Hekate's Call, Chapter 42

Another medical check-up, and another one of Morian’s shots. What was this one for? Allergies that Ilina may or may not have had, or maybe it was something she was just doing for the fun of it. It didn’t matter. Ilina was only here to put up for it for one reason.

“Fix Velia’s leg.” Ilina demanded. Ordered. It took her fifteen minutes to build up the confidence to say it to Morian. Morian would listen, right? She had said that Ilina could ask for those kinds of things.

“No.”

Morian moved down her little checklist as if Ilina hadn’t said anything.

“But,” her voice died in her throat. No? No? That wasn’t fair. “I just wanted it to hurt, why hasn’t it healed? You could heal something like that trivially, can’t you?” Panic crept into her voice. It was just the two of them, Morian wouldn’t think anything less of her.

The doctor adjusted her lab coat and stood in front of Ilina, staring down at her, haloed by the medbay lights. “There’s been a misunderstanding,” her voice was flat and cold. “I ought to explain this properly. Velia is a corpse. The only meaning left for it is to serve others.”

Corpse? She couldn’t still be a corpse. “I thought you brought her back,” Ilina pushed, meekly.

“When a corpse no longer serves a purpose, it must be discarded.” Morian continued as if Ilina had never interrupted. “The moment you no longer needed it, Velia stopped being yours. But it was a cunning little thing, wasn’t it?” An awful grin spread across Morian’s face. Uncanny and inhuman.

Why are you talking about her like that?

“Velia has found an ecological niche that will continue to give it purpose,” Morian let out a hollow laugh, like an echo heard from the distant end of a cave. “Crater needs it to lighten her workload. The pilots need it as an advocate for their needs. That corpse no longer belongs to you, Hunter. It belongs to the company.”

No. What? She’s not property. It felt like the air was being sucked out of the room and it made Ilina dizzy. She couldn’t force out the words. She couldn’t even force out a half-hearted please.

“Sometimes, consequences must be permanent if the lesson is to be retained,” the Corpse Eater lectured, unaffected by Ilina’s slowly forming tears. “It attempted to use its station for its own ends. A corpse should not want. A corpse should not need. It must only serve. It will not forget again.”

The two of them locked eyes. Morian’s eyes were the same as they were whenever she spoke of punishments and consequences. Tired and worn, but resolute. There was no changing her mind. No pleas would reach her. As far as Morian was concerned, this was a settled matter being explained to a petulant child.

Ilina hated those eyes. She hadn’t done anything wrong. Stop looking at me like that. She wasn’t being told she’d done wrong. But they made her feel like a failure. Stop looking at me like that. She couldn’t grasp what Morian was saying or what she was trying to teach. Failure was to be met with understanding, wasn’t it? Stop looking at me like that. Of course, that’s why it was being explained to her now.

Don’t look at me like that.

Heartbeat after heartbeat, her mind raced. Her heart beat. One, two. Grab a nearby scalpel and shove it into the Corpse Eater’s throat. Feel the blood trickle out between her fingers. It catches the light so pretty while the Corpse Eater smiled up at her.

Her heart beat faster. One, two. Grab a nearby scalpel and shove it into the Corpse Eater’s throat. Feel the blood trickle out between her fingers. It catches the light so pretty while the Corpse Eater smiled up at her.

Her heart beat faster. One, two. One, two. Grab a nearby scalpel and shove it into the Corpse Eater’s throat. Feel the blood trickle out between her fingers. It catches the light so pretty while the Corpse Eater smiled up at her.

Her heart beat faster. One, two. One, two. One, two. Wrap her fingers around the Necromancer’s throat and squeeze. Crush the windpipe and cut the circulation with all her strength. Till the foam bubbles from between those corpse blue lips, while the Corpse Eater smiled up at her.

Her heart beat even faster. One, two. Skip beat. One, two. Skip beat. One, two. Wrap her fingers around the Necromancer’s throat and squeeze. Crush the windpipe and cut the circulation with all her strength. Till the foam bubbles from between those corpse blue lips, while the Corpse Eater smiled up at her.

Again and again. Heartbeat after heartbeat. She killed the Corpse Eater with her bare hands again and again and again and again. Till the only images and thoughts left in her mind was that awful, crooked smile staring up at her as life finally left Morian Kyrnn.

A hand fell on her head, gently, and the world came back into focus. Morian looked down at her, furrowing her brow and frowning. Ilina clutched her own chest as she steadied her breathing and forced her heart rate back down. She imagined it. It wasn’t real. It could have been real if she wasn’t such a god damn coward.

“I’m sorry, Hunter,” the doctor stumbled over the words. She was so bad at apologizing in earnest, which was why it was so easy to tell when it was real. “Do you have any questions I can answer?”

“Why are you punishing her?” Ilina wheezed. “What did she do?”

“I see,” Morian turned for a second to pull up a chair. “I think that’s a step or two ahead of where we need to start. Do you think it’s possible to bring a corpse back from the dead?”

“Can we drop the metaphor?”

“No.”

“Define corpse, then.”

Morian tilted her head this way and that. “A corpse is someone who ought to be dead and obliviated. Their rot poisons everything around them. They provide no value to anyone or the world. The world is less for their continued existence.”

Ilina fought to stay calm. What measurement of value would satisfy Morian? Her head was throbbing and she didn’t want to think. She just wanted it explained to her. She nodded, hoping to move things forward.

“Velia Lore is a corpse,” Morian continued. “If left alone, she would hurt people forever. She is not being punished. She has suffered a natural consequence of her actions, and she must remember that if she is to ever learn.”

Before Ilina could open her mouth to protest, Morian yawned loudly and abruptly. It was a distinction without a difference. It was a punishment. She wasn’t stupid enough to fall for this kind of sophistry.

“I quite like Velia, you know?” Morian twirled on her little stool, staring at the ceiling. “She has a good mind for it, I think, even if it’s a bit too heavy-handed with sin and absolution. Never been a fan of that kind of talk. But just imagine how many people she could help, if she really wanted to, I mean.”

“What are we talking about now?”

“The dead exist to support the living, as the living do. As above, so below.” Morian replied as if it was an answer to the question. The doctor had lost the plot, hadn’t she? “If Velia wishes to rejoin the living, she must learn to act like the living.”

Silence hung over the room. Ilina checked her hands for blood. Clean hands. Shouldn’t be. It would be over so quickly if she tried. Morian was frail, after all. She’d imagined what it would feel like countless times. Sometimes it felt so real.

“Today is the deadline, Hunter.”

Ilina looked up to see Morian lighting up a cigarette. The deadline?

Morian clocked the confused look and pointed at her panic-addled patient. “Are we making the detour for you to meet Irene? Tell me now, so I can alert Crater.”

Oh. Right. It had been so long that she had almost forgotten about that. This was the whole reason Morian came off-world, wasn’t it? To see what Ilina would choose in this moment. What would she even say to that woman?

“Will you fix Velia’s leg if I say yes?”

“No,” Morian blew a smoke ring at Ilina. “It wouldn’t have changed your answer either way.”

There had to be a way to force Morian to fix Velia. Why did she always feel so stupid even when Morian spelled everything out for her? Velia didn’t want to fix anyone, and never would. And Ilina didn’t want Velia to change like that either. But Morian made up her mind. Stubborn hag.

“Fine.” Ilina caved. Only bad things could happen, but it was what Morian wanted to see. It was why Morian dedicated so much time to her. She owed the doctor this much, at least. “We’ll find out if I have anything to say to her. I don’t even really remember what she looks like.”

Ilina should have cared about the whole affair more. Some station at some planet’s L2 lagrange point. She didn’t even listen to what Crater’s excuse was for making the detour to the military outpost was. Calling on old friends, maybe? It was a dreary and somewhat nostalgic feeling walking around the stations grey corridors, half a pace behind Morian, as if either of them knew where they were going. Reminded her of life at Carrion.

The echoing of boots off every surface melted into Ilina’s mind until she found herself matching the pace instinctively, like she was a part of a wall of metronomes syncing up over time. Fascistic and familiar.

Back straight. Eyes forward. Memorize your surroundings. How many cameras? How many guards? What are they all armed with? What room was to your left five minutes ago? They were mama’s lessons, a concession to Irene’s insistence that Ilina be properly trained. Mama didn’t want to train a soldier, or a mercenary. She just wanted to raise her child.

“Hunter?” Morian’s voice brought her out of it. “Are you okay?”

Morian was raking her fingers across the back of her neck again. They’d been wandering around looking for a place that allowed smoking, so of course her actual nervous tic had come out to compensate. Another fifteen minutes and the doctor would probably claw right through her own skin.

“I thought I didn’t remember,” Ilina said quietly. “A lot of stuff is coming back to me.”

Morian smiled, soft and toothless. “That’s to be expected. You’ve never had a chance to actually process your childhood, so it probably won’t be easy. We can take a break and go back to the Gestalt and Gravity whenever you want.”

She took the offer. Morian wanted a smoke, and it wasn’t like they were going to find a woman who’s face Ilina couldn’t even remember.

Who is this? Mama asked as she slid a picture across the dinner table, from a folder of pictures. A man with dark brown skin and darker hair, scar on his lower lip. She remembered his name then, but not now. He was a cashier at the little market Mama went to.

Where else do you see him? He worked four days a week. Took the bus in the morning the same time Ilina went to school. He was always on the bus before Ilina’s stop, but got off right in front of the market to go to work. He was at the hospital three weeks ago when Ilina was shirking Irene’s lessons again.

What about this person? A different picture. A woman a few years younger than Mama who liked to give Ilina her pocket change. Every week, the woman waited outside of the school, but she never figured out who her kid was. And then another picture, someone she’d seen around town but hadn’t ever heard a name for. And then there was another picture, and then another.

Mama always presented it like a game. Figuring out people’s patterns. If she didn’t know someone’s name, she should try to figure it out and unless that person spoke to Ilina, she wasn’t allowed to go up and ask them. It was one of the few games that Irene didn’t try to stop Ilina and Mama from playing together.

She remembered Mama’s face. She remembered the face of the grocery clerk. The pedophile who hung outside the school. The lawyer with the bad breath. The woman who was always at the protests at the hospital. She remembered their names, routes, and schedules. But there was some kind of clawing void around the shape of Irene Hunter-Falke.

A faceless woman in a sharp black uniform. Dark hair, kept short and tidy. Black leather boots, black leather gloves. Silver accents in the buttons and the belt buckle. But she was faceless. Every time Ilina tried to recall it, her brain put a different face in its place. Velia. No, that was wrong. Crater? Closer, but wrong. The woman with the platinum hair? The idea of insulting Her like that made Ilina want to carve out her own eyes.

“Hunter,” Morian’s hand was on her shoulder again. “You remember the way back, right?”

Ilina nodded. Even in the haze she couldn’t keep herself from following through on her training. Their visitor passes gave them a lot of freedom to be in this area of the station, so they were allowed to wander aimlessly. Didn’t stop her from remembering every soldier, their name tag, what gun they had, and piecing together a map of the place in her head.

The station wasn’t that busy. This area of the station was mostly administrative staff, though Ilina spotted some people around who had a different identifier on their uniforms. Irene’s uniform had the same marking. So Intelligence either shared the same office space on the station or just liked to be busybodies around the clerks and remind them they were all being watched.

A group of five passed by. They were having a discussion, momentarily anyways, until they rounded the corner and spotted Morian and Ilina standing in the hall. One officer. One soldier. Three attendants.

Ilina looked the officer in the eyes. Sharp and precise. No reaction from the officer, who just turned away and addressed one of the attendants after a moment. No reaction from Ilina, who should have found herself on the floor barely able to keep it together. Instead, she just watched the woman lead the group down the hall.

“Irene Hunter-Falke.”

The woman paused, tilted her head, and turned back to face Ilina and Morian. She lowered her voice and whispered something to the others, and sent the group on their way. The woman approached. Sidearm, 9mm, right hip. Boot knife, inside of left leg. A thin, uncharacteristically soft smile spread across her face. She was measuring Ilina.

“Incredible,” the woman breathed as she entered arms reach and extended a hand to touch Ilina’s face.

It felt like being splashed with hot oil. Liquid fire on her skin. Something deep and primal. Ilina swat the hand away and yielded half a step to the officer. Half a step too many.

The woman snapped the heel of her boot on the floor and Ilina dropped to her knees. Hands gripping at her knees. Head down. She didn’t even have time to think about it. It was as natural as breathing. Doubt and fear spread through her body like a poison, dulling her thoughts and suppressing her anger.

“Do you resent me?”

Breathe. In. Hold. Out. Kill her. Don’t cry, you’re too old for that. In. Hold. Out. Kill her. Look me in the eyes, I asked you a question. In. Hold. Out. Kill her. Ilina chewed the inside of her lip until it started to bleed.

“That’s fine,” Irene said flatly. Distant and cold. Like she always was. “You’re alive. That’s what matters.”

The officer turned and marched away. Boots hitting the ground in rhythm. Fascistic and familiar.

A hand touched Ilina’s shoulder, steadying her. Morian offered a hand to help Ilina to her feet, but she didn’t take it. She didn’t need the Necromancer’s pity. But there was a smile on Morian’s lips that felt wrong. It was genuine and hopeful. Backed by some feeling that only Morian felt about her.

“Show her,” Morian said quietly.

Hunter pushed herself to her feet and measured the distance between her and Irene. She still had her sidearm and her knife. Put them both on like she did every day on the Gestalt without a single thought, forgot to take them off when they got walked through the security checkpoint by Crater without being stopped. It would be easy to put three bullets in the woman’s back before she recognized what happened. It was what she should have done. It was the correct answer.

Instead Hunter matched the officer’s pace with longer strides. The sounds of the boots falling overlapped. The distance closed fast, and by the time Irene turned to meet the charge, Hunter was mid-swing.

The opening was her best opportunity to take the advantage. The officer was taller with longer reach. Decades of experience over her. It amounted to almost nothing, but Hunter never fought fair. She took every advantage she could get. She sucked at her bottom lip and let her mouth fill with the taste of blood.

Grab, counter-grab. Swing, block. They matched blows like in one of the Scavenger’s favorite movies. After the first few there was a predatory smile on the woman's face. Swing. Grab. Reversal. Counter. The smile grew into a full fanged snarl as the woman was forced to take Hunter seriously. Each move matched and countered. Choreographed and practiced.

She found the opening at the perfect distance. She spat a mouthful of blood and saliva in the woman's face. The smallest opening. Hunter grabbed the woman's collar and moved to block out the swing that was about to come, but was met by a heavy knee to her gut.

The officer didn't even flinch.

Hunter wrapped her arms under the knee in her stomach and threw her entire weight to the side, sending the both of them to the ground. Form and technique were meaningless concepts now. They were both on the floor scrambling to be the first to act. They both rolled away. The officer reached for her gun, while Hunter pulled their boot knife and threw it.

Blood pooled under the officer as she let out a deep, pained grunt. The gun clattered to the floor as the officer stood slowly, tearing the knife from her arm and tossing to the floor behind her. Hunter held her pose and breath, willing the victory to last forever.

“Failure!”

Irene’s voice echoed hundreds of times in Ilina’s ears and her entire body locked up. All at once she was a child again trying to hold back tears, beaten half to death again because she couldn’t follow through. The entire fight played back in her head as she scanned for her errors, seeing the openings she’d missed, seeing the blows she shouldn’t have taken.

“Stand up, Ilina.”

Ilina forced herself to her feet and stared at the floor.

“What did you do wrong?”

“I hesitated, sir.”

“Look me in the eyes when I am speaking to you,” Irene seethed, “What should you have done?”

Ilina looked up reluctantly, further than she hoped she would have to as Irene stepped forward to tower over her. “I should have drawn my gun after throwing the knife, sir.”

“Why didn't you?”

The only thing louder than Ilina's heartbeat were the crashes of blood dripping from the woman's arm. It was making her head spin. Ilina glanced to where Irene was grasping the wound tightly.

“I didn't want to kill you,” Ilina choked. “Sir,” she added, hastily. A beat too late.

The slap she knew was coming almost knocked her off her feet. A wet, bloody slap that left her ears ringing. She deserved it. Ilina knew she deserved it. Because she could have done better. She should have done better. She should have drawn her gun and pulled the trigger. She should have shot the woman in the back without giving her a chance to fight back.

“You are in the middle of enemy territory,” Irene's voice wavered just below a scream. The officer was using all her strength to remain calm and was failing. “If you weren’t prepared to kill me, you should have just walked away.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Ilina sputtered uselessly.

“It doesn’t matter. You were always too soft, just like her,” Irene hissed. “I always said she was a bad influence on you.”

Those words were like oxygen being given to a dying fire. “Don’t you dare talk about her.”

The woman stepped away and picked up her pistol and holstered it. She waved away a number of soldiers who approached, and ordered a few of them to stand down when they drew guns on Ilina. “Adeline wanted to play house in the middle of a war,” the officer spat. “Should have thrown her out after your father died. You weren’t going to survive there with ballet and poetry. She was idealistic and delusional.”

And that was the fuel the fire needed. What nonsense was the woman spouting now? Father? There was no father. Ilina remembered that line of questioning, and the subsequent beating Irene gave her as a warning to keep her mouth shut about it. But ballet and poetry? Idealistic and delusional?

Before she could start screaming, Morian’s hand fell on the back of her neck. A gentle squeeze. A reminder to keep her head. The words that slipped from her mouth weren’t any of the expletives or threats running circles in her head. “Gymnastics, not ballet. You two enrolled me in gymnastics.”

Irene Hunter-Falke tilted her head as a faint smile was born and died on her lips. “Right. That’s right. You wanted to enroll in ballet, and the stupid woman would have let you. You were too old to start ballet.”

Several soldiers, armed with real weapons, approached Ilina but Morian put herself between her and them. “It was just a little spat between mother and daughter,” the doctor growled at them, “We’re going back to the Gestalt and Gravity. I’m sure we don’t need to make a scene now that they’ve worked things out.”

The soldiers escorted them towards the Gestalt, through a more winding path than she’d have taken despite insisting that there would be no detours. Morian kept her arm around Ilina, holding her close. Not tenderly, but protectively. She was ensuring that none of the soldiers laid a hand on Ilina.

Those were the last words Ilina would ever hear from her mother. A smug little quip.

“Ballet is bad for your feet,” Morian hummed quietly as if to answer a question Ilina didn’t ask and didn’t want an answer to. “You have to start extremely young so that your feet develop into the right shape for it. Otherwise you’ll damage your feet for the rest of your life.”

“I didn’t ask.” Ilina turned her head to glare up at the doctor, who just stared forward with a blank expression.

“I’m just surprised, is all,” Morian responded flatly and distantly. “She’s not quite what I expected. She’s a cautious, guarded woman.” As they reached the Gestalt and their escort dispersed, Morian turned Ilina around and looked down at her with a growing smile.

“If you were to board the Again in Hell, there would be nothing on this station capable of stopping you.” She squeezed Ilina’s shoulders. “No matter what you choose do from here, hold that in your heart.”

Ilina nodded, vacantly. There was a mess of feelings in her chest that she didn’t like and didn’t know what to do with. It wasn’t supposed to feel like this. Mama would have been so proud of her for making it this far. Would have taken her back. Why did she bother looking for Irene at all, knowing mama was dead?

“Oh,” Elisabet’s voice perked up as she motioned to a streak of blood on the floor being scrubbed at by a cleaning bot. She did a little hop over the trail and started walking alongside the drops down the hall. “Wouldn’t it be fun if this took us right to her?”

Krystyn rolled her eyes. She’d been following Liz around all day, sitting in meetings she shouldn’t have had to be in. It was a bizarre experience to see Crater in her element for once. Rubbing shoulders with other officers, immediately ingratiating herself among them and chatting away like they were all old friends.

“Who are we looking for?”

Elisabet stopped in front of the door where the trail of blood led, and read off the plate on the door. “Intelligence Officer, First Class, Irene Hunter.”

That didn’t exactly answer Krystyn’s question.

A knock on the door and it opened immediately, and Elisabet stepped into the dreary little office with Krystyn in tow. Did all officers have dark little caves like this? The bookshelves lined with manuals and files, with the little table and uncomfortable sofas for entertaining guests. Maybe it was some imperial specification, or maybe they were all implanted with the same tastes at officer’s school.

A woman sat on the edge of her desk with her shirt half-off, pulling the first of several stitches in her arm taut. An medical kit lay spread across the desk’s cheap and nicked surface with a bowl of water, a towel, and gauze all ready to clean up the mess. The woman lifted her head for a moment as the two entered, dark, hollow eyes ringed by dark brown hair and a spattering of freckles.

“You must be Crater. I have the documents you requested. Will you be needing anything else?” The woman winced in the middle of her own question as the curved needle in her hand pierced the skin and she drew it through.

“That looks really deep,” Krystyn spoke out of turn. “Why didn’t you go to the infirmary?”

Crater stepped forward and made herself comfortable on one of the couches, careful not to step in any blood. “Because the infirmary here isn’t as discerning as the one on the Gestalt,” she lectured. “I’m sure whatever eye witnesses there are, nobody is going to file a report until she does. Except the infirmary staff who have to account for their supplies, of course.”

“I see,” Irene Hunter said through her teeth as she pulled the final stitch through. “Word travels fast. Did you bring her here?”

“I didn’t mean to, if that’s what you’re asking,” Liz said smoothly as she measured the officer. “Falke is just a contractor. I came to press some contacts and figure out what mess I’m about to walk into. I’ve been told you’re the woman to speak to for that kind of information. The kind you don’t put on paper.”

Krystyn took a seat across from Crater. Nobody told her anything. She was always the last to know. Irene Hunter. Ilina “Hunter” Falke. They looked quite the same, though Ilina had a prettier complexion. Ilina had mentioned her parents once or twice — too close to sex for Krystyn’s comfort — but as far as she’d known, the girl had been effectively an orphan.

“Ilina’s not just a contractor,” Krystyn couldn’t help herself. “She’s probably the best pilot in all of Central Domon right now.”

Irene finished wrapping up the wound and shrugged the top half of her uniform back on. There was something vaguely enticing about her movements. Echoes of Ilina dressing lined the edges of her thoughts. The woman had a more muscular build than her daughter did, softened around the edges by a healthy diet of solid food. About as flat as Ilina. Now that she’d noticed the similarities, more and more started jumping out at her.

“Do all of your pilots wear dog collars, or is it just this dyke?” The woman sneered down her nose at Krystyn, bearing a fang that sent shivers down her spine.

Elisabet hummed, “I think the collar is Falke’s doing.”

A laugh echoed around the small room. One of those pitched cackling laughs that paralyzed Krystyn. People didn’t laugh like that unless they’d been in those rooms. Vicious and cruel. Irene Hunter was a Domon officer through and through. Violence and dominion in her blood, just the same as Crater and Krystyn. And it didn’t take long for Elisabet to join in.

“She finally got that dog she always wanted,” Hunter stared down at Krystyn like she was prey. “Gods below, I always knew she was going to end up some kind of degenerate freak. Does she still make that awful face when she hits the floor?”

Oh. Of course. Irene and Elisabet were both disgusting fucking queers too. The old Charlotte would have tried something — either run and distance herself from them, or call them what they were even if it meant taking a beating for it — but why should Krystyn bother with any of that? And she couldn’t just sit back while they talked about Ilina like that.

“The face you’re making right now? Yeah,” she leaned back on the couch and put her boots up on the table, shined so diligently you could practically use them as a mirror. Irene’s smile faded a bit when she saw that. That’s right. That’s your girl’s handiwork. Twist that knife. “Seeing you in person explains a lot, actually.”

Irene turned to Elisabet to speak, but was quickly cornered by the ice wall. This was why Liz had been dragging her around all day. Should have expected her to have something underhanded ready.

“It does, doesn’t it?” Elisabet stood next to Irene, making a show of examining the officer’s uniform and then her own. They were very similar, though Liz’s lacked any of the livery. “She shot her girlfriend, and stabbed her mother. I should find myself a new uniform before Falke turns her attention to me.”

“Enough,” Irene growled. What, you didn’t want to know about how your daughter really turned out? “You wanted to know about your parent company, right?”

No. Elisabet found the smallest chip in that armor. She wasn’t about to move on without taking an advantage with it. Even Krystyn could see some angles of attack. The question was whether Crater would put pressure on the wound and watch her squirm, or if she’d jump to the killing blow.

“Did you molest your daughter, Irene Hunter-Falke?” Crater dropped the friendly act, finally. “It would explain so much. Those violent tendencies of hers. Her constant insubordination. Her degeneracy, as you so eloquently put it…”

Oh. She wanted this to hurt. It would be so easy to let that theory slip in front of anyone who heard of the little scuffle in the hall between the her and Ilina. The rumors would rip through the station faster than the most experienced and well connected officers could run damage control. Queer. Pedophile. Incest. You could squash those rumors if you were fast enough, or brutal enough. Maybe they wouldn’t end your career, but they would certainly crush any hope of advancement.

Krystyn almost felt bad for the woman. Almost.

Irene Hunter showed her experience and composure by quietly surrendering. “You’ve made your point, Crater. Unnecessary as it was.” She fetched a folder from the other side of her desk and presented it to Elisabet. “At least Adeline taught the girl the value of making friends. Something you lot are in short supply of these days.”

Crater flipped through the documents. Krystyn didn’t have to know what was in the folders to know how bad the news was. Elisabet Crater snapped the folder closed. She stared at a fixed point in front of her for longer than was comfortable, but everyone seemed content to let it hang until she’d figured something out.

“Six years of tireless work,” she said quietly. “I won’t let it be stolen now. I need to make preparations.”