“Haste makes waste,” Rose said.
“Hm?” I asked. “That sounds familiar.”
“Romeo and Juliet?” Rose asked. “Last year of high school?”
“I didn’t have a last year of high school,” I said. “I left home. Still sounds familiar.”
“One of the things we read,” Rose said. “Idea’s the same. We rush into this thing, getting one of the big three power sources, we could wind up crippling ourselves.”
“Except the Duchamps are giving kids this stuff. Setting them up with deals. Aren’t they kind of making waste with haste?” I asked.
“Making waste with haste?” Rose asked me.
“It sounded better before I said it out loud,” I said.
Ms. Lewis said, “They’re making a sacrifice on one front for assets on another. Children raised in that fashion may struggle in some respects, but they’ll have a foundation of having grown up in this world. Experience and knowledge.”
“Well, I don’t have experience,” I said. “I don’t have time, either.”
We reached the block where the hill and house sat inside the short wall and fence.
“I don’t have the time, ability, or inclination to go into too much detail about why,” Ms. Lewis said, “But I would recommend you hurry, Mr. Thorburn. Haste might make waste, but as you say, you don’t have time.”
Rose asked, “So what do we do? We can’t afford to spend too many days doing what we did with the ghost or picking fights. We won’t make it. We can’t get real power without having power to start with.”
Ms. Lewis said, “To clarify, you do have power. You simply aren’t willing to use it to its full effect.”
“I don’t want anything like the barber as a lifelong companion,” I said.
“It isn’t as grave a thing as you’re imagining, Mr. Thorburn. I’ve tried to equip you with what you need to defend yourself and defend Ms. Thorburn in the mirror there, but taking on a lifelong companion you don’t have any fondness for is a very small compromise, when your life expectancy is as short as it is.”
“I…” I started, but I found myself lost for words.
“I’m telling you the truth, Mr. Thorburn. Look at me. You’ll see I don’t hesitate, I won’t glance away, my eyes don’t waver. You know I can’t lie, but I am telling you an utter truth. You are not long for this world. Barring exceptional circumstance, and I do mean exceptional, you are going to be replaced by the next heir.”
The words hit me hard enough that I reeled a bit. I wasn’t quite up to par, I was a bit wobbly. Still, it still said something that I found myself stepping back, reaching for the painted-iron railing so I could hold on and keep from landing ass-first on the sidewalk.
She continued, relentless, “Maybe in weeks, maybe in months, and maybe in years. There is a good chance it is going to be horrible. It might be violent, and if it is, that will be merciful, because the other sorts of horrible are worse than mere violence.”
“I-” I started, but the words weren’t coming out. “I- You’re kind of less likeable than you were ten minutes ago.”
“You might not like me for saying this much, but you’ll respect it, and I think that, provided you last long enough, you’ll see the honesty in it. You have options. Our firm is one such option. You’re callow, you’re new to this, and your value to us is particularly low. But we can negotiate with you and Ms. Rose here, and I think we can find a way to keep you both on board. Reaching out to things like the barber is another option, power at a high price, power you could use to live.”
“I’m not so sure those are options,” I said. Giving something that evil and fucked up a foothold in reality? Letting them prey on others? Or making deals, and risking a mistake that resulted in the very thing the Duchamp and Behaim families were worried about? Hell on earth?
“The third option, the most noble of your options, would be to make the most of your time, fight every step of the way as you fought with that Faerie, and come to accept your reality for what it is. Make decisions, hurry, make errors in the process, but take the power you need, and use that power to pave a way for your successor, remove her enemies from the world, and pray that your work means she doesn’t have to do the same for her successor in turn.”
I thought of Kathryn. The next in line. The oldest of us cousins. A woman with a husband and newborn kid.
I couldn’t see it.
“Is this some trick? Some fancy wording to scare me, kick my ass and get me into gear?”
“I can’t lie, Blake Thorburn,” Ms. Lewis told me. The words were uncomfortable, heavy, and they took the wind out of me.
“That’s… not fair,” I said.
“I can only tell you how things stand. No, it isn’t graceful or pretty. You aren’t liable to be as happy or powerful as you would be in a world where your grandmother and the ones who came before her weren’t diabolists. You need to complete those rituals, because the fourth option, meeting a stupid, pointless end? It’s a very real, very likely option.”
“And me?” Rose asked.
“Your future is tied to his. His success is your success. His failure is your failure. Work with him, find a balance, and help him, so he might help you. Now, I’ve given the two of you a great deal of information and a great many answers. Hopefully that sets you on a more productive path. I’m hoping that path is one that leads to us, when you’re stronger, more knowledgeable, and more useful to us. If it supports your family, however, I’m nearly as content with that end result. But please, don’t die a pointless death.”
“Sentiment?” I asked. My voice was a bit clipped with anger. I’m not sure if I would have toned it down if I’d known it would be before I’d opened my mouth.
“Yes, sentiment. I’d hate to think my time here accomplished so little, helping two novices who summarily got themselves murdered. That’s a large part of the sentiment, if not the largest. I did, I admit, enjoy your company, and I enjoyed having some time to relive my earliest days as a practitioner. New to this world. That’s another part of it. But it’s mostly business, not sentiment, and I can’t do much work with dead clients. One of us partners will see you shortly, to see how far you’ve come. With my advice here in mind, I’m going to hope that you have one of the rituals complete, Mr. Thorburn.”
“You’re setting a deadline?” I asked.
“I am. Decide for yourself. Do you know where you want to be for the rest of your life? The kind of place you would make your home? The kind of place that is as comfortable with you as you are with it? Find a Demesnes. Fight for it, and if you’ve picked the right place, that fight won’t be so hard.”
“There isn’t a place I want to be,” I said, “Except somewhere that isn’t here. There’s my apartment in Toronto, but even that’s more about the people than the place itself.”
“Do you know the company you’re willing to keep? You need to know who you are to know who or what you might spend the rest of your life with. Do you have interests? A passion? Find an Other in keeping with those ideas, and make them your Familiar.”