I woke up to a woman in the doorway holding a key ring the size of a wind chime.
Gwen: Don't get comfortable. This isn't a hotel, and I'm not your maid.
Her name was Gwen. She ran the house, and she'd already called me a problem, so we were off to a flying start.
Gwen: Ambrose is upstairs getting his arse chewed by a council. So you get me.
She looked at me the way you look at a bill you don't want to pay.
Gwen: Here's the deal. You saw teeth. You saw a man with no shadow. So there's a spell on you now.
Gwen: A binding. Rule one. You don't talk about us to anyone up top. Not one fucking word.
So I tried it. I opened my mouth to say the man with the fangs and got a dry click, like a phone with no signal.
Mabel: Oh. That's. Huh.
Gwen: That's not the bad one. Rule two. You don't leave. Not the front door, not the tunnels, not a crack. Not until the council clears you.
Mabel: And when's that?
Gwen: When they decide you're not a liability.
Gwen: Rennick had mates. You walk out that door, they pull you apart, then they come down here and do it to my staff.
Gwen: I'm not dying for some mouthy clerk from lost property.
My stomach went cold and slid down somewhere near my shoes.
Mabel: I've got a brother. He'll think something's happened to me.
Gwen: Something has.
Mabel: Can I call him? One call.
Gwen: Lines in here are spelled. You'd get a hiss and a headache. Ask me how I know.
She was right. When I'd rung Ned earlier, it hadn't even rung. Just dead air that felt like a shrug.
Mabel: You really don't want me here.
Gwen: I don't want any of this. But if you get your throat opened on my shift, that's my mess to clean up.
She said mess like it was something stuck to her shoe.
Then the door opened and Ambrose came in with his jaw set, like a man back from a fight he'd lost politely.
Ambrose: Gwen. Out.
Gwen: I was just getting to the fun part.
Gwen: The bits that matter, I told her. She took it better than you did, and you're the one who owns the place.
A laugh came out of me. A proper snort, right out of nowhere, and they both stared.
Mabel: Sorry. You two are a lot.
Gwen: She's odd.
Ambrose: She's fine.
He said it fast, like he'd been holding it ready.
Gwen: Council sits tomorrow. If you want anything from Brant except a cage, be useful. Cook. Clean. Something.
Mabel: I can do lost property.
Gwen: We don't have lost property.
Mabel: Everyone's got lost property. You just don't know what you're missing yet.
Gwen stared at me for a long second. Then she left, muttering something about humans.
Ambrose: That's the closest thing to a compliment she's given anyone this year.
When the door shut, the room went small and quiet, and my chest did that warm thing again, which I was starting to resent.
Ambrose: She's not wrong. About being careful.
Mabel: I'm not going to run out and get eaten, if that's the worry.
Ambrose: It is the worry.
He stood there with his hands in his pockets, enormous and completely unsure of himself, and I had to look at the ceiling for a second.
Mabel: Then I need a pen.
Ambrose: A pen.
Mabel: And paper. If I'm stuck in a bar until a council decides I'm a person, I'm making a list. Lists are how I stay sane.
Ambrose: That's your demand? That's it?
Mabel: You're offering me a room and a roof. A pen isn't much.
And he laughed. Quiet and low, like it surprised him more than it surprised me.
Ambrose: I'll find you a pen.
Ambrose: You're taking this better than I would.
Mabel: I've had worse jobs.
That was a lie, but the way he looked at me made me want to keep lying.
When the door clicked shut I sat with the blanket round my shoulders and did the sums.
Not a prisoner, exactly. More like an investment. They needed me not to betray them, and I needed them not to bury me.
All I needed was one pen, one list, and one very large demon who kept looking at me like a person instead of a problem.