When I remembered the mix of heights and body types of the ones with the BB guns, just one half-step outside the bounds of what one would expect from a typical crowd of people, I’d told myself the same.
Tricks of memory. Easy to believe, especially when you didn’t want to think about it.
I didn’t like it. I was already feeling like half a person, using the wrong soaps, being in an unfamiliar place, acting like someone entirely different in the heat of a fight, beating a woman -a something– to the point that she couldn’t move. This was one more straw on the camel’s back, and I wasn’t sure what was going to give.
I grabbed my sandwich.
“…aren’t immortal,” Maggie was saying. “They die like you or me. But they breed. I’d be really interested in reading a book about goblins, to see how that’s linked to their personal power, or see what keeps that in check. I’ve become something of a goblin queen.”
“A what?” I asked.
“Someone works with spirits almost exclusively? Shaman. Work with time, you’re a chronomancer. Fire? Pyromancer. The future? Augur, predictomancer, something like that. Work with demons, you’re a diabolist. Work with goblins? Goblin queen.”
“Johannes would be a goblin king, then?” Rose asked.
“Johannes is Johannes. He works with anything and everything. Others call him a sorceror, so that’s what I’m gonna call him.”
“Making you the resident goblin queen. Is that by choice or happenstance?” Rose asked.
“Yes,” Maggie said. “Former and/or latter. You wanted to know where I come from? I came from a place that was falling through the cracks. And just like goblins might go after someone who’s slipped through civilization’s secure embrace, they’ll go after a location. And it was bad. Bad enough that not all of us made it out.”
“And even though goblins did this sort of thing to you, you’ll keep their company? Work with them?” I asked. My food sat on my plate, untouched. I wasn’t that hungry anymore.
“Seal them, bind them, enslave them,” Maggie said. “You gotta own the past, don’t you? Own the bad parts as well as the good. Let it make you stronger.”
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” I asked.
“Yes. Exactly.”
“I always hated that phrase,” I said. “No. What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker.”
“Weren’t you telling me the other day that you survived some bad stuff, and so you’ve got keener instincts?” Rose asked.
“I said something like that,” I said. “I’m not sure I’m stronger as a whole, though.”
My eyes darted in Maggie’s direction.
I added, “Maybe we can have this conversation another time.”
Rose nodded.
As if it was some way of fixing the unease I felt, I picked up the almost forgotten sandwich and took a bite.
“I dunno why,” Maggie said, “But it’s kind of eerie seeing you two disagreeing. I thought somehow that mirror girl was some sort of subservient vestige thing, but she’s got a real personality?”
“We’re not giving up too much information on that front, either,” Rose said. “It’s kind of a sore point. Sorry.”
Sore point?
“No prob. I’m not going to tell you guys my whole story, you don’t have to tell me yours. I gotta go soon, though. School, promises. If we’re going to hash something out, we shouldn’t waste time.”
“We could invite you back,” I said. “Same rules.”
“I could accept,” she said, matching me in terms of how noncommittal I was being. “We sort of dropped the first bit of conversation we were having. Figuring out what sort of deal we were negotiating. It’s not so bad. Apply a little pressure, get one person on board.”
I really wasn’t up to negotiating.
Rose, however, jumped into it, “We’re giving you a fair bit. Not to be rude, but you seem to have an awful lot of demand too. For knowledge, for books.”
“I’ll live if the deal doesn’t go through,” Maggie said. She left the other half of her statement unsaid. We might not.
“You’re really big on the unreasonable bargain,” Rose said.
“I would say I’m really big on not getting the short end of the stick. Had enough of that, thank you,” Maggie said.
“Throw us a bone,” Rose said.
“What sort of bone?”
“You’re taking knowledge out of our hands every time you walk off with a book, and you’re putting us at risk and some small inconvenience every time we accept you in, assuming you might want to do your reading here.”
“I was kind of hoping we could be friendly-ish,” Maggie said. “Give and take, in terms of enjoyment of one another’s company.”
“I’m flattered,” I said. I hadn’t meant it to sound as morose as it did. I was tired. Not functioning.
The food might have been helping, though. I felt a fraction better, having eaten. Even if it was stale bread and a bit of cheese.
“Let’s not count on friendship,” Rose said. “Take the friendship out of the equation, and we’re the ones with the short end of the stick. Having someone show up unexpectedly, occupying our time when we could be focusing on something else…”
“We need allies, Rose,” I said.
“We do,” she agreed. “But let’s call this what it is. Maggie wouldn’t be here if she didn’t think she could get something. She’s going to take a bit of our hospitality, she’s going to make use of our books. I’m thinking we ask for a little something each time.”
“A little something?” Maggie asked. She raised an eyebrow, giving me a very deliberate head-to-toe once-over look.
“A small favor, a token gift, a bit of power, some knowledge…” Rose said, trailing off.
“As what? Payment for access to a given book?”
“Essentially,” Rose said. “Everything has a price, doesn’t it?”
Maggie nodded. “It does. So. You get someone accepting your deal. Nonaggression from me. You get a little something any time I get your book.”
“Or visit,” Rose cut in.
Maggie made a face. “You don’t like me very much, do you?”
“I like you fine,” Rose said, in what were maybe the least friendly sounding words I’d heard out of her mouth.
“Uh huh. So you get the ceasefire from me, a gift of some small to moderate value for allowing me access to this house or access to your stuff. Unless you waive it? Like, if I have something really good, and you decide it’s worth a bit more than usual?”
“I think that’s fair,” Rose said.
“Good. Um. I get access to knowledge, as you permit, though I get something. I get a guarantee, too, that you’re going to do something to keep your demons from hurting me.”
“To be frank,” I said, “I dunno how.”
“What Blake means is we’ll find a way. You’ll have definite, distinct protections against anything we contract with.”
“Good enough. You’re not planning on summoning anything bad, are you?”
“No,” Rose said. “If we do anything, it’s going to be accidental.”
“You swear?”