The door into the bandstand is shut tight, so I sit down and wait there. My phone doesn’t get any signal, all I can do is stew, let my bad mood get worse as I wait for hours under the ringed half-light of the frozen sky.

  The city is strange, it’s not exactly motionless, there are ripples, new layers of paint being added oh so thin as the old ones are forgotten. Locked in time is a shape on the common I now understand to be someone dropping their pizza and tripping as they try to catch it, like a knot on a string- their path towards that moment and away from it. I’m not the only one sitting here either, I can see in the blur a homeless woman’s restless activity, the place where she slept she’s barely see through at all, can make out her face, the different pained expressions she makes overlayed..

  Then, suddenly, motion in the stillness. I jump, reach for the crowbar in my backpack, stop as I stare at the white rabbit at the top of the stairs, judging me with its little red eyes.

  “What?” I ask.

  It turns and bounds off, then turns its head, to check if I’m following. “Is it not here?”

  It keeps going, motes of white light marking a path, and I follow.

  I reach a brownstone that overlooks the common, on the other side of the street. Shadowed by skyscrapers, overlooking the common, how much must this old home be worth? I knew Henrietta was a political powerhouse, but this reeks of old money. The door opens, and Henrietta scoops her rabbit into her arm.

  “Heidi,” she smiles.

  “Get fucked,” I say, and storm in. “No castle today?”

  “It’s just the six of us, today,” she says, entirely unrattled. “Are you feeling alright?”

  “I’m great.”

  “Let me rephrase,” she says. “I am a hearth witch, and I can see you are not sleeping or eating well.”

  “Yeah, well, I can see your-” I look at her. “Why don’t I know your last name?”

  She smiles. “You’re still quite early, let me warm you up a plate of something.”

  “Stop being nice,” I hiss. “We are not friends.”

  “We have a disagreement, Heidi, that doesn’t mean we can’t be civil. Do you need a safe place to stay? I rent out my top floors, short term, meet lots of people that way. There’s room for you here, once the strike is done.”

  I stare at her. “In a rush for the strike to be over, suddenly?”

  “Nobody is benefiting, Heidi.”

  “Well then I’d love to see what new solutions you’re offering,” I say.

  She looks a little aghast, then simply gestures me to a table with six seats.

  Bowie arrives first, guided by that big orange cat with the funny black paws. Then Sazwa, her crow leading the way. I wonder what kind of familiar Abraham has, only he seems to arrive unshepherded, followed by Gaylord, also without a familiar.

  Henrietta begins: “the strike has been ongoing for about two days. Those unbound by the promise continue to work, those with the promise voice regret. I think we would all like to put this chapter behind us before lives are ruined.”

  “So you’ll give me kerrigan?”

  She purses her lips. “No.”

  “What is your offer, exactly?”

  “You can be Abraham's borrower, and as a continuing member of the boston witches society, you may advocate for and help connect borrowers, as you like. As a show of good faith I will host borrowers gatherings once a month, though any you invite will need a familiar escort to take the witchway. Whatever community you wish to build, I will open my home to it.”

  “So basically not only do we not get any power but you can eavesdrop on us and take our meetings away when convenient?“

  “I see we both have pessimistic views on the outcomes of eachother’s solutions. I think my solution, however, will build some much needed trust.”

  She keeps talking to me like I’m a child. I lower my voice and say simply: “My demands were not complicated, nor negotiable, thief. You can invite me to the next meeting when you have Kerrigan loaded in the cargo van for me, we all have better things to do.”

  I stand from the table, and walk out of her house. No negotiation, still, after all this? And no sign of Rose’s borrower either. I make it across the road, to the common, when I hear the door slam, and footsteps approaching at a hell of a pace.

  Abraham rushes for me, his hands turned to claws, his back elongated by at least two feet, eyes bright and yellow, teeth sharp as he slobbers in full sprint. I run for it, this half-wolf form is one of the most fucked up looking things I’ve seen. I reach for my crowbar, awkwardly behind me in my swinging backpack, miss, try again, get a grip on it, then stumble on the semi-solid, half real forms of a picnicking couple.

  I tumble into the grass, which blurs as it bends in all the ways the wind has blown it all at once. The wolf pounces. Teeth meet metal as I slam his face with the crowbar. I kick with my legs, push him off of me. He spits fangs and blood, then wraps one of those giant clawed hands over my crowbar, yanks it out of both of my white knuckle hands, and tosses it aside.

  “We finish this today,” the beast roars, pink saliva splattering my face, teeth regrowing before my eyes. “No more games!”

  “Okay.” It comes out in my voice, but it can’t be me speaking, because the only words I can put together in my brain are oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck. “Okay, let’s talk. Back in the house with the wards. Let’s talk.”

  The half wolf pulls me from the ground, and is just handsome, tall, human Abraham again by the time I have my feet under me. His grip on my wrist is ironclad, as he storms back towards Henrietta’s brownstone. On the steps, Bowie looks in mute curiosity, besides Sazwa, who’s gripping the railing with both hands, looking green. Even Gaylord stands in the doorway, watching wide eyed. Henrietta is notably the only one absent from watching Abraham work. And, in the shadowy spot beside the stairs, under the window of the dining room, sits a figure in a wheelchair, a heavy pistol in her lap, who catches my eye and raises a finger to her lips.

  At the base of the steps Abraham shoves me, for no apparent reason except it’s his last chance before I enter the wards again. He smiles as I hold back my anger, as I bow to his strength. It’s a look I’ve seen before in the eyes of Vern, it’s a look I saw when Bruno watched me pour my blood into his mug. It’s a look I’m sure I’ve worn too, in my past life.

  But that smile dies at the sound of a gun cocking, pressed to his tailbone.

  “I had a dog when I was a kid,” Roach says, reclining comfortably with her gun on Abraham’s spine. “Out in the middle of nowhere west virginia, back when there was such a thing as a middle of nowhere. She was a working dog, she kept the flock safe, but I loved her, spoiled it, brought her into the house. She was my soulmate. We didn’t have a lot of money to take care of her, no vet appointments, you know? So I shouldn’t have been surprised when one day she started foaming at the mouth, lashing out at the livestock, lashing out at me.”

  Henrietta appears in the doorway, watching this scene. Abraham stays stock still, knowing any flinch might be his last. Bowie for whatever reason, is smirking.

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  “Dad was out of town when it happened, but that dog, my dear Princess Neptune, she bit my baby brother, and at eleven years old I had to be the one to figure out what you do to rabid dogs,” she sighs. “So you tell me, Henrietta, this one rabid? Or is he just doing what you told him to?”

  “Hello Rosemary,” Henrietta says. “What a pleasure you could make it to this meeting.”

  “I would not normally say the feeling is mutual, but whatever you’re cooking smells lovely. So let me humbly request you bring me out a bowl of that, bring your dog inside for the night, and given we’re safe here in the witchway and it’s a beautiful sunny one, why don’t we continue this conversation on your step.”

  “I prefer such charged conversations to be had under wards.”

  “Which explains why you talk like a woman who’s never been punched in the mouth. You can consider this an exercise in smartening the fuck up.”

  Rose eats like a wild animal, ravenous, scooping jumbalaya onto white bread and devouring it dripping. The others in their folding chairs look away, while Henrietta keeps checking over her shoulders.

  Sazwa whispers: “So- who is this?”

  “My friend, Rose Roach,” I whisper, and smile.

  “She the one who locked you in a meat locker?”

  “Nope, that’s a whole different friend,” I say. I feel the thread of a promise binding me to Zucaro, pluck at it. God, I’d nearly forgotten that little bit of bad news. “But he connected me, after the failed rescue.”

  “The rescue would have succeeded.”

  “If not for the cyborg vampire cloaked in the kitchen with the machine gun.”

  “The what?”

  “Yeah, me not coming with you saved your ass, you’re welcome.”

  “I’m welcome,” she repeats.

  “And- thank you,” I huff.

  “I don’t want your thank yous. I thought, maybe when this is over, Ali likes you, I better be friendly. But it’s not going to be over. So enough. We’re not friends, you’re blackmailing my husband, you’re hurting witches and borrowers and monsters and the mundane. This is going too far. Your side and- that. We all just want it to stop.”

  Rose licks her fingers, pushes her plate onto the little glass side table, stretches out in her wheelchair. “Tell me, is it magic that makes hearth witches such good cooks, or the other way around?”

  “Wards can enhance the nutrition and quality of ingredients, but I think more credit is owed to my father’s recipe.”

  “If I knew you were making food I’d have come to more of these,” Rose laughs. Then she lets her smile sour and says “Now explain why you’re threatening my friend here.”

  “I was not threatening anyone-”

  “Lie better, or better yet don’t.”

  “Heidi made a pact with fifty one borrowers-”

  “Fifty two,” I say. “One joined at the last ball. You were making her serve drinks?”

  “Oh come on, nobody could animate a fetch for that? Needed a whole nother set of loose lips to carry drinks? I mean if you were new I could make the excuse but you’re an elder,” Rose says it as an accusation. “You know what a ball used to look like.”

  “Anima is in shorter supply than spell seeds,” Henrietta begins.

  “And I say again: Lie better,” Rose says.

  Henrietta bristles, returns to the task at hand: “The borrowers demands are outrageous, they want an avatar.”

  Rose wrinkles her nose, stares at me with incredulity. “Why?”

  “Because I found it, and she stole it,” I say.

  “You found an avatar? There’ve only been, what, five in the city for decades, and you just found one?”

  “Yes.”

  Rose whistles. “Why ain’t they throwing a parade for you?”

  “I have asked myself the same question.”

  Bowie is quiet, paying close attention to Rose’s every move and mood. Gaylord hasn’t said a word since arriving here, and is seemingly content to twiddle his thumbs and watch the ghosts of people walking through our conversation, leaving smokey whisps as they go.

  “What Heidi is doing is dangerous, a blatant power grab that threatens the entire Boston witching community. We can’t just have our borrowers walk away like this.”

  “Sure you can,” Rose says. “Borrowers make us overextend, get our fingers in too many pies. If this makes you reticent to pick up more, I call that a win. Doing less work ain’t a crime, we don’t owe this world none.”

  “On that, I don’t think we’ll ever agree,” Henrietta says.

  Sazwa argues: “We have to cancel monster tranqs and culls- those keep the witch hunt’s budget low and the citizens on our side. We have to cancel spin- No hoax videos means real magic gets tracked down faster. Bowie’s borrower is suing witch hunt officers, what happens if he can’t show up to his cases because of a pact?”

  “Then you had best make things right with him fast, hadn’t you?”

  Bowie, quietly adds: “Hayes is not under any pacts but mine, and will remain that way.”

  “Everything about current witching society is being thrown into chaos,” Henrietta says.

  Rose clicks her tongue. “And we’d hate that, wouldn’t we?”

  Henrietta takes that barb head on. “I understand that us who practice witchcraft have an inclination towards opposing power structures-”

  “Understatement,” Rose wipes her mouth on a cloth napkin, folds it and puts it into a pocket.

  “-But I have upheld my office to the highest order of transparency, fairness, and decorum, and I challenge anyone to disagree.”

  “You stole Kerrigan and had your werewolf threaten to kill me five minutes ago,” I offer.

  “That was not what that was,” Henrietta says.

  “I said lie better, I’m missing my legs, not my eyes,” Rose shakes her head.

  Henrietta thumps her hands against her knees, they shake there for a moment, then she collects herself and smiles. “We can debate right and wrong all day long, the fact of the matter is the witches stand united, virtually every non-elder has agreed to the pact. Whereas your pact is accepted by barely half the borrowers, held together by a single stubborn pact hag.”

  “Doing it to spite her witch boyfriend,” Sazwa adds.

  “I made a promise to Kerrigan,” I say. “My hands are tied.”

  “Which means, Heidi, this entire endeavor is just the result of the curse of the magic you wield, if the seed were taken from you you would see reason,” Gaylord says, quite amicably. “Perhaps the pact seed is a poor fit for a borrower. We should set rules to avoid this in the future.”

  “Rules about making borrowers?” I shout. “What a novel idea! What a concept! Why, maybe we can even add training, and introductions, maybe even some sort of regulatory body that witches have to report to, and maybe that group deserves to have just a shred more power than a fucking high school chess club!”

  Gaylord shrinks into his chair with each word, by the end of my shouting I’m worried he’s going to fall on the sidewalk. Rose laughs into her hand, then gently rests it on my shoulder, pulls me back down to earth.

  “The time to talk morals is done, is that right?” she clicks her tongue. “Then it’s a game of power. Let me start off by making a promise, knowing full well any number of you can see it followed through. If mister Heidi dies in the next week- month- let’s say six months- and it isn’t of old age surrounded by his loved ones, you’re dead, Henrietta. I know a spot about three klicks from here with a beautiful view of your favorite reading chair. Same goes for you, Bowie, before you get any ideas. Any questions?”

  “End the strike,” Bowie says.

  “That’s more of a comment,” I say.

  “You will lose,” Henrietta says, kindly. “There will be consequences on the people around you. Consequences on the world. All that will change by the end of this strike is how much damage we will have to hold you accountable for.”

  I stand up. “You are playing your part here, as much as I am. And when this is over, however this ends, I’m not going to forget that you were willing to let people die just to keep your hands on a power I found for you barely a month ago. Try all you want, I am not res accountable for your choices.”

  Henrietta stands up, folds her hands in her lap, and says, with ice in her tone: “Have a restful night, Heidi.”