It was dark inside the stables, and the smell of horse was almost overpowering. Ilona had enjoyed a ride once in a while out on the estate, but for the most part she preferred the idea of being able to sit in the carriage in her fine gowns on the way to a ball. Those days were long gone, she knew, and dwelling on it would do her no good. She tried to catch her bearings inside the stall, where the only small source of light came from the moon outside and she could not even see the floor that she was standing on. She felt the crunch of straw under her feet against the stone floors, however, and she knew that Wasp was still somewhere behind her.

“I see you’ve brought your own blanket,” he commented, moving closer to her as he spoke.

She nodded, then realised that the gesture was futile in this much darkness and turned to look back at him as best as she could. “Swallow passed me it as I was leaving. I don’t know that I’m supposed to have it. Or that I’m supposed to be in here, for that matter.”

“Well, I won’t tell anyone,” Wasp replied, and she could tell just from his voice that he had to be grinning in that way that he had when they first met. “Make yourself comfortable, now, won’t you.”

She looked around again, unsure of where to go. Her eyes were adjusting to the light in some small way, but she could still not really tell what was around her so well. “Is the straw clean?” she asked, some measure of doubt in her voice.

Wasp sighed theatrically, and went over to the other side of the stall for a moment. He fiddled with something there that creaked as he moved it, and then pushed open a small hatch that let the light of the moon fall down through it and into the stall, lighting it more properly. She could see what was around her now, and the straw did indeed seem clean; more than that, there was a blanket already spread in one of the corners, as well as a bundle of what looked to be clothes stacked beside it and a small lantern, not yet lit.

“Does that suit the princess?” Wasp asked, though his tone was not unkind and it was clear that he was only jesting.

Ilona nodded, looking down at the blanket on the straw and thinking. Small cogs inside her head were turning together slowly, making connections. She had seen him in this stall the first time that they met, she realised, and he had not seemed to be doing any work then. She looked back to him, and saw that the smile on his face had dropped somewhat from a cheerful one to one that looked simply wry. “Do you...?” she began, not sure how to delicately phrase the question.

“Live here?” Wasp finished the sentence for her, giving a shrug and walking over to throw himself down onto the bed of straw in a familiar way. “I do, as a matter of fact. We don’t all get those comfy beds in the servant’s quarters, you know.”

Ilona stared at him, feeling the strange injustice of the fact that what was a punishment for her was simply everyday life for him. “Even in the winter?” was all she managed to ask.

“Well, it’s winter now, ain’t it?” he replied matter-of-factly, and then slapped an area of straw next to him with an outstretched hand. “Come on, don’t stand on ceremony. Settle in.”

She hesitantly joined him, spreading her blanket on the straw with just enough distance between the two of them to make it seem at least a tiny bit decorous. “But it’s not right,” she pursued. “It’s cold out here.”

“Don’t I know it,” he replied, somewhat gruffly, as though he were trying to maintain a tough image in the face of the hardship which he was being put through. “But that’s the lot of a stable boy. Can’t expect more unless you’ve got the look to be a groom. Or you please the person who selects the grooms, of course.”

Ilona sat down on her new bed, hugging her knees. The straw kept the cold of the stone floor away, and the walls of the stable lessened the wind, but the chill which was in the air would not be cut out. “Do all the other stable boys sleep in stalls?” she asked.

“Not all,” Wasp replied, with another shrug which seemed to indicate that things were as they were, and there was no changing it. “Some have their pets and some are pets of others. But now you haven’t told me what brings me some company on this fine night.”

Ilona shifted uncomfortably, picking at the hem of her dress. “I dropped some silk stockings and burnt them on the fire. Molly sent me out with no dinner or bed because it will cost Fath- I mean, Lord Breckenridge money.”

There was a small silence, and Ilona looked up at Wasp only to look away quickly, not enjoying the pity that she saw on his face. “You must be hungry then,” he said a moment later, as if to change tack, the brisk cheer coming back into his voice.

“I’ve been hungry since the beginning of all this,” Ilona admitted. “I’m used to having more, and having it whenever I wanted. I didn’t know that it was different for everyone else.”

Wasp got up and went to a leather bag which was hanging on the wall of the stall, under the window, and returned with a red apple in his hand. “Here. It’s for the horses, but they won’t notice that it’s gone if we don’t tell them,” he said, throwing it to her deftly.

She caught it, just, and held it in her hand for a moment, looking up to him to try and figure out whether or not it was really alright for her to eat it. He shrugged, which she was beginning to realise was his way of saying not to worry, and she took a bite from the cold and smooth fruit, feeling the juices fill her mouth immediately and begin to trickle over her fingers. She was even more hungry than she had realised, and she began to bite into it quickly, finishing it right down to the core in what seemed like far too short a time.

“Better?” Wasp asked, sitting down again and watching her with something like amusement.

Ilona nodded, licking the last bit of the juice from her fingers and putting the core to one side of her blanket. “Thank you.”

Wasp paused, turning something over in his hands that flashed dully in the moonlight, and when he spoke again it was in a quieter, more serious tone. “It gets easier, you know,” he said.

“What does?” Ilona asked, taken by surprise at the sudden change.

“Losing someone. After a while, you don’t think about them so much,” he said, glancing up to meet her eyes for a moment. “You just have to give it time, and keep busy. Which won’t be too much of a problem for now, I’m guessing.”

“You lost someone?” Ilona asked, looking at him carefully now. If he had been through the same thing that she had been through, if he knew some way to make it through, then she needed to hear everything that he could tell her.

“Once,” he said, almost reluctantly. There was a far-off look in his eyes, and a sadness trapped inside them that she had not seen before. “A year and a half ago now, I suppose.”

“What happened?” Ilona asked, leaning closer to him, trying to squeeze out the story that he was so carefully holding back.

“I was sold,” Wasp said, then looked at her again, meeting her eyes properly this time. “To the market stalls in the city first, with a flesh trade merchant. He kept my contract for a few months while waiting for a buyer, and for the most part I cleaned up around the others in his possession and made sure we all ate. Then a Lord from a few estates over the hill away bought me, and then a few months ago again Lord Breckenridge bought me from him. It seems I can’t keep myself owned lately.”

“Why not?” Ilona could not stop herself from asking, drawn in by the fear that seemed to lurk behind his words, and almost the despairing acceptance that it would happen again.

“I’m not the right fit,” he said. “They raised me as a stable boy because they needed a stable boy. But with my build, I’d be better as a field hand. Now I’m too old to bother breaking in to that kind of work, but I don’t fit the uniforms the real stable staff wear, so I get shunted around. I’m twenty-one, so I ought to be a groom by now at least. The other boys here are teenagers. That’s why I keep to my space and they keep to theirs.”

Ilona looked down for a moment, not sure of what to say. “That’s sad,” she managed at last.

Wasp shrugged, though this time she knew that he was only trying to shrug the weight of it all from his shoulders. “That’s the way it is.”

A gust of wind whistled through their window then, stirring up some loose pieces of straw and making a shiver run up Ilona’s spine. Wasp got up and closed the shutter again, casting them back into darkness, and moved back to his bed to settle into it more comfortably. “Go to sleep, princess,” he said, as if to dismiss their serious talk. “Early start in the morning, like always.”