by C. L. Polk
Winnie Clarke offered her hand to one of the women with a baby. “What are your names?”
She curled protectively around her child, studying Mrs. Clarke. She was thin—all the witches were, some painfully so—and her mouse-colored hair made her look like she’d recovered from a long illness. “I’m Emma. My baby is Cora.”
Mrs. Clarke blinked, and her eyes filled with tears. “You were born in the asylum. What was your mother’s name?”
The baby woke up with a thin cry. Emma stroked her back and answered. “Jane Parker.”
“We’ll find your people,” Mrs. Clarke said. “But for now we have room for you.”
“Plenty of room,” Jacob agreed. “Ah, Miss Agnes. Ahoy.”
“Ahoy, Member Clarke. What are you going to do about these poor girls?” Miss Agnes Gable, tall and dressed head to toe in deep navy blue, leaned on a cane and stared at Jacob through delicate silver-rimmed spectacles. “We can take a mother. Not enough babies in our house.”
Shouts of joy went up as witches were recognized and claimed by the clans. Clanless inmates shook hands with families from Riverside and uphill, welcomed into strangers’ homes.
But near the back, I kept an eye on a cluster of people clad entirely in gray, their faces obscured by dark-lensed snow goggles covering their eyes. They lurked near the hot urns of apple tipsy, effectively keeping one of them for their own enjoyment.
A shout cut across the crowd. “Zelind! Zelind Bay!”
I clamped my lips shut as Bellita Bay’s voice scraped against my ears. People parted for the matriarch of the sailing, trading, building Bays, who moved with slow dignity. She wore a gleaming ankle-length coat made from blue fox skins, a matching hat perched on her head. Her kid-gloved hand rested in the crook of Jarom Bay’s elbow.
Jarom Bay wore a stylish black coat, his long, beaded locks hanging in a neat queue down his back. Zelind’s younger cousin was tall, and fashionable, and moved through the world as if every inch of it owed him rent. He made straight for Zelind, who stood unmoving as cousin and mother came near.
“You’re home. All our prayers, answered.”
The Bays were here. I should have realized that they would be. I had prepared myself for whatever painful, horrible thing they would say when I returned from the asylum and told them Zelind was dead. But Zelind was alive, and here they were to take kher away to the mansion on top of the hill that held a handful of the numbers a clan house would. They would set Zelind at the head of the business, and the next time I saw kher, it would be at a distance.
I watched, my tongue struck silent. Mrs. Bay beamed, tears in her dark eyes. “Oh, my child—what is that rag you have on?”
She reached to stroke Zelind’s cheek, but Zelind backed up a step, putting kherself out of reach.
“Don’t touch me.”
Everyone in hearing range gasped. I gasped. Mrs. Bay glared at me so fiercely spots of heat bloomed on my face, and I wasn’t so sure it wasn’t her feelings burning me.
Mrs. Bellita Bay had never liked me. Not when I was Zelind’s school friend. Not when I was Zelind’s study partner. And especially not when khe had taken me to formally meet the woman who had always looked past me with little more than a tepid smile.
I had worn my best daytime outfit then, borrowing from cousins for this bit of jewelry or that pair of shoes, and had held Zelind’s hand as khe brought me into the parlor where Bellita drank tea with a thin slice of lemon floating on top.
“Mother,” Zelind had said. “I know you’ve met Robin before, but that was different. This time, I want you to meet Robin Thorpe as the girl I love.”
The teacup went still. Her eyebrows rose. She inspected me, from the toes of my borrowed shoes to the drop pearls hanging from my ears, looked me in the eye … and then turned her face away, uninterested.
“She’s a null,” Birdie Bay had said, and that should have been that.
But it hadn’t been.
Now, Jarom moved, blocking me from Mrs. Bay’s sight, a frown on his face. “Zelind. That’s no way to treat your mother.”
“Neither is locking up your heir in an asylum,” Zelind said. “I am no child of that woman.”
Murmurs rose from the crowd as Zelind wove around them. Jarom turned, an impatient scowl on his face.
“Zelind. Be reasonable. Aunt Birdie did no such thing—”
“Spare me.” Zelind turned kher back on kher mother and younger cousin and walked away. Curious faces swiveled to follow as Zelind stopped in front of me. “Robin. Did you—did you get an annulment?”
Birdie pressed one hand to her chest, her fingers splayed across her clavicles. “Zelind!”
Now the voices exclaimed in scandalized delight. Everyone watched us, everyone. The ground trembled under my feet.
Zelind hadn’t accepted kher mother’s rejection of the powerless girl khe loved. We had found a ship captain who would wind a line around our wrists and bind our fortunes anyway. So what if khe was disinherited? Khe had laughed at the very idea. “Is that the worst they can do? I don’t want the business anyway. I don’t even want their name.”
Twenty years later, khe still didn’t want it.
I swallowed and shook my head.
“No.”
“So we’re still married?”
“These last twenty years.”
“I am a Thorpe,” Zelind said. “I have no other family. May I come home with you?”
Birdie Bay warned me with the set of her mouth, the flint in her eyes—if I answered wrong, she would become war in a blue fox coat. She’d do her best to destroy me if I dared to cross her. I had dared to cross her before, and I was grown now, a woman of my community. But I wasn’t a head of my clan. I didn’t have the right to speak for them.
But I knew what they would say.
“Yes.” It came out as a whisper. I cleared my throat. “Yes. Come home, Zelind Thorpe. We’ve been waiting all this time.”
* * *
Zelind ignored Birdie and Jarom while khe caught up with witches who were going home with their clans. Khe touched their shoulders, speaking earnestly while they looked each other in the eye, folding adults and children into hugs. Khe settled their nerves, straightened their backbones, and sent them on their way.
None of my clan were here. We had been lucky, I suppose—we had lost the witches of my grandmother’s generation to Clarity House and had received the death notice for her and my father years ago. The rest of us survived, hidden.
Jean-Marie had found a corner to huddle in, where she could watch the swirling crowd collect themselves into groups and take their newfound clan and their billets home. I hadn’t really spoken with her yet. Every time I turned around, someone had a question, a request, a complaint.
I started toward her, but Jacob called out, “Robin, come and tell her she’s wrong?”
I tried not to grumble and walked over to where Jacob Clarke and Grace Hensley stood, having a perfectly calm and civil argument. Grace opened a cardboard box and offered me one of her ready-made cigarettes; I put up my hand and shook my head regretfully. She nodded, and put the box back in her pocket without lighting one.
“It’s a goodwill gesture; it’s easy to implement; we have a system in place right now,” Grace said. “Why are you saying no?”
“The witches need justice,” Jacob said. “They can’t even be completely compensated for what has happened to them. But we must. If we’re to get past this, we must hold those responsible accountable. And the Crown must do what they can to repair the wrong done.”
Grace rubbed her gloved fingers together, washing over the knuckles with her thumb. “I understand your reasoning, and something must be done, but we just don’t have that kind of capital.”
“You’re saying Aeland can’t afford them?”
Grace shook her head. “We can’t deny what happened here. Veterans get pensions. Adding witches to the pension rolls is literally the least we could do for them. Let me start with that.”
“A pension?” I stared at Grace. “That’s all?”
The pension rolls were simple. If you were disabled, a retired employee of the government, or an injured veteran, you received an income that was equal to the national minimum wage in Aeland—but the cost to paying people on pension was the excuse Aeland had used to not raise wages in twenty-two years.
“To start,” Grace said. “Just to start.”
“We have to come in with complete demands,” Jacob said. “If I let you lowball us with a token payment—”
“I don’t feel comfortable turning uneducated people into the streets without a dime,” Grace said. “It feels cold and unfeeling. This is the absolute least they deserve. I know they deserve more.”
“But will they get it?” I asked. “You know people like Jessup will fight kicking and screaming. They’ll say the witches are greedy and entitled. They’ll ask why the pension’s not good enough.”
“It could be decades before any witch sees a cent if you hold out for a lump sum,” Grace said. “Why don’t you give me some time to gather some reports and work on Severin? He wants to do what’s right. If you give me some time to show him the extent of this cruel and unjust treatment, we might rely on his conscience.”
“You have your way and I have mine,” Jacob said. “Do your best, Chancellor. Will you come back here to see the rest of the witches return?”
“I’m going to try,” Grace said. “But this action is guaranteed to cause a stir up at the palace. I might better serve your cause by managing reactions.”
“I think you may be right,” Jacob said. “I should go and find Winnie and Miss Emma. We should get her and the children settled in.”
“Children,” Grace said, her tone weary with horror. “When Severin hears of this—I should go too. I have an appointment.”
“Anyone I know?” I asked.
Grace’s smile told me enough. “I never thanked you. For taking Avia in.”
We had an entire network designed to hide witches for years. One lone reporter was hardly a task. “Why did you do it? King Severin doesn’t seem like the sort who’d convict her.”
“It wasn’t Severin I was worried about,” Grace said.
“What do you mean?”
Grace waved her hand dismissively. “There are a couple of difficulties at the palace. Nothing I can’t handle. I had better get going. I don’t want to be late.”
“Farewell,” I said, and turned back to searching for Jean-Marie. She watched me approach with wary eyes.
“You’re one of the people in charge here.” She said it almost like an accusation.
I smiled while my nervous stomach fidgeted. “Not me. Jacob is our leader.”
“You’re important. People come to you more often than they go to him.”
“That’s because they’re looking for the answers to simpler questions. I’m on the committee, but I’m not in charge.”
She shook her head. “It’s the same thing. The head doctor, Dr. Fredman, he made the big decisions. The proctor was the one who did the work. You do the work. He gets the authority, but the people trust you more.”
I was easier to talk to. And anything they would have told Jacob, he would have delegated it to me anyway. “I suppose that’s a fair assessment.”
She turned her face away. “Dr. Jane should have been in charge,” she said. “Maybe you should too.”
“No, I shouldn’t. Some people are meant to stand in front. It takes something special to lead more than a handful of people. Others find their place in the operations. That’s where they do best.”
Jean-Marie shook her head. “I think you’d be a good leader anyway.”
“I’m good at what I do, and part of that is knowing where I can do the most good.”
I was good at organizing. I was good at managing projects and people. I could lead, but not the way Jacob could.
Jean-Marie pointed. “What are those people doing to Zel?”
I turned my head, searching for whatever dismayed her. Zelind stood in a knot of reporters avid for details of the asylum. They took pictures of kher shorn scalp, of kher hunger-pinched face, of the darned and mended sweater, peppering kher with questions.
“If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” I grumbled, and headed in that direction. I pushed my way through with elbows and leverage, not caring to be gentle.
“Where did the children come from?” a reporter asked, and Zelind hardly had time to blink before someone else asked another.
“Are you returning to your family’s development firm?”
“What does it feel like to be free of the asylum?”
“That’s enough,” I declared. “No more questions. Zelind.”
Zelind gave me a grateful look and wiggled out of the scrum. “Thank you. That was—are they always like that?”
“Not always. You’re big news, though. There they go, off to bother Grace and Jacob. Let’s go.”
We headed back to Jean-Marie’s perch. “Do you mind walking?”
“From here? It’s not far.”
“Two miles,” I said, and slowed.
A knot of people in gray approached. Front and center strolled Jamille Wolf, flanked by Basil Brown and a fistful of toughs trailing after, and that’s when I remembered that Jonathan “Jack” Wolf hadn’t been listed on the rolls of witches at Clarity House.
Jamille bobbed at the knees, ever so polite. “I came over to personally thank you for the deed you’ve begun here today.”
“I am happy to hear it,” I said. “But—”
She smiled that missing-tooth grin at me. “I’ve come with a proposal. I will loan out some of my best to help you with the liberation of the other asylums.”
“The Crown’s security team is sufficient, but it’s a very kind offer,” I said. “Did you hear we needed children’s shoes and clothes?”
“We’ll take a walk through the neighborhood tonight,” she said. “For the sake of Five Corner’s uza.”
I kept the skeptical look off my face. “Thank you.”
“Robin?”
Zelind came closer and eyed Jamille with wary suspicion—khe knew the Graystars, of course, but they had been little more than a street gang twenty years ago.
“Welcome back, Zelind Bay,” Jamille said, flashing her grin again.
“Zelind Thorpe,” khe said. “Is everything all right?”
“Miss Wolf was hoping to lend a hand with the liberation,” I said. “They took her brother, and she’s eager to have him back. He wasn’t at Clarity House.”
Zelind cocked kher head. “Wolf, you said? Was your brother Jonathan Wolf? Answered to Jack?”
Jamille’s face lit up. “Yes. You know him.”
“I did.”
“You did?” Jamille’s sand-golden face went chalky. “Why isn’t he here? Why isn’t he with you?”
“Miss Wolf,” Zelind said. “I am sorry.”
She backed up. Her locks swirled around her shoulders as she shook her head. “No. No. You go back and fetch him, you hear me? You fetch him here right now.”
“Miss Wolf.” Zelind shook kher head, slowly and so, so sad. “He died this past Leafshed, about a week before the network shut down.”
“No,” Jamille said. “No. You’re lying.”
“The asylum killed him. He couldn’t bear what they made us do there. He—”
I had never seen Jamille anywhere close to tears. She held them back through the naked tension on her face, in the stiffness of her spine and her sharp, gasping breaths. “What? What are you saying?”
Zelind looked so sad. Khe stroked her shoulder, daring to comfort the Gray Wolf. “You don’t need to know how he did it, Miss Wolf. But he’s gone. I am sorry.”
Jamille batted kher arm away. “No. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t! You’re lying! Bring him back!”
Jamille’s shouts caught the attention of the other Greystars, who gathered around their leader. Basil Brown slipped his arm over Jamille’s shoulders. �
�What is it? Jams, what—”
This was the shelter she needed to crumple. “Jonathan’s dead,” Jamille said. “He—the asylum killed him.”
Her people exchanged worried glances behind her back.
“Oh, shit,” one of them breathed.
“Those bastards,” another grumbled. “Blast them all to the void, every one of them. Rich, evil bastards.”
“They’ll pay.” Jamille swiped at her face. “They will pay for what they’ve done.”
“Come on now, Jams,” Basil coaxed. “Time enough to talk about all that. First, we’ve got to remember him.”
“We do,” Jamille said.
She slid open the front of her coat, and I tensed when I caught sight of the butt of a pistol holstered under her arm. She dug into her inside pocket and pulled out a battered silver flask, thumbing the lid open. The other Greystars followed suit, and the air smelled like gin as they poured out a draft for the dead from their flasks.
“Here’s to you, Jack,” Jamille said, and drank. She swallowed twice and poured out the rest. “I swear to you. I promise you. I will get revenge.”
“Revenge,” the Greystars echoed, and gin puddled over the snow. They emptied their flasks and turned their backs, marching out of the park with purpose stiffening their shoulders.
FIVE
Everyone at Once
We managed to get a taxi sleigh. The three of us took the long way home, crisscrossing the hillside that housed a lovely public garden and smaller homes than the clan houses of the river flats. Zelind turned kher face away from Bayview, looking down King Philip Hill at the snow-covered rooftops; the steepled, jagged edges of Riverside’s downtown; and the dark ribbon of the Blue River sparkling just beyond.
Jean-Marie stared around at every sight. She swiveled her head to take in the shops of central Riverside, the bare-branched apple trees lining the road, and the huge, colorful clan houses that stood on each block, which grew grander and larger the farther we went west.
Zelind stayed quiet, studying streets khe already knew from twenty years ago. But khe held kher jaw tight as the shops and cafes weren’t quite the streets khe knew—the details had changed Water Street into something that wasn’t quite home.