Joseph reached the census office at dusk, and the clerk inside was already closing the shutters. He had walked for days to bring Mary to this strange city. The angel had promised him a son to raise, a boy the powers of the world would try to kill. For now the danger was simpler. Mary sat on their mule outside, her hands folded over her round belly, her time close. Joseph had no roof for her, and the office would not wait. He knocked. "I must register," he said. "My wife and I came from Nazareth." The clerk waved him to a table and dipped his pen. "Name. Town. Family line." Joseph answered each question. His voice stayed steady, though his hands did not. He kept glancing at the door. The clerk marked the scroll, pressed it, and said, "You are counted. Next." It was done. Joseph stepped back into the street, the duty finished, and felt no relief. Mary had grown pale. "Joseph," she said quietly. "I think tonight." He led the mule through crowded lanes. The census had filled the city with travelers. At a stone house with roses climbing its door, a lantern burned on the balcony. Joseph knocked hard. A man opened, shook his head, and shut it. The next house, the same. Every door closed. The streets were thick with people who had come to be counted, and no bed remained anywhere. Near a well, another traveler stood with his loaded mule, tightening the ropes to move on. His face was tired. "Don't waste your breath," he told Joseph. "I've asked ten houses. The inns turned me away hours ago. The innkeeper up the road, Levi, put me off like the rest." He nodded at Mary. "Your wife shouldn't be standing." Joseph's throat went dry. He had solved one problem and walked straight into a worse one. The scroll in his belt meant nothing now. Mary pressed her lips together and breathed slow. "God," Joseph said under his breath. He had called his steady hands luck, once. He did not now. He turned the mule toward the road the traveler had come from. "Levi," he repeated. "Which way?" The traveler pointed, then pulled his own beast along and was gone. Joseph walked fast, one hand on the mule's rein, one on Mary's knee. He reached the inn and pounded the door. Levi opened it, a lamp in his hand, his face lined and weary. "We're full," the innkeeper said before Joseph spoke. "Every man in Judah is here tonight." "Please." Joseph did not let go of the door. "My wife is in labor. I don't need a bed. I need walls. Anything." Levi looked past him at Mary. Something in his face shifted. He stood quiet a moment, then sighed. "There's the stable," he said. "Out back. It's warm, and it's dry. It's all I have." Joseph took it.