I nodded. “And I can’t stop the marriage? Split them apart?”
“I don’t imagine you could. The idea I had was a simpler one. Think. What’s the issue you face?”
The issue? Me being in Maggie’s shoes, seeing those hands go up, and the witch hunter with awful trigger etiquette.
“If the danger is a vote of execution,” I said, “We could theoretically win over enough people that they couldn’t get the majority.”
“Do all members of the family count?” Rose asked. “There’s no way, if they do.”
“The senior member of each family unit gets one vote,” Johannes said. “All put together, that is three from the Duchamps, and four from the Behaims.”
“Seven,” I said.
“Myself, Maggie, The Briar Girl, Mara, Padraic, two Others, at a minimum,” Johannes said. “You might want more, in case any Others decide to vote against you. A slim chance, but you have one month.”
“Except I can’t step outside for that one month,” I said. “I do, I have to face down whatever spells or traps they’ve laid for me.”
“I’m hated,” Johannes said. “Why am I free to roam?”
“You’re powerful,” I said. I glanced back at the goblins. “And you’ve got help.”
Another catch-twenty-two. Get powerful so I could go outside, but I needed to go outside so I could get more powerful.
It all came down to power.
“If it’s not a vote of execution you face, having any or all of the named individuals helping you would still protect you against the family. Win each of us over, use us.”
“Be used in turn,” Rose said.
“Naturally,” Johannes said.
“Speaking of. You have the one measure that was put in place,” Rose said.
Measure? I turned my head.
Oh. She was talking about what I’d brought up at the meeting. I’d been talking about Rose, but I’d let them think I was talking about something else. Something that could release the barber if I was hurt or killed.
Would fear work?
“I do,” I said. “I’m not really a fan of any option that works only after I get brutally murdered.”
Leading Johannes and Maggie to believe that there was a safeguard in place. But the truth was, I wasn’t a fan of that sort of option. Generally speaking.
“Food for thought,” Johannes said. He pointed at a busier road, though ‘busy’ was a misleading term, when one referred to sleepy Jacob’s Bell. A car every minute or two. “I’m going this way.”
“You’re not taking the deal?” I asked, again.
“We’ll see. There’s no rush,” he said. “We really should talk again. You know where to find me. Ask politely before you come, and there should be no issue. Miss Mirror?”
“Yes?” Rose asked.
“You would find yourself in good company, should you visit.”
With that, he walked off, his familiar beside him, goblins following, darting into shadows as cars passed down the road.
Leaving me with Maggie and the two largest goblins.
“Good company?” Rose asked.
“You’re an Other,” Maggie said. “That place is like an Other’s amusement park. There, it’s like the old days, before the Seal of Solomon. Before humans were really able to fend for themselves.”
“This is sanctioned?” I asked. Hard to imagine there hadn’t been a vote against Johannes.
“No,” Maggie said. “What does it matter? The area is his. Purely his. The only person who gets a say is him.”
“That doesn’t sound like my kind of company,” Rose said. “Killing people, picking them off…”
“Maybe he meant something else?” Maggie asked. She shrugged in answer to her own question.
“We’re walking this way,” I pointed. “You?”
“Same. Straight all the way down to the lake.”
“Same direction for a bit, then turning off to one side,” I said.
Maggie looked back at her giant goblins, said, “Come on.”
We walked together.
“You’re friends with Johannes?” I asked.
“Not really. I mean, some common ground. Acquaintances, but not friends. Neither of us are big fans of the old guard. But, you know, you can’t really interact fairly with someone when there’s this big an imbalance in power.”
“No,” Rose said.
I didn’t have anything to say to that.
“Blake is a member of the old guard,” Rose said. “Just so it’s clear. Old family, old knowledge.”
“But you two are clueless,” Maggie said. “You don’t know jack. You just got awakened, you just got introduced to this whole shebang.”
“Give us time,” I said. “We’re working on it.”
“The rest of those guys out there? They don’t want you to have time. They’re going to use you, get you killed, then do the same for all the rest of them.”
“And you?” I asked.
“And me. I might be happier if you stay alive. That way there are more chances to use you. I don’t get much from offing you. Bit of a boost in raw power, but that only puts the grand kibosh on all of this. The guys in charge stay in charge, and us runts stay on the bottom. What’s the point of moving everyone up five rungs on the ladder, if you’re still going to be three rungs below the next pleb?”
“I think that depends on your motivations,” I said. “If you’re trying to achieve something, then it’s good. If you want power for power’s sake, then no, it doesn’t help.”
We had reached the street I turned off at. I stopped, and Maggie stopped too.
“What do you want?” she asked.
I thought back to the oath I’d made while awakening. “Freedom, safety, I want to help my family, past, present and future. I want to help my… companion here.”
“Yeah?” Maggie asked. “Huh.”
“What do you want?” Rose asked.
“I can’t put it to words. I feel dumb if I say it out loud. But power helps everything. Knowledge is power. I want knowledge and power.”
“Where’d you get knowledge in the first place?” I asked.
She reached for her bag, rifled inside, and retrieved a small binder.
“All here,” she said. She hugged it against her stomach with both hands.
The way pages stuck out, how some of them seemed like newspaper, some like printer paper, and some clearly lined, it seemed more like a scrapbook than what it really was. A tome, a spellbook.
“Where’d you get that?” I asked. “Or… how did you make it?”
“Started off with a bit. Long story. Gathered the rest myself, piece by piece. Dealing, trading, competing for it.”
“Want more?” I asked.
She raised an eyebrow.
“I’ve got a whole library of books,” I said. “But I need help.”
“You want to deal?” she asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “If my companion doesn’t object and-”
“I don’t object,” Rose said.
“-and if you can clarify what Laird was talking about, when he referred to you as a terrorist.”
“I hate that word,” Maggie said. “It’s so overused.”
“Is it inaccurate?” I asked.