The drowned ferry house had been underwater for two years, and Oren and I were picking its bones.
Copper sold by the pound. Tonic cost by the vial. Those were the only numbers that mattered.
Oren: Someone is coming up the causeway. Two of them.
Aria: Get behind the boiler and keep your mouth shut.
Jarvis came first, boots loud on the boards, and he smiled at me like I was something he had already paid for.
Jarvis: Well, look at this. Two rats in the wreck, stealing from the Alpha.
Aria: The ferry house is salvage. Everyone takes salvage. Go find your own rot.
Jarvis: Salvage is pack property. And so is the boy back there.
Jarvis: Hey, boy. You are not on the registry, are you? Unshifted and unlisted. You know what that gets you?
Oren: I am just helping her carry.
Jarvis: It gets you a collar and a cage, and then a hole in the ground.
Aria: Keep his name out of your fucking mouth.
Jarvis: Or what? You will hit me, scrap rat?
He shoved me into the wall and my head cracked the boards. Warm blood ran down my chin and his fingers dug into my jaw.
Jarvis: Look at that. She bleeds like a real person.
Jarvis: Everyone on this quay knows how you get your tonic, bitch. You open your legs and the Alpha throws you a bone.
Jarvis: He has had his fill of you. So do not act like your cunt still buys you anything.
Aria: Say it again and I will bite your fucking throat out.
Jarvis: The boy goes to Mott by nightfall. I will drag him there myself.
Jarvis: Come on, boy. Let us see how long you last without your sister's stolen medicine.
Aria: Touch him again and Galen hears about this.
Jarvis: Galen? He will not lift a finger. He already knows.
They took the copper we sweated for, and they left the threat behind like a stain on the boards.
Jarvis: Nightfall, scrap rat. Keep a nice dress on. Mott likes them tidy.
Oren shook against my shoulder, and I held him until my arms hurt.
Oren: I am sorry. I am so sorry, I should have watched the causeway.
Aria: Shut up. You did nothing wrong. Nothing. Not one fucking thing.
I sat there with my mouth bleeding and thought about the last time I stood that close to Galen Mire.
It was winter, in this same rotting room, and I had begged him for medicine with my pride on the floor.
Galen: Say you want me to fuck you, and I will give you six vials.
Aria: I hate you.
Galen: I did not ask for that.
He kissed me hard enough to bruise, and my hands fisted in his coat and pulled him closer like a traitor.
That was the thing I could not say out loud. I wanted him. I hated him. Both kept me awake.
Two years ago his sea gates opened in a storm, and the water took my mother and my father and half the lower town.
And he still owned the medicine, the gates, and now my brother's name.
One vial left in the shed. One brother who trusted me. One Alpha whose hands still reached across every mile I put between us.
Aria: We are not running tonight. We are hiding better.
But hiding cost like everything else on Tern Quay, and the tide was already coming in.