They found refuge in a small attic room belonging to Mrs. Winters, a widowed seamstress who had once sewn dresses for Eleanor before her marriage. The elderly woman asked no questions when Eleanor arrived at her door with a "niece" she'd never mentioned before, merely nodding at the thin silver bracelet Eleanor pressed into her palm as payment.

  "Two weeks," Eleanor whispered. "We need just two weeks before the pace interviews."

  Mrs. Winters gnced at Nathaniel, who stood awkwardly in a hastily purchased dress, his braided hair making him look almost—but not quite—like a girl. Her eyes, sharp despite her age, saw through the disguise immediately.

  "Three weeks," she countered quietly, so that only Eleanor could hear. "The boy moves like a bcksmith's apprentice, not a dy's maid."

  And so began Nathaniel's education in girlhood.

  "Smaller steps," Eleanor instructed the next morning, watching critically as Nathaniel practiced walking across Mrs. Winters' cramped workroom. "You stride like you're racing to deliver a package. Girls your age are taught to move more... deliberately."

  Nathaniel tried again, shortening his steps and slowing his pace. He felt ridiculous.

  "Better," his mother acknowledged. "But your shoulders are still too square. Drop them slightly. Yes, like that."

  Each day brought new lessons. How to sit (knees together, ankles crossed). How to eat (smaller bites, chew silently). How to speak (softer, with a slightly higher pitch). How to address nobility (eyes lowered, hands folded, curtsy without wobbling).

  "I'll never remember all this," Nathaniel compined after a particurly frustrating afternoon of curtsy practice had left his thighs burning and his pride wounded.

  Eleanor, who had spent the morning coughing blood into her handkerchief, gave him a look that silenced further protest.

  "You have your father's mind," she said simply. "He could memorize entire texts after reading them once. You can remember which fork to use for fish."

  The hardest lessons came from Mrs. Winters, who taught him the practical skills that any girl his age would have learned from her mother.

  "You'll be expected to know basic mending," she expined, demonstrating how to thread a needle. "Nothing fancy, mind you. Just enough to fix a torn hem or repce a button."

  Nathaniel's bookbinding experience made his fingers nimble, but sewing presented new challenges. The first night, he pricked his fingers so many times they looked like he'd been handling rose thorns.

  "The other girls will notice if you can't manage these basics," Mrs. Winters warned. "And pace maids are worse gossips than fishwives."

  There were more intimate lessons too, ones that made Nathaniel's face burn with embarrassment as his mother expined monthly courses and the supplies he would need to appear knowledgeable about such matters.

  "You won't have to deal with this yourself, obviously," Eleanor said, showing him how to fold the cloths that women used. "But you'll be expected to understand and discuss it. Girls your age talk about these things, especially when they first begin."

  "What if they ask me if I've started?" Nathaniel asked, mortified by the entire conversation.

  "Say you haven't yet, but your mother said it should be soon," Eleanor advised. "That will buy you time, and many girls don't begin until thirteen or fourteen anyway."

  The worst moments came when Eleanor's illness overtook her. On those days, Mrs. Winters took over, her gnarled hands guiding Nathaniel through the lessons while his mother huddled beneath bnkets, her frame growing thinner by the day.

  "Will she..." Nathaniel began to ask once, watching his mother sleep fitfully.

  "Focus on your lessons," Mrs. Winters interrupted firmly. "Your mother is spending what strength she has left to give you a future. Don't waste it."

  By the end of the second week, Nathaniel could walk, talk, and carry himself convincingly enough to be mistaken for a girl by the neighborhood shopkeepers. His hands, once calloused from bookbinding tools, had softened slightly. His voice, carefully moduted, no longer dropped into boyish tones when he was startled.

  On the fifteenth day, Eleanor sat up in bed, more alert than she had been in days. "It's time for the final test," she announced.

  Mrs. Winters nodded grimly and left the room. She returned with a bundle of fabric that she pced reverently on the bed.

  "This was my daughter's," she expined, unfolding what proved to be a dress of pale blue cotton—simple but well-made, with small pearl buttons down the front. "Before she married and moved north. It should fit."

  Nathaniel stared at the dress, then at the two women watching him expectantly.

  "You want me to..."

  "Dress yourself properly," Eleanor finished for him. "As you would need to do at the pace. Without help."

  It was one thing to practice walking and talking in the borrowed dresses he'd been wearing. It was another entirely to transform himself completely, from the inside out.

  "I'll step out," Mrs. Winters offered, but Eleanor shook her head.

  "No. At the pace, she'll have no privacy. Girls dress together in the dormitories."

  Nathaniel swallowed hard, then began to undress. Mrs. Winters had provided the necessary undergarments—simple cotton chemise and drawers that wouldn't raise eyebrows among pace maids. With fumbling fingers, he put them on, then reached for the dress.

  The buttons were tiny and slippery, designed for more delicate fingers than his. After three attempts, he finally managed to fasten them all the way up to his throat.

  When he finished, Eleanor's eyes shone with unshed tears. "Turn around," she instructed softly.

  Nathaniel turned in a slow circle, feeling the dress settle around his calves.

  Mrs. Winters clicked her tongue approvingly. "A bit of padding at the chest would help, but otherwise... you'll pass."

  Eleanor beckoned him closer and took his hands in hers. "From this moment forward, you must think of yourself as Natalie," she said firmly. "Not just when others are watching, but in your own mind. Nathaniel is a bookbinder's son who no longer exists. Natalie is my niece, come to make her way in the world at the pace."

  "What if I make a mistake?" he asked, his voice catching. "What if someone discovers—"

  "Don't think about discovery," Eleanor interrupted. "Think only about survival. One day at a time." She reached for a small leather pouch on the bedside table. "Now, there's one st step to complete your transformation."

  From the pouch, she withdrew a folded letter sealed with the blue wax he had seen before, and a small silver locket on a delicate chain.

  "The letter is for Henrietta Bckwood, expining that you are my niece, orphaned and in need of position," Eleanor expined. "And this..." She held up the locket. "This was mine when I served at the pace. It marks you as the daughter of a former pace servant. It might not seem significant, but at court, such connections matter."

  She pced the chain around Nathaniel's neck, her fingers trembling with the effort. The locket felt cool against his skin, a weight both physical and symbolic.

  "Tomorrow," Eleanor said, lying back against her pillows, exhausted by even this small exertion, "we go to the pace."