Damond shuffled ahead, leading the way through the cobblestone village that was decidedly shady. There were loud fistfights coming from a street to our left, and angry bickering over who broke whose window to our right. The sound of the quarrel was broken by a woman’s scream that pierced my ears with the passion of a good horror movie howl. I shrank into Bastien and brought Lane tighter to my side.
The night was lit by intermittent lanterns that highlighted trash in the street. The city wreaked of piss and neglect. The shops we passed by reflected the crime city factor, missing the cheery push to bring in newcomers. Instead we were greeted with filthy storefronts and clientele that milled about with surly scowls that concealed none of their shady intent. Several toppled carts were left half on the street, and hay was strewn about in the middle of the main road we were headed down. There were no houses, only businesses with stucco roofs and barred windows. Though Damond was a couple inches taller than me, he looked small leading the way. I worried for him having made this trip before without us to back him up.
A woman in her mid-sixties with thick ankles and a torn and stained housecoat flew out from one of the buildings. She didn’t give any care to who could see up her tattered brown outfit, nor did she care that I could smell her armpits even from the distance Bastien kept me as his arm tightened around me. I winced when I caught a peek of her panty-less, pudgy butt through an ill-placed slit up the back. “Damond! Good to see you, sugar pie. Tell me you’ve got an hour to spare for me. I see good things in your future, boy. I’ve got a special price on fortunes tonight. Only one silver coin for an hour. I’ll never charge so little again!” She gripped onto his collar with fingers that should know better. She had green eyes, like Reyn, so I knew she was a Rétif. They were supposed to be good at trickery. While Reyn used his deceit to try and appear healthy when he was clearly not, and Lane had used hers to hide me from Avalon, this woman apparently used hers to predict the future.
Damond shook her off as politely as he could. “Not now, Gerta. I’ve got to see Draper. Then maybe tomorrow, if I catch you.”
She cackled through the night, truly sounding like a witch. “If only your father knew you came here. He’d tear the whole place down rather than let his precious boy ruin his good name in our village.” She winked at him, leering without apology. “Come ruin your name with me, boy. You’ve never had so much fun.”
She was missing one of her front teeth and breathed heavy when she spoke in his face. I could only guess by Damond’s reactive jerk backwards that her breath wasn’t all that appealing. “Not this time, Gerta. Try your luck with one of the Wildmen after they help me with my delivery.”
Bayard gave her a clear “I’ll pass,” but Rousseau looked her up and down appraisingly. As if on cue, Rousseau let out a loud, spluttery fart that exploded out his back end. Match made in Heaven.
“Let’s keep moving. These horses need to be watered.” Damond led the way, pulling the horses forward down the darkened street. He turned right at the end, introducing us to what could commonly be known as crime central in any world. There were men out on their front porches, shaking hands with scowls as they traded coins for pouches. There were two dudes brawling in the middle of the street, getting in punches over someone named Celine.
“Damond! Not so fast. You know you don’t get to pass through without a stop at my place.” A man with a beer belly and no shirt on held open his front door. I didn’t want to guess what kind of toll Damond paid to get through to see his brother. “In here, boy.”
Damond’s voice shook, but he stood his ground. “Not today, Norris. I’ve got to see Draper.”
“You brought my payment, didn’t you?” He slammed his door shut and waddled toward Damond, who stepped back on instinct.
Bastien gripped my hand, and I could tell he was debating between keeping a low profile and beating the snot out of Norris. Bayard handed his horse to Lot and stood next to Damond, his hand heavy on my cousin’s shoulder. “What sort of payment?”
“A silver coin. Don’t care whose pocket it comes from. Your money’s just as good here, Wildman. But if you want to pass, you pay to walk down my street.” He touched Damond’s chin, and I flinched when Damond jerked away guiltily. “I take other payments, too. Isn’t that right, boy? One way or another, I get my hand in your pocket.”
Lane was shaking with grief, but I was trembling with rage. My voice came out quiet, but each word was punctuated with a rage that was bubbling up inside of me. “At what point am I allowed to kick that guy’s butt? I mean, I’m supposed to be discreet, but I don’t think that’s as important as ending this dude.” Seven burrowed against my abdomen, her wings stiffening at my tension. My sweet bird begged me to stay quiet, not wanting to risk me getting hurt in a fight. I could hear Hamish’s angry chittering from Reyn’s pocket. My squirrel didn’t understand all the politics of the situation, but he knew when I was pissed, and took my causes on as his own, like a true friend.
Bastien held tight to my hand, anchoring me to the spot. “Your identity stays secret. Let us handle it. Keep your head down.”
Bayard reached his beefy, hairy fingers out and gripped Norris’ face, squeezing his cheeks until Norris squealed. “I tell you what. I’m going to go make sure Damond makes it to where we’re headed, and then I’m coming back for you. See how you like getting your payment from me.”
Bastien moved me closer, securing me to his side protectively. I held onto Lane’s hand, ensuring she didn’t leave my sight. Her head was bowed beneath her hoodie, but I could see her jaw was set in deep planning mode. I didn’t want to be on the business end of whatever she had in store for Norris.
Norris let us pass by after Bayard released him with a knee to his groin and a punch across his face. “L-let’s go,” Damond said, and I desperately wanted to hug him, to tell him it was going to be alright.
Damond led us down several more streets, fending off aggressive street urchins and a few jags who tried to steal the horses. Bastien set Abraham Lincoln down, and the two of them defended the horses while Lot and Remy guarded Lane and I, who were unarmed. Abraham Lincoln bit one of the attackers, and raked his claw across the leg of one of the others.
“That’s right, buddy!” Bastien called to his fur baby. Bastien landed a few punches on the robbers, knocking two of them clean out with a force Mike Tyson would envy. The entire fight was over in a minute, but Damond admonished all of us to try harder to keep a low profile. Bastien offered up a “What do you expect?” kind of shrug I adored him for.
The streets themselves grew filthier as we neared the three-story building with a stucco roof at the end of the street. It appeared to be the grand finale of the city, with the cobblestone ending at its imposing doublewide entrance. There had been mud on the road and some spilled food, sure, but soon we were stepping over glass and out and out garbage.
My nerves were shot when we arrived at the noisy bar with too many drunk middle-aged and older men inside for me to be chill. We peered through the scummy window, making sure to keep a healthy distance from the drunken brawling that was happening inside.
“This is no place for us to stay!” Lot scolded Damond in a whisper that could barely be heard. There was a piano that played off-key, but no one seemed to mind. The men’s attentions were all glued to the scantily clad women who danced for them all around the large common area. There were women dancing on the bar, women sashaying from table to table, women wearing sheer swaths of fabric that left nothing to the imagination, and a few women wearing absolutely nothing.
Damond was firm. “Do you really think Morgan will search for her here? This is the best we’ve got. Rosie has to rest, and her leg is only going to get more injured if she keeps on like she is. This is the best I can do, so keep quiet for a little longer until I can get us a room. Wait here. I’ll be right out.”
Damond disappeared inside, and none of us spoke of the strippers earning their keep, but remained in stunned silence until he came back. Damond’s s
mile broke the uncertainty, spreading wide across his face. “We can take the horses to my brother’s stables around back. Draper’s meeting us there! Hurry!”
I hadn’t known Damond had a brother, but that was on the long list of things I didn’t know about my own family.
We scurried around back, looking over our shoulders and making sure we weren’t followed. Everyone exhaled in unison when Remy shut the stable doors behind us, though Bastien and Reyn kept tight to Lane and me.
“I don’t know about this,” Remy warned me. “The Lost Village is no place for a lady, or men who want to go about a life unscathed. You’ll stay near Bastien, Princess.”
I glanced up at Bastien, and the sight of him holding my bear again warmed me down to my toes. “If you insist.”
2
Draper the Disappointment
When the barn door opened again, Bastien and Reyn quickly ushered Lane and me into one of the horse’s stalls to hide us. I was worried to meet another member of my family. I hadn’t done so well with Uncle Duke Henri, and hadn’t been able to coax more than a greeting from my cousin Gwen. Still, I couldn’t help but peek at the scene, nervous as I watched with too much trepidation.
A man around Reyn’s age came in, a cigar in his hand and his white shirt unbuttoned and untucked. He had the build of a tall soccer player – lean but muscular. His suspenders hung from his waist and swooshed at his sides as he walked with slightly bowed legs. He had messy black hair that looked like a comb might give up hope if it tried to tackle the artful mess. Abraham Lincoln tugged on my pant leg, whining to draw me further back into the stall, but I needed to know what was happening. I stroked the feathers of my bird, hoping the motion soothed at least one of us.
I felt Lane stumble back from her peeking place beside me, gasping at the man she knew. She pressed her back to the stall’s wall, tears sparkling in her eyes that she didn’t bother to dab away with the sleeve of her navy hoodie. Reyn didn’t speak, but reached out and held her hand, steadying her as something big hit her in the feels. Hamish wanted to know what was going on out there, but followed Reyn’s lead, and ran from Reyn’s pocket down his arm, and up Lane’s arm, so he could wrap his bushy tail around her neck like a hug.
The man wore a wide grin that split his angular features, looking on Damond like the boy was a breath of fresh air. “Damond! Brother, what’re you doing here? And with horses? What’d I do to earn these?” He wrapped Damond in a hug I could tell they both needed.
Damond gripped his older brother hard, wiping the smile off his face and letting down his brave front in a gust. “I’m so glad to see you.”
“What’s wrong? Is it Gwen? Has she decided to finally break Duke Henri’s wishes and speak to me?”
“No, she still says she has only the one brother. Gwen is still under Duke Henri’s thumb. I had to see you. I did something,” Damond admitted. “Something big, and I need your help hiding it, Draper.”
Draper looked at the two Wildmen and nodded to Remy. His eyes fell on Duke Lot with confusion. “I see. Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of it. What’s the problem? Money? Women?”
Damond shook his head. “I need a room for the night.”
Draper postured. “No. You’re not taking one of my girls for your first time. With my luck, I’ll send you home to the great Duke Henri with the groin’s disease and really disgrace the throne. No, you’ll go straight home if that’s what you’re after. You’re the good son. Duke Henri needs you to be the good one, and I’ll not wreck that for you. You’ve got the throne to think about when he passes his crown to you.”
That was news to me. I would’ve thought the older son would inherit the crown, or the daughter, if this was the matriarchal society I’d been told. Then I recalled that Gwen was adopted, and Morgan ruled that legal parentage didn’t count as much as birthright did.
“The room’s not for me. It’s for my friends. And we don’t need any of your whores.” Damond didn’t say the word like it was a slam, but merely a profession he was too familiar with. “We need a place to hide for a few days.”
Draper’s words came slow from his wide lips that matched his sibling’s. “That’s fine. I’ve got a room you can crash in. That’s it? That’s all you need? How bad are things with Duke Henri that you’re coming to me? What are you hiding?”
Lane flew out of the stall, causing Hamish to spook, and scurry off her shoulder. She lunged at Draper, smacking him on his tall shoulder over and over. “How could you do this?” she shouted, angry tears rolling down her cheeks. “You were supposed to be more! I wanted more for you! How dare you let your baby brother into a place like this! How dare you let me find you in a place like this!”
Draper ducked, guarding his head as he tried to make heads or tails of the woman who appeared out of nowhere just to smack the sense back into him. “Whoa! Who are you?”
Lane gasped, scandalized. She stepped back for a minute, tearing off her hood. Her hands covered her mouth as she got a good look at the man she knew well enough to be disappointed in. “Who am I? Who am I? You’ve forgotten the most important question, Draper. Who are you? Know who you are! This place isn’t you! It can’t be!”
Draper stumbled backwards, paling as if he’d seen a ghost. “Laney?” He’d looked tall and strong when he’d come into the stables, if not a bit disheveled. But cowering under the gaze of Lane, he looked impossibly smaller, his shoulders hunched inward to hide his shame. His arms raised to shield himself from her disapproval.
“I didn’t raise you like this! How could you do this? Do you work here? Are you a prostitute?”
“No, ma’am. I own the place.”
It was the wrong thing to say, and he flinched like he knew it the second the words escaped him. “That’s so much worse!” She resumed smacking him, taking out her hurt on him as tears poured down her face. “What would your mother say if she saw you here?”
“Laney, stop! Wait! Would you just… Let me look at you!”
Lane paused, her hand raised to strike him again. I’d never seen her so angry. She’d never hit me before. I’m guessing if I took out a loan and opened a brothel, I’d be in for the same treatment. I made a mental note to cross “Shady Madam” off my list of jobs to apply for after I graduated college.
Draper’s chest heaved, and I saw tears dotting his black lashes. In the next second, Lane was scooped in his arms, clutched tight to his chest as he wept openly into her hair. “I thought you were dead! I thought there was no way you’d leave us for that long. You had to have died, and that’s why you didn’t come back. Why didn’t you come back?”
“You know why,” she worked out through her sobs. “I told you why. I had to take care of the baby. Morgan was abusing her. You know I took her to Common so I could raise her apart from all this.”
Abusing me? I didn’t know about that part, and made a mental note to ask about it later. Bastien stiffened, his hand coiling around my arm in the privacy of our stall, as if readying to jerk me away from the mere mention of Morgan.
“Why didn’t you take me with you?” he demanded in a shout, not caring that Rousseau, Reyn, Remy, Bayard, Lot and his brother were watching with wide eyes. “I would’ve come! I was good with the baby! I helped you with Rosalie every day!”
“I know, sweetheart. I know. But I couldn’t take you away from your home.”
“You were my home! It’s only in the last two years that Damond’s been able to sneak away to see me.” He motioned to the building that held the strippers and drunken men. “This is what I have without you!”
Lane clung to his rumpled shirt, crying into it and wiping her eyes on the white material that was dotted with a few stains. “As much as I wished you were my son, you weren’t. Not legally, anyway. I couldn’t steal a child, Draper. Urien gave me Rosie.”
“I had you and Rosie, and you left with her! You took my family and ran!”
“I had no choice!”
I drank in every word like it was a key to unde
rstanding who I was. Learning that I had another cousin who had known me as a baby blew my mind. I tried not to blink, lest I miss out on a millisecond of this new dimension of a past I didn’t remember.
“Duke Henri sent me to live with you because I was a disappointment to him. Did you really think that would change? Just because I wasn’t officially banished back then didn’t mean he would suddenly take me back in once you were gone.” He gripped her tight, shaking her with his passion that poured tears down the sharp edges of his cheeks. “How could you do that to me?” he roared. “When Damond was born, Duke Henri had a new chance to start over with a son who’d never disappoint him!”
Damond looked down at his boots, taking no joy in the fact that his father loved him more than his older brother. I could tell he looked up to Draper, trusted him, even idolized him to some degree.
“I’m sorry, honey. I’m so sorry. I was wrong. I should’ve found a way to take you with me. I didn’t think it would end up like this for you.”
Draper dropped down to his knees, hugging Lane around the middle like a child holding onto his mother’s apron. He cried into her dirty jeans, holding her legs tight as he could. He had no shame in the open emotion – he only saw Lane. “You’re here? You’re really back for me?”
Lane brushed her fingers through his haphazard black hair that matched Damond’s in color and in cut, though Draper’s didn’t need product, and stayed spiked and pleasantly messy. “Of course I came back. The old team, together again. You feel like getting into trouble? I’m sure we could find some around here.”
He laughed through his tears into her thighs. “I thought I’d never hear you say that again. You have no idea what it’s been like without you, how hard it’s been. You shouldn’t have left me.”
“No, I shouldn’t have. I should’ve taken you with me when I ran out with Rosie. Maybe I should’ve stolen you away. It would’ve been hard, but… Oh, Draper! How’d you end up here? How’d it all get so broken?”
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