer that I was momentarily speechless. "Huh?" I managed.

"You just need to keep it in that drawer of yours, and we'll be all good to go. That's it!"

"That's it?" I repeated.

"That's it," she nodded.

I blinked at her, but shrugged and took the letter to put it into the drawer with my other ribbons. "I'm putting it in here, then."

"Perfect!" she crowed, hopping down from the bed. "I'm going to say hi to your mom when she comes out, and then let's go get something to eat."

I shook my head. "I'm going to the apothecary's, so no."

Rosa considered this. "Okay, then I'll go to my house." She glanced my way. "Have the little ones been doing well?"

I chuckled. "It's been five days since you were gone. What do you think?"

"...did Roly or Poly break an arm?"

I snapped. "So close! Ryan twisted his ankle."

Rosa groaned. "Doing what, sword practice?" Her eyebrows came down hard. "That boy, once I get my hands on him..."

"Oh, lay off him. He's been doing his best! Even cooking dinner for the kids, I heard..."

After Rosa did say hi to my mom, we went out together, and she accompanied me to the apothecary's anyway. We saw Paul hanging out with Idel there, both of whom blushed when we gave them sly winks and knowing glances, collected medicine for both Ryan and my back, and then headed to Rosa's house for lunch.

The kids, of course, loved having Rosa back for a day, and since Rosa was worried that some "side event" might suddenly happen in the marketplace, we stayed home until my work shift started. That was when Rosa found her carriage thanks to Mr. Rowlandson's info and rode back to the Academy, leaving promises of gifts, like pretty leaves or tree branches or something. Poverty was poverty, Academy student or no.

The kids still liked it, so I suppose there was no problem there.

I tiptoed up the stairs to the bedroom as quietly as possible after work, in case Mom had fallen asleep first. I always told her not to stay up waiting for me, but she always did-- "The restaurant isn't an entirely safe place," she always said, her chestnut brown hair in a side ponytail. 

(Rosa, when she first saw my mom at six years old, shouted, "death flag?!" at the sight of my mom, which had made me cry so hard even though I didn't know what she meant by it. She never said it after that one time, but I still remembered-- it had been such a shock to me.)

I creaked open the door slowly, but when I crept towards the lamp to turn it on, she called, "Filian?"

I exhaled through my nose. "Yes, it's me, Mom." I clicked on the lamp. "Why aren't you sleeping yet?"

"How can a mother sleep not knowing if their child is safe?" she replied, and she was sitting up in the bed facing me, a gentle smile on her lips. "Now that you're here, I'll sleep just fine."

I smiled back, though it probably looked a bit sad. "Thanks, mom. I'll just go wash up in the bathroom."

"Of course, dear." She laid back down, her head still poking up. "And don't forget to wash your back wound well."

"Yup!" I said cheerfully. "I'll do just that."

Her face smoothed out in satisfaction before she rolled over to her side. "Good night, Filian," she sighed.

"Good night, Mom."

I washed up as quickly as I could with the limited water supply we had, then managed to apply the medicine on my back before I changed into my lighter muslin nightgown. After closing the bathroom door, I turned the lamp off and crawled into the bed next to my mom.

I closed my eyes. Another day completed. Another day to come. Pay day was tomorrow, so that was something to look forward to. I furrowed my eyebrows a little, though. What were we going to do with the loan payments..? Those thugs always tried to pull something over us, but this was the first time they'd raised the payment amount. Mom and I didn't have enough to pay that much in one month, much less every month...

Maybe it was time to find a second job, I thought, as my body relaxed. My thoughts were slowly getting further and further away, as I gladly succumbed to sleep...

My eyes flew open and I stiffened on my bed. My heart began to pump, and in the absolute darkness I strained my ears. I could've sworn--

I stopped breathing, all my senses heightened, striving to hear what I thought I had. And in the smallest, the most quietest sound that I almost missed, I heard--

Click.

I held back a sharp gasp, my hands clenching into fists under the blankets.

Rattle. Snap.

Swish.

Dread pooled in my stomach-- so I hadn't been wrong. I'd heard correctly. And from the sounds of it, our bedroom window on the second floor of the building was being opened, and something was entering. 

Somebody was breaking into our room.