The night was cold, and her belly was as empty as her pockets, but Esta didn't feel like working. All she ever wanted to do lately was sleep, just sleep and sleep, as though every waking moment of every day wore her to the bone.

Loneliness and hopelessness were heavy burdens to bear. Every day since Russet died Esta missed her more. Only Pip, ever silent, was there to keep her company anymore, and he was as much of a living reminder of Russet as he was a friend. Besides, he was a bird. Birds, however beautiful, did not amount to friends, let alone - Esta hardly dared dream of it anymore - lovers.

Her stomach rumbled and twinged. The digestive juices were working on nothing. She needed to go eat something. Sighing, she heaved herself up off the bed and went to where she hid her money. In the bottom of the cupboard in the kitchen where her meagre supply of dishes were kept was a small wooden box. She opened it, and counted a depressingly small number of coins - about five tallies and a fistful of hats and forts. A ha'penny was just about the most valuable coin in there, crudely hacked in half many transactions before her own dirty deal got it for her. Not enough money. It was never enough.

Esta sighed and shut the lid. How was she ever to leave this life if she didn't even have the money to stay in it? If she left her job and left the Rose for strange roads and towns and people, she knew she wouldn't survive. She knew even staying in the Rose without a job, surrounded by people who know her and customs she's familiar with, had nearly cost her her life. Was anything ever going to be easy? Could she ever be happy?

Laoso tumble, she thought bitterly. Useless, helpless doll. There was a mirror on the wall in the narrow, rather stuffy hall. When Esta looked in it, she saw an old woman. A woman who was not eighteen but ancient, whose eyes had wept and grieved and now could barely open every morning. Lashes painted black, lips painted red, like some badly made doll that no child would want to play with. But they did because they didn't care, and she tried not to care, either. Life would be so much better if she just didn't care. If she had no qualms about her body being the property of any idiot who payed her meagre fare, if she didn't mind that her only friend had been murdered not a year ago, if she had no need for company and real affection, she wouldn't mind about her life. She wouldn't have to constantly wish for something else, something better.

But she did care. She cared so much, and that was what hurt, what ached so. She hated her living. She hated being so lonely. She hated the shadows, deep, dark shadows that lurked under her eyes and no amount of cheap face-powders could hide. She hated that she couldn't escape.

But what was one more lonely citizen of the Rose? In a city that was full of the dying, the delinquent, and the desperate, she was by no means remarkable. There was noone to help the poor souls who fell underfoot or even pity them. There were just too many sad stories. Esta knew that to have any sort of hope she would have to take up her own destiny in her hands and write herself a happy ending. She had known this for a while, even before Russet had died and she herself had nearly met her end. It was just too hard.

Esta fell down on her bed and slept a dreamless, death-like sleep.