“When’s your baby due, Aki?” Chiyo asks between bites of roast pheasant and sips of warm, robust broth. Natsu matches her frantic eating pace; Papa would chide them for forgetting their manners, but they’ve had naught but dry rice for two weeks. Chiyo forgot food could taste like this.

“Any day now,” Aki says. “I’m due before the other girls. There’s a few barely farther along than you, Miss Natsu—I imagine you’ll be here the longest.”

“What happens after you give birth? Will you have to leave?”

Aki glances over the twelve other girls. “One day we all will.”