The kitchen smelled of boiled bones.

  Sisters scraped bowls into the slop bucket.

  Tomorrow’s soup.

  Iren cut bread with steady hands.

  “Why do children steal?”

  The answer rose easy: hunger.

  But he wasn’t asking for truth.

  He was weighing me.

  “Because they’re hungry,” I said.

  “Mm.” Another slice.

  “That is one reason.

  But clever children steal to see if anyone notices.”

  His eyes brushed my side.

  Then moved on.

  The knife tapped the board.

  “And then there are children who don’t steal. Not because they are good… but because they cannot.

  So—” He leaned against the table. His voice even.

  “If a child with nothing takes bread to live, and another child dies because of it… is the thief guilty?”

  The words pressed closer than any accusation.

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  Bread.

  Soup.

  Magic.

  He had to be circling one of them.

  I let out a breath I hadn’t meant to.

  “Depends who’s asking. The hungry call it survival. The dead call it theft. And priests…”

  I gave him a thin, tired smile.

  “…priests call it sin.”

  The knife stilled.

  His eyes didn’t leave mine.

  “Do you know what Anna said, when I asked her the same question?”

  He brushed crumbs from his hand.

  “She said, ‘It isn’t the thief’s fault. It’s the fault of the one who had only one loaf for two children.’”

  A clever child’s answer.

  Fair.

  Blaming the world, not the thief.

  He set the knife down, deliberate.

  “And that is how children survive.

  With blame. With excuses. With faith that someone else carries the weight.

  But when a child tries to carry it all themselves…

  That’s when even saints start to get suspicious.

  Do you understand, kid?”

  Oh, fuck.

  It landed like he’d peeled me open and left the truth on the table.

  It was never about bread or soup.

  The only thing on the scales was me.

  “Patch that seam. Before the cold takes you.”

  Dismissed.

  The study door creaked shut behind me.

  The air outside bit colder, like Iren’s eyes were still on my back.

  Anna stood by the arch.

  She hadn’t left with the others.

  Her gaze went to my shirt.

  Not me.

  The shirt.

  I pulled the bread free.

  For a moment, I almost kept it.

  Hunger gnawed sharp.

  Old habits said: survive first.

  Then I snapped it in half.

  Her smile broke loose — sudden, fierce, like she’d been holding her breath waiting.

  It cut through the cold harder than I wanted to admit.

  I shoved the larger piece into her hand.

  Kept the smaller for myself.

  It wasn’t trust.

  Wasn’t mercy.

  Just bread.

  That’s all.