The next day, Feliciano decides to go pay the new men a visit. It'd be polite and besides he'll have to share a bathroom with them anyway so meeting them like this would be way better than meeting them because they broke the toilet or something.

He also brings plums from the shop as a sort of peace offering.

When the door opens, he squeaks involuntarily and backs away, nearly tripping on his own feet, because the man who opened the door is old, but he's also really tall and intimidating-looking and Feliciano could kick himself for the first words out of his mouth being "Hi I'm Feliciano I live on the next floor and we're gonna share a bathroom nice to meet you."

The old man raises an eyebrow at him. For some reason Feliciano notices he's got his hair in something approaching a bun, and then the old man nods once and extends his hand.

"Ewald Beilschmidt."

Almost sure he's heard that somewhere before, Feliciano takes his hand. It feels like paper, almost, and just a bit like his Nonno's, and it has very strong fingers.

"Do you want to come in for dinner?"

"O-oh, no, I couldn't—"

One of the other two men appears in the doorway—the older one, and Feliciano notices his eyes are nearly red—and half-shouts "Come in, you're too cute not to have dinner with!"

"You'll have to excuse Gilbert," Mr. Beilschmidt mutters, "he is often like that. Come in."

Feliciano does.

The Beilschmidts' rooms are larger than his own, although just as stuffy, and they smell of some kind of thick soup. The strange glow Feliciano caught before seems to hang in the corners where he doesn't look, and the window has no curtains on it yet.

There is also the third man standing at the tiny stove, stirring the soup. He turns his head towards Feliciano and nods quickly.

"That's Ludwig," Mr. Beilschmidt says quickly. "He's my youngest. Doesn't talk much."

Feliciano might have been seeing wrong, but he thinks Ludwig smiles at him for a fleeting second.

He hasn't eaten with anyone for at least a year and it's a very pleasant change, even though Gilbert is a little overbearing, and he learns that Gilbert works in the railway station near Coattail and Bottley Street and Ludwig works at the printer's up near the university and they moved to the Braginskys' place from somewhere up near the docks on the northwest end of Saint Stanislav and Ludwig can actually make pretty decent soup even if it is a little too warm and there's a bit of glow in Feliciano's eyes, just by the corners, if he looks at Gilbert sideways but that makes Gilbert grin at him in a kind of weird way so he stops.

Ewald, he says, works on Botany Way just by Oldbridge, which is kind of weird since that's where Feliciano's Nonno used to work, and—

oh. Oh, that's where he heard the name, Botany Way near Oldbridge is where the star-maker workshops are, and Nonno had worked at the Palatine workshop and mentioned some Beilschmidt once, and—

—"You're a star-maker?" Feliciano knows he must look rather stupid, to be so excited, but "Which workshop?"

"Theoderic's."

"I—oh. It's just, my grandfather used to work at Palatine and I thought you might have known him." Feliciano looks down at his hands, embarrassed.

"Hm." Ewald furrows his brow. "What was his name?"

"R-Romulus Vargas."

There is a clang—Gilbert dropped his spoon—and a faint gasp from Ludwig, and Ewald actually looks surprised for a second.

"Romulus Vargas?"

"Y-yes," quavers Feliciano—now Ewald's face is all scary and serious and what if he made him angry by talking about Nonno—"D-d-did you know him?"

"Not really. Romulus Vargas." Ewald leans back in his chair a little.

There isn't much conversation after that.


Gilbert shows up at the grocery store two days later, buys a pound and a quarter of asparagus, and does something that Feliciano thinks might be flirting, but he's not sure since he seems to do it indiscriminately, like Mr. Bonnefoy the pastry-maker down the street, except Gilbert doesn't seem to be very good at it.

It makes Mr. Carriedo laugh so hard his eyes crease up, though.

Feliciano meets Ludwig again that day, too, but not in the exact way he would've liked.

It's something in the air—a storm brewing up out east, ready to sweep down from Lord-under-Mountain and Kestrel's Well and out across the downs and plains, building speed—something heavy and nearly yellowing, making the air curl around the edges with moisture, the kind of air that brews fights.

Something that makes the men who follow him more vindictive when he has no money.

Feliciano curls up on the ground when they've left the narrow side-street, wincing at the sting in his ribs and his eyes—he will not cry, he will not—and trying to gather himself together enough to push upright.

He doesn't hear the footsteps, indistinguishable from the street noise, but then two battered work boots are in front of him and the voice connected to them says "Mr. Vargas?"

Feliciano looks up.

Ludwig stoops down. "A-are you—what happened?"

"I'll be fine," he mumbles. He's had worse, really, but only a few times, and he knows he'll ache horribly in the morning.

Ludwig offers him his hand. "I could help you get home. If you like."

Feliciano grabs at his hand—it's warm, and there are ink stains on it too, multicolored—and lets Ludwig pull him upright. He wobbles on his feet.

They both glance at their hands after two or so seconds and let go.

"Can you walk all right?"

"Think so." They hadn't really gone after his legs, but his ribs had taken a kicking, and he's really very grateful for the way Ludwig slings Feliciano's arm across his broad shoulders and walks slowly.

"Does this happen often?" Ludwig says, and when Feliciano looks over there's something tight in the set of his face and jaw.

He doesn't answer, which seems to be answer enough.

Before too long, they've reached the tenement, and Ludwig walks Feliciano up to his rooms.

"Are you going to be all right?" Ludwig is staring at the floor, which is a little weird.

"I—yeah. I think so."

"I-if you need anything—"

"Thanks." Feliciano smiles at him. "A-and you can call me Feliciano. Mr. Vargas was my grandfather."

"I—all right." Ludwig glances up, quickly, and there's another small smile. "I—uh. Goodbye."

He's outside the next morning when Feliciano leaves to go to work, and they walk together, and he's there again when Feliciano leaves the restaurant.

It's nice to have someone to talk to.


The storm does arrive a week later, and it's just as big as the air had foretold.

Feliciano and Ludwig sprint down Old Smithy—they won't be able to catch one of the full, wheezing trams and it would mean standing in the rain anyway—and hurry through the front door, gasping for breath.

Feliciano kind of has to shove Ludwig into his room, but "You got all wet on my account and we're not done talking you can sit down it's okay." He sits down on the narrow bed and undoes his boots, wrings out his socks. "You were telling me about the botany textbooks?"

"Um. Yes. Well." Ludwig clears his throat and begins to take his boots off. "I got a look at a few of them and the pictures were—amazing. The colors were difficult, though."

There's precious little fuel for the tiny stove, he hasn't been doing much cooking recently, but there's just enough so that Feliciano can drape their shirts in front of the stove and sit next to Ludwig, both in their undershirts. They keep talking, about the textbook pictures and the really nice woman Feliciano had run into doing deliveries and the time Gilbert had once almost taken a train to Burhstede by accident and how Ewald wants to see Feliciano, soon, Ludwig says.

That makes Feliciano's stomach jump a little.

It jumps more when Ludwig tentatively, so tentatively places an arm around Feliciano, but a good jump.

Ludwig's skin is very warm.