Joros had no fond memories of the cellar; one of his sisters had locked him inside it once, and her laughter on the other side of the door had been louder than his pounding fists or his screams. When he’d grown older, he’d spent a night alone in the cellar, just to prove to himself he could. The cellar didn’t scare him anymore, but that didn’t mean he liked it.
Still, he couldn’t deny that it was probably the most secure place in the estate, large enough to hold Sharra and her second, Tare, and the dozen fists and knives they brought for protection—large enough to hold all of them, but not large enough to make Joros, dropped against the far wall with his hands tied, feel small and powerless. He wasn’t quite charitable enough to think that was intentional, but even a blind pig would find a mushroom now and again.
Anddyr and Aro had both been pushed into one of the nearby corners, their fingers elaborately tied—that, at least, Joros was impressed with. For people who still called them “witches,” the pack at least knew how to efficiently disable a mage. Rora was sprawled near them, unmoving, the only sign of continuing life the loud wheeze of her breath through a nose that was likely broken. At least they’d laid her on her side so he didn’t have to worry about her choking on her own blood.
They’d tried talking to Aro—after they’d made sure his fingers were securely tied, because they weren’t about to take their chances with even a suspected witch. Sharra Dogshead in particular had tried coaxing and cajoling the boy, grabbing his arms and shaking him and demanding to know what had happened even as tears stood in her eyes. Aro had just blinked at her owlishly and stayed silent. The traces of skura still running through his veins compelled it—earlier, Joros had gripped the boy’s shoulder and murmured, “Don’t talk about what happened. If they ask, tell them it’s too painful.” Aro wouldn’t tell them anything.
Which meant, when the pack finally accepted that Joros was the only one in any condition to tell the tale, there would be no one they trusted to refute his carefully woven mixture of truths and lies.
“Tell me,” Sharra Dogshead said, eyes and voice both level as she settled before Joros. “Tell me everything.”
What a stupid thing to ask for. “I’ll tell you everything you want to know, so long as you keep your rabid dog chained up.” He jerked his chin in Tare’s direction, and the woman bared her teeth in response. “This is the second time she’s tried to kill my hireling.”
Tare snarled, “She was ours before she was ever yours.”
“And with a welcome like this, I can’t imagine why she ever left.”
The Dogshead lifted her hand before Tare could make any response, and the way Tare fell into sullen silence spoke to Sharra’s leadership. Joros had noted it on their last meeting, but Sharra had that precarious balance of respect and fear from her people. He knew there were plenty of leaders who would covet such a reaction, but Joros had never seen the point in wasting time earning the respect of underlings. Fear was so much easier.
“Tare acted foolishly,” the Dogshead said, holding Joros’s eyes. “But can you blame her? We trusted Rora—trusted you—with our people, and it seems like Tare was right when she said we shouldn’t trust her. I think we’re owed a little payback. An explanation, at the least.” And she stared at him, waiting for the answer to a question she hadn’t actually asked, and Joros could play that game. He stared back, innocent as a kitten, until the Dogshead flexed her jaw and asked, “What happened to the knives and fists who went with you?”
Joros sighed. “You think so small. The Twins have risen and the world’s gone dark, and you’re worried about a dozen lives?”
“Fifteen,” Sharra said levelly.
“Fifteen, then.”
Sharra’s lips thinned, and Tare looked a handful of words away from casting aside all her fear and respect and leaping over to strangle Joros. The others looked equally unhappy, but no one moved or spoke, all waiting on word from their leader. Sharra finally said stiffly, “Tell me how it is that all my people died while all yours survived.”
“That can’t be something you want to hear. Rora is one of your own . . .”
Tare gave a low growl as she drew her dagger. “That’s all I need,” she said as she started toward the slumped form in the corner. Aro squawked and tried to weave his hands into a spell, but his fingers couldn’t move in their restraints. Anddyr simply moaned, his shoulders twitching, too far gone in his madness to be any use. Rora stayed silent as death.
The fists took halfhearted steps forward, ready to stop Tare no matter how badly they didn’t want to. Joros suspected they’d only put up a token resistance. Even the Dogshead seemed willing to allow the inevitable to happen.
That was good. That was where he needed them. Now he had to redirect them.
“Rora may be the reason your people were killed,” Joros said loudly and calmly, “but she is not to blame for their deaths. That blame lies with the Twins. And if you kill her, I won’t tell you how to save the rest of your pack.”
Sharra’s eyes sharpened on Joros, and even Tare turned. The silence lasted for a few heartbeats. “Speak,” Sharra said tightly.
“I’d like to see that dagger disappear, first,” he said to Tare. She would have refused on principle, he knew, but after a moment the Dogshead nodded in concession, and Tare scowled as she returned the dagger to its hidden home. Joros could hear her teeth grinding.
“I sent Rora and Anddyr into the mountain, as we’d discussed, along with all the knives. But Aro . . . well. He wanted to help, and he followed them.” It almost sounded genuine to his own ears. “I’ve managed to piece together what happened. Aro was captured by the Fallen, and it was they who discovered him as a mage. Anddyr is the result of what they do to mages . . . and Aro couldn’t escape them on his own.”
“He really is a witch, then?” It was Tare who asked it; the words seemed to lose themselves somewhere in Sharra’s obvious anguish.
“It’s rare, I’m told, but not unheard of for mage-powers to manifest so late in life. When Rora learned of his capture, she risked everything to save him—the mission, your people, her own life.” He paused, deliberate, the moment before an uncomfortable truth. “I’m given to understand such behavior is not unusual for her.”
“No,” Tare said, her voice hard, her hand going back to her dagger, “it’s not.”
The first time he’d met any of the pack Joros had seen their resentment toward Rora for abandoning them in favor of her brother—the way they saw it, pack was more important than blood. That resentment was so easy to use.
A small bubble of emotion gurgled in his stomach, easily ignored. He needed the pack on his side; that Rora had to suffer for it was an inconsequential by-product.
“Many of the knives perished in the escape, and many of the fists in fighting off the pursuit,” he went on. “Of those who remained, I offered them the chance to return here . . . but they had seen what we were up against. With our initial failure, our chances were even slimmer. They knew that they could help stop evil from spreading across the world, from reaching their home.” Let the pack see their lost family as heroes, as martyrs. Their deaths would serve him better as a rallying cry than as a meaningless footnote to his failure. “Together, we found the Fallen, and together we faced the rising Twins themselves.”
The pack’s anger turned to a simmer, edged out by curiosity, the fists and knives and even Sharra leaning closer. Only Tare wasn’t looking at him, her glare staying on Rora.
Joros let real bitterness into his voice when he said, “We failed. We were so close—but.” He paused, mentally shifting the lies and the remaining truths into better alignment; let them think he struggled to relay what had happened. “My last hope of stopping the Twins demanded great sacrifice. Aro and Rora . . . well, like calls to like. There is power in twins. Their sacrifice could have saved the world.
“Aro understood what we asked of him, and he was willing to lay down his life. But Rora lost sight of all reason—even as we watched the Fallen kill scores of their own to give the Twins power, even as we watched the world begin to darken.” It was such a careful balance he had to strike. Rora was the last of his group who could discredit his story, and so he needed the pack to hate her enough to ignore anything she said—but not enough to put a dagger in her heart. Joros needed them on his side, even if that meant losing the only competent member of his little band. The pack as a whole was more valuable than one disgraced knife. “She fought—convinced that her brother needed to be saved. Anddyr, the poor fool . . . love can make even the strongest men into fools, and Anddyr could never be called strong. He turned alongside Rora. Your fists and knives were loyal to the end, but by the time it was over, the Twins had already risen. We had already lost everything.”
They stayed buoyed on the echo of his words, but the Dogshead sank faster than he would have expected. “Why would Rora come back here?” she asked. Her words popped the bubble of simmering rage and retribution that his tale had built. “If what you say is true . . . she must know coming back here would be as good as slicing her own throat, and you didn’t bring her in chains. Why would she come back?”
The Dogshead had always been clever, Joros would give her that; but even—or especially—with the cleverest of people, simple explanations tended to work best. “She wasn’t in her right mind at the time—far from it. I don’t know if she remembers what she did, but her only concern was getting her brother to safety.” Joros spread his hands in a gesture of supplication, and braced himself; this particular truth scraped like thorns on its way out, far more painful than any lie. “I need help. There’s only so much I can do alone. I was able to convince Rora that we would find safety here, and she was willing to believe it.
“Do not mistake me—though we failed to keep the Twins from rising, hope is not lost. Now is the time to strike. The Twins are weak—weakened by their years of captivity, weakened by their mortal flesh, weakened by pulling down the sun. Right now, they’ll be little better than mortals, no more dangerous than any man. With your help, we can hunt them down, and even a small group like this could—” Joros faltered, stumbled to silence. The Dogshead was staring at him aghast, as though he’d just offered to kill her family.
Joros realized belatedly that, in her mind, that was precisely what he’d done.
“No.” That one word was enough to still any fervor that had been rising in the pack. “I won’t lose any more of my people to one of your schemes.”
“It’s not a scheme,” Joros said, “it’s the last chance to save the world! The Twins will recover, and then they’ll come storming up through Fiatera. If you think they’ll spare anyone from their wrath—”
“We’ve got a chance at surviving,” Sharra said. “Better odds than we’ve had before, sometimes. These”—she raised both hands to gesture at her pack—“are very close to the last of my fighters, the last of my protection. They’re very close to the last of my family. I’d rather give them a short life of freedom and happiness than a shorter life of fear and death.”
“Why not let their deaths mean something?”
“Because the lives of my people are not coins to spend.” It was the first time he’d heard Sharra sound truly angry. “You gave us this place, gave us a chance at life, and we’ll always be in your debt for that, I won’t deny it. But you’re asking too much. You’ve already taken more than you’ve given us, and I can’t let you take any more.” Though he glared, she met his gaze steadily, undaunted. He could see why her people so feared and respected her. “But you did bring back a traitor for justice, and you brought Aro back to us. We’re thankful for that. So you can stay here as long as you like—we don’t have anything fancy, but we live well enough. We’ll deal with Rora, and we can deal with your witch, too, if you’d like—”
“No,” Joros said quickly, his stomach twisting in sudden concern. “Just because you won’t help me doesn’t mean I’m giving up. Some of us still care about saving the world . . . and for that I need Rora and Anddyr, and Aro, too. They’re still mine. You won’t harm them, or have them.”
The silence was rife with tension, the knives and fists shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot, stretching muscles sore with standing. The Dogshead stayed quiet for a long while—to make it starkly obvious, Joros imagined, just how outnumbered he was. “Is that so?” she finally asked. Not angry this time; just not used to being challenged.
“It is.” Joros smiled tightly. “Let’s say I’m calling in my debts. Asylum—shelter, a home—for myself and Aro, for as long as we may need, and Rora and Anddyr are kept alive. I don’t care if they’re kept comfortable; I just need them alive.”
Sharra lifted an eyebrow, searching his face. She didn’t seem unhappy with whatever she thought she saw. “That seems—”
“And you and your people help me in any ways that they can, provided they don’t risk their lives.”
Her jaw tightened. “Let’s get this right. You come here and won’t let me kill a traitor, tell me how you would’ve killed my boy and promise to take him from me again, and demand home and help. What am I getting out of this, exactly?”
“Your short, pathetic life, and the short, pathetic lives of your people. Help me, and I won’t burn every last brick that builds this place.” It had been a recurring dream throughout his early years inside Mount Raturo. If no other good could come of this place, he would do that, at least.
Sharra laughed. “So why shouldn’t I just kill you now, too? Kill you, kill Rora, kill your—”
A wailed “No!” was accompanied by a thump as Aro lurched forward from his place against the wall. He fell on his side and flailed, ungainly, fighting desperately to get his tied hands free and looking as though he might tear his arms from their sockets in the process. Joros saw Sharra’s face crumple as she watched, and she moved quickly to the boy’s side, cradling his head and making comforting sounds until his flailing stilled. “You can’t,” Aro sobbed. “You can’t kill them. Please.”
“Shh,” Sharra murmured, stroking Aro’s hair. “Shh. I won’t.”
Sharra Dogshead might have the respect and the fear of her people, but she was a fool to let them see her as human, too. More a fool to so blatantly show Joros her true weakness.
Softly, almost tenderly, Joros said, “This is what the Fallen do to mages. They break them. It’s taken me so long to help Anddyr find the pieces of himself . . . but your Aro’s a clever boy. He didn’t get so lost, or so broken, and he’s learned quickly. I’ve been able to help him grow better, bit by bit. There’s still a long way to go, but . . .” And he waited.
The Dogshead turned her eyes up to Joros, and they were full of suspicion drowned in the desperate need to hope. “You’re saying you can cure him.”
“Yes,” Joros lied, smoothly and earnestly. “Not quickly, not easily—but yes.”
Sharra took a few deep, slow breaths. If she’d looked to her second, she might have seen the distrust writ clearly across Tare’s face—but the Dogshead had returned her eyes to Aro’s face, resting tear-streaked against her leg.
“We can make this cellar secure,” Sharra said to Joros. “Rora and your witch can stay here. They won’t be comfortable . . . but they won’t be dead. You can stay in the house, and you’ll help Aro to get better.” She gave him a hard look. “I won’t stop you if you want to go off and save the world, but I won’t make any of my people help you. You can ask, but it’s their choice.”
She’d make him go through the pack like a beggar, pleading for help? So be it; he’d seen the fervor in the eyes of her fists and knives when he’d told them of the Twins’ rise. He didn’t doubt many of them had been devout followers of the Parents—the poor always seemed to cling to the hope of true belief. They would help him. He could manage the charade of curing Aro well enough; being separated from Anddyr was an inconvenience, but a minor one; and while Rora had proved useful to him, he’d rather have her jailed but alive than dead. It was simple arithmetic: the benefits outweighed the costs. “Agreed,” he said, and lifted his bound wrists. “Now untie me. You’ve wasted enough of what little time we have left.”