“Yeah,” Rose said. “You do have a streak of tenacity in you. That‘s obvious.”
“Let me be your warrior,” I said. I pointed at my friends. “I won’t be able to help them without helping you, because you’re all connected, and I’d only hurt myself if I tried to convince them to leave.”
“I’d hurt you if you tried to convince them to leave,” Rose said. “It wouldn’t help anything, them least of all.”
I didn’t move or say anything. She’d dodged the first part of what I said. I waited for her to pick it back up.
“And yeah,” she said. “You’re more right than you know. I’m almost positive you’re right, as a matter of fact. You were set up to be a scrapper. If I’ve put the missing pieces of memory back right, you made a good show of it. But you’re not complete, Blake. You’re a hammer in search of a nail. What happens when everything is nailed down? When things were quiet after Toronto settled down, what happened? You went after the demon in the factory.”
“There were reasons I did it,” I said.
“I believe that,” she said. “There will always be reasons. But you’re made to follow a certain trajectory. Everything was arranged so you would naturally self destruct. The ‘little warrior’ in you would move from one conflict to the next, removing my enemies so my way was clear, until there were no enemies left or you perished while fighting a critical enemy. If you died in a fight, I’d have the chance to take advantage of the confusion. Except the enemy who did get you didn’t get confused. I didn’t get to take advantage of any confusion. I was the confused one. But we managed.”
I didn’t move a hair. She was telling me stuff. I wasn’t going to break the spell.
“Now you’re back, and you’re not supposed to be. Just like you weren’t supposed to kill Laird. You’re following a different course, but you’re still a hammer looking for nails. You’re still itching for a fight. You’re not something I can manage.”
“Except I just proved I can be managed, that I can be sort of respectful. Even in this damn conversation, the fact that I haven’t completely flipped out should be telling.”
“It is,” she said. “Part of that was intentional. I had to push, to see how much you pushed back.”
Joints in my hand snapped and cracked as I clenched my fists.
I spoke with a deliberate kind of slowness, picking my words and tone carefully. “I thought you weren’t going to give me hints.”
“I didn’t, not the kind I meant,” she said.
“Okay,” Tiff said, stepping forward, between me and her. “Okay. Let’s… let’s stop talking about this, before we’re back to square one. Please?”
“Alright Tiffany,” Rose said. She put a hand on Tiff’s shoulder, walking past Tiff to the kitchen. “We need to talk about how we’re going to move, before dark. Blake isn’t wrong. The major players are organizing, they’re more secure in the free for all at night than we are. If we’re going to move, we should-”
The front door opened.
It took me a second to get my bearings.
“Hey,” Evan told me, as I appeared in the front window. He was perched on the wood that had been placed over the hole. “You were inside?”
“Yeah.”
“Awesome,” he said. “I hitched a ride with these slowpokes, going back, ’cause I didn’t want to be all on my lonesome, and I was just starting to feel bummed out that I might not get to hang with Ty.”
I looked out over the city, using the section of window to the left of the broken part, and I could detect the faint toll of the bell. Something felt off, ominous, and it wasn’t the bell alone.
“I’d really like everyone to be together,” I said, “without hostility.”
“Me too! Yes. Er, aren’t we? If you’re inside-”
“Rose and I aren’t getting along,” I said. “But she’s not imprisoning me or locking me out, so that’s something.”
“Rose,” Evan said. “Right, wait, or go inside. Gotta talk to Rose.”
He was gone, flying in through the open door over one of the Bogeymen’s heads.
I shifted position on the window, facing the house’s interior.
“Company,” Evan said.
“Company?” Rose asked.
“It’s your family.”
“Oh,” she said. “It’s about that time, isn’t it?”
Tiff spoke up, “When I tried to figure out what they were doing last night, all signs pointed to them splitting up.”
“I did that,” I said. “Or helped it along. Mags got them kicked out of the cafe they were gathering at. That would’ve been yesterday. I stalled as best as I could. If you hadn’t bound me, I would’ve tried to keep up the disruptions.”
“They would have had to get up first thing and meet to get this far this early,” Rose said, ignoring the last part of what I’d said. She ran her hands over her clothes. “I’m wrinkled and dusty. Damn it. I wanted to portray a better image. The house is in a pretty sad state, too.”
“We could do a quick clean,” Tiff said.
Alexis added, “If you need us to back you up when they arrive, we could hang here, or-”
“Please clean,” Rose said. “And then stay out of the way. You being here would be ammunition.”
“Can do,” Alexis said.
“Watch the diagrams,” I commented. “They’ll raise eyebrows.”
“Eugh,” Ty said, looking around. “Right. That’s a thing. They’ve been here so long I look right past them.”
“Move the piles of books and boxes,” Rose said. “Hide them without covering them up. It looks like things will be messy after all.”
They worked as a group. Even Evan chipped in, gathering the odd piece of paper and flying it elsewhere.
I could have used sympathy to help, but it was a gross and disgusting overuse of my power. Besides, I still wasn’t a hundred percent sure I trusted Rose. She’d promised no mischief or attacks on me while I was in the house, but I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t try something the second we were both outside of the house.
“Rose,” Alexis said, “Stop. Go wash up and change. We can handle this.”
I could see indecision cross Rose’s face. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure. You’re going to need to tap Conquest for this, aren’t you? Better to be a proper Lady of status than Lady Macbeth.”
“I’d really rather not tap him.”
“We knew you’d probably have to,” Ty said, moving a box. “It was a conscious decision we made when we decided we didn’t have the time to focus on the issue of your family. It wasn’t said aloud, but I think we all agreed. I’m suspicious you knew it too.”
Rose hesitated. “Right. Back in a minute. If they come before I’m down, make them wait.”