“It was a gift, freely given,” she said, not making eye contact.
“It’s a gift with my cousin’s blood on it. Maybe in it, if the goblin in here is one of the ones who participated in the attack.”
She didn’t respond, which was answer enough.
“Take it, or I’m going to free it. Hospitality be damned.”
She hesitated, and then she seemed to realize I’d just made a statement. No maybes, no ‘I thinks’, no hedging. I was going to follow through.
She took the paper.
“It’s complicated,” Maggie said. “If I could have a minute to explain-”
“You can have five,” I said. “Ten minutes, if you need them. I’m-”
I stumbled over my words a bit. A bit of emotion, slipping through the exhaustion, and a bit of exhaustion, winning out over my body.
I drew in a little breath, composed myself, then said, clearer, “-I’m eager to hear this.”
She stood there, silent, staring up at me.
“Okay,” she said. “I thought I’d say that and you’d say no, but I could think it over and say something convincing later, but I can’t explain. Not on the spur of the moment. Like I said, it’s complicated, there was more going on. I-”
“Maggie,” I interrupted her. “You should be off to school.”
“I promised I’d go, I didn’t promise I’d be there the whole day. I can stay, we can talk this over, hammer it out. I don’t dislike you. I meant it when I said I was entering with no ill will.”
“No shame?” I asked. “No guilt?”
“Not then,” she said. “Some now, that I’ve gotten to know you.”
“You lied to my face,” I said.
“I can’t lie. I’m a practitioner.”
“A lie by omission.”
“Doesn’t count, or we’d be lying every passing second. Blake, she wasn’t even a person to me. They talked her up, big bad diabolist who didn’t know what she was doing. I only really talked to her after I ordered the attack, saw how she wasn’t doing anything except defending herself, and I realized what I’d done. I tried to call it off, but it doesn’t work that way.”
I could remember being beaten, the people kicking me, using weapons… and the connection to what had happened to Molly made it feel doubly real.
Maggie chose that moment to reach out, and I grabbed her hand, crushing it inside mine, hard enough to hurt her. I could see her reaction run through her entire body. Pain, fear.
“I’m sorry,” she said, despite whatever else she was experiencing. “That moment was when I decided I was done working with these guys. I sorta kinda wanted to be your ally, make it up to your family, somehow.”
I shifted my grip on her hand, so I held only the fingers.
Karma, hospitality…
I raised her hand to my mouth, and I kissed the knuckles.
“Thank you for visiting, Maggie,” I said. “I appreciated your company, even if I don’t, right this second. I appreciate the information you shared, and the gift you offered.”
“I want to make this better,” she said, quiet. “I’d really like a chance. If not now, then later.”
“I’ll take that under advisement,” I said. “But first, I’d like you to look me in the eye and tell me that your visit here was more about making genuine amends than getting your hands on some more knowledge or power.”
She met me in the eye, then looked down.
“Can I say it was fifty-fiftyish? That that’s an awful lot of wanting to make amends, when you’re as power hungry an idiot as I am?”
“I don’t think so, Maggie. That’s not good enough.”
“Ff-f-f,” she struggled. “Fluffernutter.”
“Fluffernutter,” I said. “Please leave now, before I do something I’ll regret.”
“Yep,” she mumbled. I waited while she stepped into her boots, zipped them up, and made her way out onto the porch.
“You two have a good day,” I said, monotone.
“You too,” Laird said, smiling just a bit.
I slammed the door.
2.x (Pages 2)
Famulus: The Familiar
Chapter One: Preface and Introduction
Famulus is a result of many years’ teaching in private circles. As it became vogue to hire tutors around the year 1785, powerful members of the community gained a certain prominence, not-insignificant profits, and found themselves wrestling with a great deal of frustration. This frustration stemmed from the fact that one tutor would teach one thing, which the next tutor would have to correct or account for. They exchanged correspondence, to find out what had been taught and why, and opened discussions on how things might be done better.