The second poem ran on a Wednesday.
It wasn't as small as the first. The editor had given it a little more space, a thin border, even a title: "Lamp at the Window." Aurora had trembled all night deciding whether to submit it. Luxe had argued, Ruby had urged, Grace had warned. In the end, Aurora sent it anyway.
Now, on the breakfast table, the poem glared up at them from the crisp black-and-white.
Even when fog pressed close,
and the street fell silent of feet,
a lamp in the window still glowed,
guiding strangers toward heat.
Mrs. Greene didn't look at Aurora as she poured the tea. But she didn't look away either. "More eyes on us," she said finally. "Not all of them kind."
Aurora sat straighter. "Then let them see."
Luxe felt every gaze at the table swing toward them. Some admiring. Some fearful. Helen's, as always, unreadable.
That afternoon, the Y's heavy oak door rattled again. This time, Daniels didn't bother knocking twice. He pushed through, uniform gleaming, two officers trailing behind him.
Mrs. Greene intercepted at the desk. Luxe and Aurora froze at the stairwell.
"You have no right," Mrs. Greene snapped. "This is private residence."
Daniels smiled thin. "Private? Funny, since you take city money. And city rules say I check where young ladies spend their nights."
"You've checked enough."
His smile widened. "Not nearly." He stepped forward, scanning the common room. The girls scattered, whispers darting like minnows. Aurora shrank back against the banister, but Luxe stepped in front of her.
Daniels's gaze caught hers, lingering. "You've got quite the pen, Miss Randall," he said, voice loud enough to carry. "Shame if the ink dried up."
Aurora's breath hitched. Luxe's fists clenched.
Mrs. Greene slammed her palm on the desk. "That's enough! You want to harass writers, do it outside my walls. You're done here."
For a moment, Luxe thought he'd push harder, maybe even drag Aurora out. But instead, Daniels leaned close to Mrs. Greene, whisper sharp enough that Luxe still caught it: "The city reviews your funding next month. Curfew violations, unchaperoned outings, unsavory influences? Easy to cut ties. Easy to shut you down."
Then he tipped his hat, turned, and left with his officers. The door banged shut.
The silence afterward was thick as tar.
Mrs. Greene sagged against the desk, hands trembling. "Girls," she said quietly, "go upstairs."
Aurora's eyes brimmed. Luxe pulled her sister up the steps before the tears could fall in front of the others.
In their room, Aurora crumpled onto the bed, clutching the newspaper. "He's going to take it away," she whispered. "The Y. Our roof."
Luxe crouched in front of her. "No. He wants us scared enough to run, or bend. We don't bend."
Aurora shook her head. "But what if Mrs. Greene—"
"She's stronger than he knows," Luxe cut in. "And so are we." She gripped Aurora's hands. "He can cut paper. He can't cut flame."
Aurora tried to smile, but it trembled. She whispered her poem again under her breath, like a prayer. Luxe held her until the tremor eased.
At the library that afternoon, Ruby pulled them into the back room, face set. "He came here too," she said flatly.
Aurora's breath caught. "What?"
"Two officers. Asking about your work. Whether I 'encourage' subversive ideas. I told them literature is always subversive." She almost smiled. "They didn't like that answer."
Luxe's jaw clenched. "They're not stopping."
Ruby leaned close. "Then you don't either. Listen. The paper's attention cuts both ways. People are noticing — not just neighbors. Ministers, union organizers, mothers. The more you write, the harder it is for him to silence you without witnesses."
Aurora's eyes widened. "You mean—"
"I mean print faster than he can burn," Ruby said. "But…" Her gaze slid to Luxe. "You need watchers too. Words without walls are tinder."
Luxe understood. They'd have to gather allies. Real ones. Not just friends, but people who could hold ground.
Grace Chen sliced carrots with quick, angry motions when they visited. "Of course he threatens the Y. Wolves don't chase sheep one by one. They chase the shepherd."
Aurora sank into a chair, weary. "What do we do?"
Grace slid a steaming bowl toward her. "Eat. Then plan. You can't think on empty stomachs."
As they ate, Grace lowered her voice. "I know people. Market women, porters, families who don't bow to uniforms. If he pushes too far, we shout together. One voice he can silence. Ten voices, harder. A hundred? Harder still."
Aurora's eyes lit. Luxe felt the stir of possibility — but also danger. Voices drew attention. And attention drew teeth.
Still, she nodded. "Start with ten."
That night, the writing circle hummed with unease. Aurora read her second poem aloud; half the girls clapped, half sat stiff, fearful. Ruth muttered about "unwanted attention." Margaret snapped back about "courage."
Helen only smiled faintly. "Attention is a kind of leash. The more eyes, the tighter it pulls."
Aurora frowned. "Better a leash of light than a cage of silence."
The room went quiet. For once, even Ruth didn't reply.
Later, Luxe caught Helen slipping a note into her skirt pocket, too quick. Their eyes met. Helen's smile didn't falter. Luxe's suspicion deepened to certainty: the wolf already sat at their table.
That night, Luxe waited at the window, curtain cracked.
The car came. Daniels leaned against the hood, cigarette ember glowing. But this time, he wasn't alone.
Another man stood with him — taller, broader, his suit finer. Luxe couldn't see his face in the fog, but she saw the way Daniels tipped his head with respect. The stranger's silhouette radiated authority.
Beaumont.
Even without seeing his features, Luxe knew.
The man turned, slowly, as if sensing her watching. The fog thinned just enough for the glow of his cigar to catch his face. He smiled — calm, confident, cruel.
Then he tipped his hat to the window.
Luxe's breath froze.
Aurora stirred in her sleep, murmuring: "Lamp… roof… fire…"
Luxe yanked the curtain shut, heart pounding. Her vow tightened like wire inside her chest.
Words were light. Wolves hated light. But this wolf was bigger than Daniels, older, hungrier.
And he had just seen their flame.
She sat on the edge of the bed until dawn, eyes wide, the ash of Aurora's first poem still in her pocket.
They needed more than poems. More than whispers. More than hope.
They needed strategy. Salt lines. Allies. Shields as wide as the city.
She looked at her sister sleeping, notebook clutched tight, face soft in dreamlight.
"You keep writing," Luxe whispered. "I'll keep the wolves from the door."
And for the first time since the river, she believed they might actually have a chance — if they moved fast enough.
Dawn did not soften the terror. It only made it visible.
Luxe rose stiff from the chair and washed her face in a basin so cold it felt like a slap. In the mirror's crackled glass, her eyes looked older than they had any right to be. Behind her, Aurora stirred, blinking into morning.
"You didn't sleep," Aurora murmured.
"I watched," Luxe said.
Aurora pushed upright, fingers already groping for her notebook. "Then I'll write twice as much."
It should have sounded naïve. It didn't. Luxe pressed her knuckles to her mouth to keep something hot and reckless from spilling out.
"Eat first," she said, because you could not fight wolves on an empty stomach.
Breakfast tasted of steel. The girls' chatter ricocheted between awe (the poem!) and dread (the officers). Mrs. Greene ate at her desk: unmatched in her composure, unconvincing in her calm.
When most of the plates were cleared, she rang the little brass bell that usually called girls to job postings.
"This is not a posting," she said, voice carrying without shouting. "This is a house rule. We remain respectable. We obey curfew. We travel in twos. If an officer wishes to speak to you, you refer him to me. If he insists, you call a neighbor—Miss Hart, Miss Chen, Mrs. Devine, and Pastor Mulligan on Kearny—whose numbers are now posted at the desk."
A murmur rose—confusion, relief, fear pretending to be questions.
Mrs. Greene's gaze touched each face, then returned to Luxe and Aurora. "And if a man—any man—steps one foot past this threshold without permission, you shout. You do not whisper. Predators prefer whispers."
Margaret clapped once before she could stop herself. Ruth coughed into her napkin to hide the same impulse. Helen's expression remained a smooth, watchful lake.
Luxe nodded, a soldier saluting a general. Aurora's fingers found Luxe's under the table and squeezed. Roof beams.
Ellis Cleaners hummed like a safe lie—steam, starch, work. Mrs. Devine worked them without mercy, which was the closest she came to kindness. Luxe welcomed it. An obedient muscle cannot panic.
Near noon, a second uniform appeared in the doorway: not Daniels, younger, the brim of his cap still new-looking.
"Routine fire check," he announced to the room.
Mrs. Devine didn't blink. "We passed last quarter with compliments. Tell your captain to reheat those."
The young officer flushed. "New directive. With all the… excitement."
"Excitement is for carnivals," Mrs. Devine said. "This is work."
He did the dance—clipboard, boxes to tick, glances too long at the sisters. Luxe kept scrubbing. Aurora kept pinning. When the pen hovered over a line labeled Infractions, Mrs. Devine set her hand on the counter, knuckles pale.
"Shop is up to code," she said, each word measured. "And I will be sending a letter to your chief with the inspection number from last quarter in the subject line so the secretary does not lose the thread."
The officer's pen trembled, retreated to No Citation like a chastened child.
He left as if the door might bite him.
Mrs. Devine turned to the sisters at last, voice flat as sheet-iron. "They'll try new doors every day. We bolt all of them."
"How?" Aurora asked, soft, not helpless.
"With paper, witnesses, receipts, and girls who don't shake when men do," Mrs. Devine said. "And salve on your hands so you don't drop what you're holding."
Luxe swallowed the sudden want to cry. "Yes, ma'am."
Ruby did not wait at the circulation desk. She stood at the stairwell and beckoned them down.
The library basement smelled of paste and dust and secret meetings. Six people sat at a long table: Pastor Mulligan (kind eyes, threadbare cuffs), Mrs. Alvarez from the canning line (arms like ropes, voice like a bell), Mr. Lin the grocer (quiet, precise), Grace Chen (knife in her sleeve; you just knew), and two neighborhood mothers Luxe recognized from children's hour.
Ruby set a thin folder on the table as if it were communion. "This is the beginning of a roof."
No one laughed. The pastor bowed his head, smiling. "Amen."
Ruby looked to Luxe. "Tell them what he did."
Luxe kept it to bricks and beams: the knocks and not-knocks, inspections that weren't, the burned poem, the threat to the Y's funding, Helen's neat eyes and neater notes. She did not say Beaumont; the name would come when it wasn't a match in a dry room.
Mrs. Alvarez cracked her knuckles. "Men who burn poems do not stop with paper. We can walk girls home in pairs. Night and morning." She jabbed a thumb toward the mothers. "We been walking kids for years. We know the corners."
Mr. Lin slid a notebook forward. "I will keep a ledger of names who walk and times they pass. Not for police. For us. Witness."
Pastor Mulligan nodded. "The church hall can host readings. Public ones. Harder to harass a girl when she's at a podium with mothers on every bench."
Grace's mouth quirked. "We will also feed the people who clap. Clapping is louder on a full stomach."
Ruby looked at Aurora. "And you will keep writing, if you choose it. No one is conscripting your light."
Aurora's voice was small, but not weak. "I choose."
Ruby's eyes softened. "Then we build around that choice." She slid a half-sheet to Luxe: a list of names and numbers, and—at the bottom—three small boxes with labels.
Signal 1: Window shade crooked (need escort).
Signal 2: Ribbon on stair rail (police inside).
Signal 3: Chalk mark on stoop (do not enter—wolf present).
"Old tricks," Ruby said. "New teeth."
Luxe traced the boxes with her fingertip. "If he sees them?"
"He won't," Grace said. "Wolves don't look down. They look up for glory."
The table hummed with quiet agreement. Plans knitted themselves out of ordinary thread: who could be where at what hour, which girls worked which shifts, the quickest alleys, the neighbor with a telephone that always worked.
When they rose, the basement felt warmer. Not safer. Warmer.
As they climbed the stairs, Ruby touched Luxe's arm. "One more thing: if the man behind the officer steps into daylight, do not look away first."
Luxe thought of the cigar's glow, the hat-tip toward her window. "I won't," she said, and meant it like a promise.
Outside, the fog had burned off into a bright, mean kind of clarity. Market Street shouted in color. Grace walked them three blocks on her break, a queen disguised as a shopkeeper.
"You remember the knife?" she asked casually.
"In my pocket," Luxe said.
"Good. Better is your voice." Grace stopped at a corner where three storefronts crossed like threads. She pointed without pointing. "That woman with the braids? She hates men like him more than she loves sleep. This one—the cobbler—his brother's a clerk at City Hall. The boy selling newspapers? His father runs the union hall. If you shout and they can hear you, the shout will not be alone."
Aurora took this in the way you take in a foreign language you suddenly realize you might be able to speak. "Neighbors instead of corners," she said.
"Neighbors are corners," Grace corrected, satisfied. "Now buy an orange so I don't look like I walked for gossip."
They bought two. Grace overcharged them by a penny and winked as if she'd undercharged a wolf by a dollar.
The writing circle that night was almost a rally. Margaret had copied the second poem and hand-lettered it into a little booklet. Ruth pretended disapproval and asked for three.
Aurora stood at the front and read aloud, voice steadier than Luxe had heard it in weeks. When she finished, the girls didn't just clap—they stood. Even Mrs. Greene, lingering at the door, allowed herself two palm taps against her skirt. In a world that measured women by silence and obedience, applause felt like a crime worth committing.
Only Helen remained seated.
Afterward, she drifted close with the gravity of a moth pretending not to be in love with flame. "Your public readings—dangerous," she murmured. "Careful the men who clap aren't counting heads for other men."
Aurora's mouth trembled, but she held. "I can't stop because men count."
Helen's smile was careful, nearly kind. "You might have to stop to keep this roof."
Luxe stepped in. "We're building more roofs."
Helen's eyes flickered. "Then make sure they're not made of paper."
"Some are," Luxe said. "On purpose."
For the first time, Helen's face changed. Not much. Enough. She turned away before the change could record itself in the air.
Curfew fell like a hand smoothing a bedspread. Luxe sat at the window, habit and duty.
No car. No ember. No cigar. Quiet as a lie so good it told itself.
She almost preferred the smoke. You could point at smoke. Quiet made a woman doubt what her eyes knew in daylight.
She rose, crossed to the door, and tied an old ribbon of Aurora's to the stair rail outside—Signal 2—then untied it, then tied it again, learning the gesture with her muscles until her hands could do it in the dark without thinking. She cracked the window shade and crooked it—Signal 1—straightened it—crooked it again—straightened it, practicing. She crouched at the stoop when the hallway cleared and drew the tiniest chalk mark in the corner of the step where only a mouse would admire it—Signal 3—then rubbed it out with her thumb.
When she returned to the room, Aurora lifted her head from the pillow. "Drills?"
"Drills," Luxe said. "We're not soldiers. But we can be good at doors."
Aurora slid her hand across the gap between their beds. Luxe took it. Their fingers laced the way rope laces boards.
"Read me the last line again," Luxe said, surprising herself.
Aurora didn't reach for the paper. She'd memorized it in the marrow.
"…a lamp in the window still glowed, guiding strangers toward heat."
Luxe exhaled. "Good."
They slept as women sleep in houses they build while men with badges test the nails.
Morning found a small box on the Y's front stoop.
Not wrapped. Not addressed. Just a white box the size of a book, lid cracked from its own weight, a sliver of pale ribbon peeking like a vein.
Mrs. Greene spotted it first. She froze, then lifted a hand to halt a girl who moved to pick it up. "Stop."
Luxe and Aurora came down the stairs together. The foyer air felt wrong—as if the box were radiating cold.
Mrs. Greene fetched the fireplace tongs and lifted the lid like a surgeon.
Inside: lilies. White, waxen, sick with perfume. Two blooms, long-stemmed, with their throats open. Beneath them, a clipped square of newsprint—Aurora's poem—folded to the final stanza. A single line in fountain-pen ink curled across the margin in a hand as elegant as a knife:
For the little house. Keep the lamp lit. I like your light. — B
Silence belled the room. Gravity itself seemed to thicken.
Margaret gagged on the smell. Ruth covered her mouth. Helen did not move. Luxe did not breathe.
Mrs. Greene's hands did not shake as she closed the lid with the tongs. "Out back," she said. "Now."
They followed her to the yard, where the ash can sat like a sentinel. Mrs. Greene set the box inside and struck a match.
"We do not keep funeral flowers," she said, voice steady as flint.
The match hissed. Flame licked the ribbon, then the lilies, then the paper that had carried Aurora's light. The smell soured, sweet to the point of rot.
Aurora swayed. Luxe's hand found her elbow and held tight.
They watched until only gray remained.
Mrs. Greene crossed herself once. Then she turned to Luxe—to Luxe, not to the crowd—and said, "Tell your neighbors. Tell Miss Hart. Tell Miss Chen. Tell Pastor Mulligan. He has signed his name."
Luxe nodded. The tiny tremor in her knees was not fear. It was rage learning to stand.
Aurora's voice was almost too small to hear. "He likes the lamp."
Luxe's mouth flattened. "Then we build a lighthouse."
Aurora blinked, then—God help them—smiled, fragile and bright. "With a foghorn loud enough to wake the dead."
Mrs. Greene's rare smile answered. "And bells the wolves can't ignore."
They went back inside as a group—girls, matron, poet, hammer—carrying the scent of burned lilies like a new kind of incense.
The door shut. The bolt slid. The house, little though it was, held.
For now.