Memoirs (Chapter Six)

[keighthundred]

Title: Memoirs
Rating: Teen
Major Warnings: No major warnings apply
Genre: Worm/Pale Crossover
Summary: Seven years after gold morning, the ghosts of Taylor Hebert’s past still haunt her. Seeking some solitude to hopefully help with her head, she moves to a small town called Kennet for some rest and relaxation. She doesn’t get it. Co-written with the beautiful Chartic.

I woke up fighting, channeling pure adrenaline, battling the last remnants of some almost-forgotten nightmare. The sheets were coated in sweat, uncomfortable, sticking to my legs and arm. The dream was so indistinct, difficult to piece together, but in the clearest moments, I remembered seeing the Nine. Bonesaw. Being strapped down to a table as a saw came down on my head, paralyzed, helpless. Then the cut.

It hurt twice as much, because these dreams had stopped . I hadn’t had something like this for almost a year now. Therapy had helped. Talking it out had helped. Making a few friends in college had helped, even if they were flimsy, and ended soon after my classes had. But I’d worked for it, fought for every inch of peace until the nightmares had finally stopped.

One single fight had brought it all right back to me. 

I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Then another. Muscles started to unclench and I began to untangle myself from the bedsheets.

I could hear hushed voices echoing from a few rooms over. They were too low to make out, but with the sort of angry tone that meant things were tense. I wasn’t at a hospital, not somewhere safe. I took a few more steadying breaths before I opened my crusty eyes. It was a painfully ordinary bedroom, with the type of eggshell-white walls you’d expect to find in a cheap apartment and adorned with a set of plain wooden furniture only a half-step above thrift store donations. There were no personal effects around, so I guessed it was someone’s guest room. A glass of water sat on the nightstand beside me, next to a faintly bloodstained bandage. Birds chirped, and it was light outside—lighter than it had been when I’d fainted, which meant that I’d been out for at least an entire night. 

Everything about this room was so painfully normal it almost felt off-putting—everything, except for the person standing over me. 

The goblin girl was there, frozen mid-stride beside me on a pillow, holding my hat like she was trying to steal it and hadn’t expected me to wake up.

Ugh.

“Give that back,” I said, my voice betraying how tired I felt.

She looked at the hat, which was almost as big as her, then back at me. “It’s mine! Finders keepers!”

I pushed myself into a sitting position, wincing at the jolt of pain that ran through me as I did. “I’ll make you regret it.”

“Nuh-uh! You only have one arm, stupid!”

I rubbed my eyes. “Only need one arm to use a taser. Don’t need any arms to tell the girls what you did, get them to fuck with you in retaliation.”

“Nuh-uh,” she repeated, as if that was an actual argument.

Then the door swung open, and the conversation outside grew slightly more audible—but still too low for me to distinguish anything being said.

“Cherrypop, give it back,” Avery said as she came into the room, followed by Snowdrop. The goblin girl—Cherrypop—groaned dramatically and shoved the hat at my face. It bounced off my nose, landing on the bed beside me.

“Ow,” I said.

Avery flashed an apologetic smile at me, and then turned to Snowdrop. “Do you mind getting her out of here?”

The opossum-girl shook her head. “Of course I mind.” But despite her words, she turned to the goblin, and said, “Wanna come steal some strawberry milk with me? I’m not thirsty, and I’ll really hate it if you make me drink it.”

Cherrypop cackled, leaping off the bed and heading out the door, Snowdrop trailing close behind. “Bahaha! You’re so stupid , Snowdrop! I’m gonna make you chug a whole gallon of it!” 

As the door clicked shut behind them, Avery sat down next to me on a folding stool. “Sorry about her. How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” I said, trying to sit up a little straighter, wincing. “Uh—sorry. I shouldn’t be swearing around you.”

“It’s alright,” she said. “Nothing I haven’t heard before.”

My mouth felt dry, and a lingering headache throbbed behind my eyes, but the pain was significantly less than it had been before. It was a different kind of hurt, which I hoped was a good sign. They’d fixed up my legs with magic, apparently, because there wasn’t even a scar left behind. And they’d changed my clothes too, which was a little more disconcerting. I was wearing someone’s pajamas, blue and pinstriped, and whoever they belonged to was apparently a size or two larger than me.

I shook my head. “What are they talking about out there?” I asked.

She hesitated. “You, mostly.”

I shifted in bed. “Yeah?”

“It’s… a little complicated. A lot of the locals aren’t super happy that we invited you to stay in town. But it’s not like they can make you leave, because you’re bound here under our oath, and they’re bound to not do us harm under their oaths. So…” She shrugged.

“Politics,” I said, sighing. 

“Yeah, basically. Politics. Lucy’s out there playing defense right now.”

I got the picture—I’d gone through this kind of thing plenty of times back when I was with the Wards. The sort of jockeying for power with no clear or good end. I was used to it by now. “Just Lucy? What happened to Verona?”

Avery shifted awkwardly. “She’s going through some rough stuff right now. Her dad…” She trailed off. “Sorry. It’s not my place to say.”

Her dad—the guy I’d met at work? I hadn’t gotten the impression that he was a particularly nasty person, but I knew how little that actually meant. People thought Emma had been nice. And in a chilling way, it recontextualized some things for me—like the fact that Verona hadn’t had any problem with an unknown cape interacting with her father. 

I sat up straighter. “Is she okay?”

“She’s—” Avery bit down. “She’s coping. She’s with her mom right now, and she’ll be there for a bit. Don’t worry about it.”

It didn’t sound reassuring in the least, but I could tell Avery didn’t want to talk about it any more. I made a mental note to find him on my own later. “Where am I?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“Matthew’s and Edith’s house. I know you were supposed to meet him at a coffee shop, do things low-key, but the cat’s kind of out of the bag now.”

“I guess it is.” There was a glass of water on the nightstand, which I assumed was for me. I reached out toward it, but it was to my right, which meant I had to strain with my left arm, twisting awkwardly to try and get it.

“Here, let me grab that.” Avery leaned over and passed me the glass.

“Thanks,” I said, taking a long sip before handing it back. “Where’s, uh, the rest of my stuff? My sunglasses, my clothes.”

She gestured to a duffel bag on the floor. “There was blood on them, so Edith gave them a wash. The pants are kind of cut up, though. Not sure if you wanted to keep those.”

“That’s, uh, fashionable, right?”

Avery raised a dubious eyebrow. “Maybe ten years ago, it was.”

“...Ah.” Even now, I didn’t really get fashion. “What happened to the capes—the Others we were fighting? The Bathos, and the watch guy?”

“Dealt with, for now.”

“Were they who you were looking for? The conspirators?”

She shook her head. “They were just some people trying to take advantage of an opportunity,” she said. “You know that person whose death we’re investigating?”

I nodded.

“She kept order in the region. With her gone, things are getting worse. More violent. Bloodier.”

“There’s a power vacuum,” I said. “People are fighting over the role?”

“I mean—yeah. But also in a more abstract way. Things are less stable, more dangerous. There are people fighting for the role, but not those guys you met. Those Others were just there because the perimeter was weakened, and they saw a chance to use it to help themselves. There’ll probably be more like them soon.”

A perimeter that was weakened by me. So it was my fault they had come here.

Avery must’ve noticed the look in my eyes, because she shook her head. “It’s probably not your fault,” she said. “The perimeter was weakened before you showed up. You didn’t help things, but they probably would’ve come through anyway. We’ve been dealing with guys like them all summer.”

“Opportunists.” I pushed the blankets off of me.

“Yeah.” She paused. “Look, Taylor, before you get up—can I ask? What happened back there?”

I averted my eyes. “What do you mean?”

“When Bridge jumped to you, he freaked out and left. What did you do?”

That was the question, wasn’t it: what had I done? And the answer was maybe the most terrifying thing it could be. It was something I desperately didn’t want to admit to myself.

“I don’t think it was me,” I breathed.

Avery swallowed. “Was that Khepri?”

“I—no,” I said. “You guys need to be specific, right? Practice is pedantic like that?”

“Yeah.”

“That was my power —I call it my passenger. The closest thing to a human name I have for it is the Queen Administrator. If you want to be specific, that’s what you should call it. Khepri is…something else.” 

Avery was quiet for a long time after, before finally saying, “Your power. You think that’s what it was?”

“I’m not sure. It didn’t feel the same. I hope it isn’t, but…” I looked up, met her eyes. Her face wore a mixture of fear and determination. “I don’t think there’s anything else it could be.”

She gripped the sides of her stool. “What about now? Do you feel it now?”

I thought about it. There was something that I might’ve thought was a slight headache, but it was minute, only an echo of what I’d felt before. And that could easily be from my injuries during the fight, or from just feeling sick in general. 

“I’m not sure,” I said. “But I don’t think so. I’m not wearing the hat right now, and—” I gestured toward my forehead. “No headache. I’m not feeling that… presence that I was before.”

“That’s good,” she said, letting out a sigh of relief. “We were worried, you know?”

“Yeah, I’m glad I’m not dead, too.”

She chuckled awkwardly, before clearing her throat. “...About what you did back there—that was really cool of you. You didn’t have to do all that for us. So—thank you for saving Melissa.”

Didn’t I? Miss had told me to take actions that were distinctly me , and rushing headlong into a fight seemed pretty characteristic of the me of yesteryear.

There was a balance to it, I figured. Now that my passenger seemed to be actively pursuing me, the hat was my lifeline, the only thing that could keep it at bay—but it came with a cost, and that cost had to be paid through presence. So I had to play the part of the hero I once was to avoid becoming the monster from Gold Morning. There was a sort of irony there that I was sure the spirits appreciated.

“Melissa was that girl?” I asked. “The hostage?”

She nodded. 

“Friend of yours?”

“A classmate. She’s Aware, like you, but doesn’t know nearly as much. We’ve tried to keep her in the dark, but she’s been digging on her own, finding trouble, and she’s learned enough now that her innocence isn’t protecting her as much as it used to. Things could’ve gone a lot worse if you weren’t there.”

“Why didn’t you tell her about this stuff?” I asked, frowning. “If she’s already Aware, isn’t she vulnerable? Why not give her the tools she needs to defend herself?” 

“It’s a really bad idea, most of the time,” Avery said. “Depending on the person, making someone fully Aware can hurt more than it helps. We wanted to keep Melissa out of this life, because once you get in, it’s really hard to get out.”

“But you told me.”

“Well… yeah. You were already neck-deep in this—you’ve got your passenger connected to you and it’s pretty obvious. Plus, if you were telling us the truth, you’ve got years of experience dealing with dangerous stuff. And you’re an adult, and you’re clearly capable. Melissa… isn’t.”

“Ah.”

“And, you know, Miss vouched for you.”

Of course. Miss again. Everything circled back to her.

“Can you do me a favor?” she asked suddenly. “Two favors, actually.”

I frowned. “Depends on what the favors are.”

“The first one is simple. When you go out there, don’t tell anyone that Miss is back? She’s working on stuff for us, and it’s probably better if she stays under the radar for now.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Have you considered that she could be one of the conspirators? That she’s playing you?”

Avery nodded. “Believe me, we have. Just… trust me when I say that we’ve looked into things, and we’re pretty certain where we stand with her.”

“Okay,” I said, relenting. “Fine. I get it. I won’t mess with any plans you’ve got in motion. What’s the other thing?”

“Could you talk to Melissa for me? Convince her to let all this go? Because she hasn’t really been listening to me, and the impression I get from her is that she still thinks this is all a game. But based on what she was saying after you passed out, I think she respects you. She might listen to you.”

“That could be dangerous,” I said. “If she sees me as a role model, she might try to imitate me. I might end up making things worse.”

Avery nodded. “Which is why I’m asking you to talk to her, try to get her off that path before it’s too late. It might already be too late, but…”

She was worried about her friend. I could understand that. She already had too many people to worry about. If I could take one problem off her plate, then I’d do it.

“Yeah,” I said. “I can do that.”

She smiled. “Great. Thank you.”

“I have to warn you, though,” I said, climbing out of bed, “I’m notoriously bad at convincing kids to do the right thing.”

Avery laughed at that and I hoped it would hold as a good sign. I rose slowly, testing my feet to make sure I was stable before fully committing to standing. I grabbed the duffel bag containing my things, and Avery took up a spot behind me as we walked through the door.

It was finally time to meet the locals.

🟂

“—not your decision to make,” an elderly woman said. She wore a black dress with layered panels and dozens of odds and ends attached to her outfit—curved blades, loose scrolls, an honest-to-god birdcage . “A choice like that affects all of us.”

“Trust us,” Lucy said, scowling. “You guys chose us to protect Kennet, we swore to uphold that, so trust that we’ve got the best intentions here.”

“We’re trying,” a younger man said. He was in his mid-twenties, with brown, scraggly hair and tired eyes. This was Matthew, judging by the description I’d been given of the man. “But you’ve invited her into our town behind our backs, and by your own admission, you’re not even sure what she is. And because she’s not an Other or practitioner herself, her oaths aren’t even binding.”

“We did tell others before we offered her a spot in Kennet. We told John, for one. And are you saying you’d prefer if she was a practitioner? You want us to awaken her, have a fourth practitioner in Kennet?”

“Absolutely not,” the elderly woman said.

“It leaves us in a really precarious spot,” Matthew said. “She’s not bound by the Oath of Solomon. If she decides to break her promise to you, then you three are ruined, and that’ll splash back on the rest of us.”

“She just fought an Abyssal beast for us,” Lucy said. “Fought it hand-to-hand, and nobody even had to ask her to help. Doesn’t that prove anything?”

“It proves that she was willing to fight,” the elderly woman said. “As for her motivations, it’s wiser not to make assumptions.”

“Then ask her,” Lucy said, exasperated. “Talk to her yourself instead of whispering behind her back.”

That sounded like as good a time as any to step in. I cleared my throat and gave a hesitant, “Uh, hi.”

All eyes turned toward me.

There were half a dozen people in the room with me—besides the elderly woman, Matthew, and Lucy, there were three people who hadn’t yet spoken: a short, fat guy with a monocle and an ill-fitting waistcoat; an average-looking teenage girl; and the blond man I’d seen yesterday—the dog of war. It was a living room, and they all had taken places around the room, on couches and in chairs circling the fireplace. Only the elderly woman insisted on standing, taking a spot across from the rest, against the wall.

And behind me, of course, was Avery.

“Ms. Hebert,” Matthew said wearily. “You’re up.”

“I am.” I met all their eyes, sweeping my gaze across the room. “Thank you for taking care of my injuries while I was out.”

“That was Tashlit, mostly,” Lucy said. “She’s not here right now, but I think she’d be glad to see that you’re up.” She gave the others a side-eye. “ Most of us are.”

I’d been in Kennet for barely a month, and already I had enemies here. That was fine. I knew how to manage situations like this—my whole cape career had consisted of wrangling one hostile set of leaders after another. I’d faced the PRT’s board of directors after killing two of them.

I wasn’t scared of these people. 

“I appreciate it,” I said. “If you want to know why I went in there, I’ll tell you. There were innocent people in danger, and I couldn’t let them get hurt.”

The elderly woman folded her arms, unimpressed. “Coming from you, that means nothing.”

I frowned. I had been warned that not being awakened meant something when it came to Others, but I hadn’t expected it to be like this. It really was just like when I had first joined the Protectorate. Every action I did, every word I said, would be scrutinized and twisted back onto me. 

At least this time, the entire world wasn’t at stake.

“Practice is supposed to be versatile,” I said. “I’m no expert, but are you telling me that between all of you, there’s no way for you to know if someone is telling the truth or not?”

“Humans are fickle,” the elderly woman said. “That you’re telling the truth now does not guarantee that you won’t change your mind later.”

“Sounds like you’re looking for an excuse to distrust me,” I said. “There’ll never be anything I can do to prove myself to you, is there? It’ll never be enough.”

“There will always be a seed of doubt,” she said, nodding. “Waiting to take root.”

Just like with the Directors, I thought. Exactly the same.

“Well,” I said, “that’s tough shit.” 

Everybody’s eyes flashed in surprise. What, had they expected me to be afraid? To collapse under pressure? They all looked some degree of offended, except for the guy with the monocle. He was smiling, just a little. I’d gained points with him, it seemed.

There was my in.

I pushed on. “You can’t make me leave, because it’ll ruin you. I don’t want to leave, for exactly the same reason. We’re at an impasse. So either you can learn to deal, we can work together, or—”

“Hold on,” Avery said, cutting in. “How about we start with some introductions first?”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Lucy said. “Before we get into things, we should introduce you to each other.”

I bit back a curse. They were ruining my momentum. But I didn’t want to step on their toes, so I nodded.

“This is Matthew, Toadswallow, Crooked Rook, and Lis,” Lucy said, gesturing toward the brown-haired man, the fat guy with the monocle, the elderly woman, and the average-looking girl, respectively. “You met John yesterday,” she said, pointing toward the blond Dog of War.

“I’ve met Lis before, too,” I said. 

Lis gave a little wave. But she looked different than the last time I’d seen her—she was a decade younger, with medium-length brown hair. Nothing like the woman wearing a copy of my hair that I’d seen in the grocery store. Was she a shapeshifter? I’d have to ask the girls later.

“And that’s Cig,” Lucy finished, pointing at the coffee table, where a lit cigarette sat.

I paused, momentarily lost for words. “That’s… a person?”

“Depends on your definition of person, I think.”

I blinked. Okay. I’d seen weirder things.

“There are others in Kennet, but they’re currently out. You’ll probably get the chance to meet them later.”

“And to everyone else here,” Avery said, “this is Taylor, formerly known as Weaver. Interdimensional refugee, former superhero, and possible Harbinger.”

I gave her a glance. “Did you explain to them about…” I made a vague gesture to try and encompass everything I was thinking. 

“They know the basics, enough to understand. Your patron, the world you come from.” 

“Allegedly,” the old woman—Crooked Rook—said. “Which we have already established—coming from your mouth, it means nothing.”

“Well, now,” the fat guy—Toadswallow—said, baring his teeth. “Let’s hear the girl out.”

“To what end?” Crooked Rook asked, sounding distinctly bored. “You want to hear her tell lies? Tall tales? The novelty wears thin very quickly, I assure you.”

“I’m intrigued,” he said. “It’s not every day you meet a supposed superhero.”

“It’s not as glamorous as it sounds,” I said. “And I didn’t exactly fit the traditional image of a superhero.”

“I’d rather hear about your patron,” Matthew said. “If you don’t mind.”

I raised an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“The nature of your relationship. The girls have given some explanation, and what little they’ve told already has me worried.” 

“Well, then what would you like to know?” I asked, gesturing with my hand.

“How much control over the relationship between it and you do you have?”

Shit. Already starting off with the hard questions. I should have expected as much.

“That’s a little complicated.”

“Complicated how?”

“If you’d asked me that at any point in the last seven years, I’d have told you that it was gone. That there was no chance of it coming back. A woman, probably the only woman in the universe who could, removed it. But now I’m learning that it’s had a tiny connection to me this whole time, and it’s finally starting to find me again.” I took a breath. “Maybe it’s been trying to find me all along. I’m not sure. Before that, I’d have told you that I was completely in charge, that I had full control over it.”

“But?”

“But that wasn’t exactly true. My passenger, my patron, always had a small amount of influence over me. Nothing as obvious as what you might think, just a nudge here and there to put me in situations it favored. For years, that was it. And then Gold Morning happened.”

He frowned. “Gold Morning. Lucy, you mentioned that before.”

“An apocalypse event,” she provided. “In Taylor’s world.”

“It was supposed to be the end of every world,” I said, my voice growing a bit more robotic as I continued. “Of every possible version of Earth. Our most powerful hero, Scion, turned on us. He tried to destroy everything and had the power to do it, if left unchecked. We learned that he wasn’t human, never had been, and was the one to set everything in motion—my world, our powers. We stopped him, barely, but billions of people died in the process.”

I looked around the room, and most of their faces showed clear disbelief. Only Lucy and Avery were visibly on my side.

“You see?” Crooked Rook asked. “Ridiculous.”

“Entertaining,” Toadswallow said, grinning.

“It happened ,” I said, barely holding myself back from a growl. “It was real . Everyone was fucking dying and people were just giving up. We were desperate and…I took a risk. My powers were useless against him, and we needed a trump card. I had someone knock down the walls between myself and my passenger, to change the nature of our connection, hoping for something that could help us. And it worked; I was stronger. But I wasn’t…it wasn’t totally me , and I wasn’t really in charge. If the girls mentioned Khepri to you? That’s what that was, when I lost control. My power was taking over, and to save me, I had to be cut off from it. So if that’s the way our connection ended, and Practice is all about patterns? Chances are that it’s the way it’ll come back.”

“And your passenger,” Matthew said. “What is it?”

I paused for a second, considering the best way to explain this. “One of the girls mentioned something about Scion reminding them of an especially powerful god. If you’re looking at it from that perspective, then my passenger would be a fragment of that god. A piece of it, made with a specific purpose, and fine-tuned to give one specific power.”

“The same god that wanted to destroy all realities?”

I grit my teeth, but tried not to let it show. I was losing my cool—this conversation was affecting me a lot more than I thought it would. “More or less. But my passenger, my power—it doesn’t want the same thing that Scion did. It helped me stop him.”

“But it’s a part of him all the same. Do you see the problem here?”

“Of course I do,” I snapped. “I’m as worried about it as you. That’s why I’m asking you for help.”

“Help can be expensive and unwieldy,” Crooked Rook said. And then she glanced at the Dog of War, John. “A bullet is cheaper. And simpler.”

I couldn’t help it—I barked out a laugh. “Yeah? You want to kill me? I’m no expert in Practice, but killing an Innocent when all she’s done is help you seems like a bad fucking idea. I don’t think the spirits would take very kindly to that.”

“You’re not very Innocent,” she argued. “And you’re a potential threat to this town.”

“I’m also a potential boon to this town. I’ve already sworn to help protect it. I’ve got experience and skills, and the girls already backed me up on my oath, reinforced it themselves. So if you kill me, you’re killing a member of Kennet who only wanted to help . You can try to hash that out with the spirits all you like, but I doubt you’ll get too far.”

“You would be surprised,” she said. “Your words and intentions mean less than others’. It would be trivial to arrange matters against you.”

“Maybe,” I said, scrambling to cover my slip-up. “Maybe so. But you really want that kind of reputation on your hands? A town that turns on its own? I wonder how that would affect that perimeter of yours, how others see you.”

“Well, now,” Toadswallow said. “There’s a saying—better the devil you know. We know roughly what would happen if we slit your little throat. We know next to shit about what will happen if your patron takes over, don’t we?”

I clenched my fist. So Toadswallow had swapped sides. They were all against me now, weren’t they?

I was too pissed to speak, so instead focused on a few deep breaths. I was about to retort with something volatile—an insinuation that I’d set up some kind of mutually assured destruction, that I’d set something up to leak info about Practice and Kennet’s issues if anyone came after me. It wasn’t true, obviously, but they’d already stated outright that they couldn’t tell if I was lying or not. Was it a bad idea? Maybe. But I was running out of options, and unlike the PRT directors, these guys didn’t seem to have any qualms about killing me. They’d backed me into a corner. It was only fair that I pushed back a little. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

But thankfully, Lucy cut me off before I could open my mouth. “John,” she said sharply. “You met Taylor yesterday. What was your impression of her?”

He nodded. “She was brave. Adaptable. And she ran off to help you two as soon as I told her about you. It speaks to her character.”

She waved her hands. “See?”

“One instance is not a pattern,” Crooked Rook said. “It proves nothing.”

“I get it,” I said, cutting them off. “Look, you don’t trust me. I get that. But let’s be realistic here—I can’t leave town, not without screwing the girls over. And clearly, none of us want that to happen.”

“Your point?”

“Let’s change things. I’m willing to play ball. I’ve helped you guys out already, shed blood for you, but if that’s not enough, then tell me what is. Give me a chance to prove myself. You want me to establish a pattern? Give me time.”

“Time could result in your patron winning, wreaking havoc. You could become another threat to this town without warning.”

“Not if you help me prevent that. You don’t want it to win, and neither do I. You’ve got to have resources to reach out to—something that could help me. Right now, I have this hat that hides my connections. It keeps my passenger at bay. But it comes at a price, and it’s not a permanent solution. I’m looking for something more sustainable long-term. If you don’t believe I’m being altruistic here, then believe that. Self-interest.”

Crooked Rook frowned. “Where exactly did you get the hat?”

“I can’t say.” I shrugged. “I swore not to. And I think you’d all prefer if I kept my oaths, right?”

She crossed her arms. “Fine. You want a solution to your problem. What exactly can you do for us in return?”

I shrugged. “Whatever you need. I have years of experience. I’ve worked with villains and government organizations controlling territory. I’ve fought people bigger, badder, and more dangerous than me for years . If you don’t trust me to do much in Kennet, then at least let me help patrol. Let me keep the peace around the perimeter. It would free up your time for more important things.”

For a few tense heartbeats, everyone in the room was quiet. They flashed each other little looks, like they were trying to communicate through facial expressions and blinks.

Crooked Rook was the one to break the silence. “Fine,” she said. “I’m amenable to that.”

Wait, what?

All of a sudden, it was like the atmosphere of the whole room had changed.

“Me too,” Matthew said. “I’d like to avoid bloodshed if we can. If Taylor is willing to help out, I’m willing to give her a chance.”

“Now that’s an interesting idea,” Toadswallow said. “Our own little superhero. Sure, why not? But I’ll lay down some conditions first. Letting the would-be Harbinger walk around the perimeter by herself seems like a ripe idea for disaster, don’t you think? A brewing shitstorm in the making.”

“You’ll have one of your goblins watch her?” Matthew asked.

“One of them, or one of you,” he said dismissively. “I doubt it takes very much to keep a powerless, one-armed woman in check.”

“I’ll do it,” John said, meeting my eyes. “I can watch over her, and provide her with some training.”

Thank you, John, I thought. Out of everyone here, he was possibly the only one besides the girls who was unequivocally on my side.

“Lis?” Matthew prompted.

The girl shrugged. “The more the merrier,” she said. “I don’t have a problem with it.”

“Cig?” Matthew asked. The cigarette glowed a little brighter.

Uh—

“And we agree, too,” Lucy said. “All three of us, plus Snowdrop.”

“Yeah,” Avery added. “From everything we’ve seen of her, she’s trustworthy. We’re all in agreement.”

“Then it’s settled,” Matthew said, standing up, walking over to me. “We’ll give it a day, and if there are no outstanding objections from any of the Others not currently in attendance, then you’ll work with John, protecting the town and the perimeter. And in return, we’ll look into ways to help you with your problem.”

I frowned. “And if there are objections?”

“We’ll deal with that at a later time.” He held a hand out for me to shake. To the untrained eye, it looked like I’d won.

But it was all too easy, wasn’t it? I glanced at all the faces in the room. Any one of them could be a conspirator. Even John. And even if they weren’t, they were set against me from the start, just because of who I was, what I could end up becoming. I couldn’t blame them for that, but I’d have to stay on my toes around them.

So with all that in mind, I took the handshake. For now, I would play along. There was no point in showing my hand too early. 

It wasn’t just my life on the line here—I had the girls to worry about, too. 

“Deal,” I said, forcing a smile.