Gregory sat numbly among the bodies, watching as the two shapechangers flew across the sky.

They didn’t remain in the air for long, already making for a rooftop. It made sense. There were things in the sky that wouldn’t tolerate sharing the airspace. Best to just change into human people once they’d made it a couple of miles, then disappear into the milling crowd.

He looked down from the lying figures, to the wreckage of the tea party. Smashed apart tables and chairs mixed with torn off or cut apart body parts. The most intact one was Malvia’s, the holes punched in her body by the blade-fingers no longer bleeding. Instead, blank expressionless eyes stared up into his own.

Then Malvia sat down next to him and poked her dead body’s cheek with a hoof.

“Boop. Hey, have you ever asked her why she has scales on there? Did she add them herself or are they natural?”

“You, you died?” he stammered, looking at where her dead body had lain.

He shouldn’t be too shocked, but there was a difference between still hearing her voice in his ear and her standing next to him while her corpse lay in the ground.

Where it still lay, soaked in rain, bloody eye socket still staring up at him.

“I suppose I did,” Barnes said, waving her hand and the body winked before going still again. “Oh, now rumors are going to spread about the little devil being capable of illusions. Perfect, everyone is going to be that much more paranoid of her!”

Something snapped inside him. “Could you not? People are dead.”

“People die all the time,” Barens replied placidly as if they were discussing the weather. “I’m not going to attach any special significance to this lot just because you care about them. Besides, didn’t you say I should improve my Malvia impersonation?”

A retort was on Gregory’s lips but first, something else came to his mind.

‘How long have you been holding that in your pocket?’ Malvia said, bumping him with her shoulder, uncaring about the corpses littering the ground around them. ‘You have anything else in there, perhaps?’

“I’m going to take from that rather stupefied look on your face I pass with flying colors,” Barnes said. “But as fun as it is impersonating her, I should probably change before someone notices this.”

Her form shimmered, then changed to a young curly brunette in a fetching dress. She spun around as if showing off her outfit.

Gregory narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t the best at detecting magic, but this close, in the middle of a change, he should have picked up something.

“Feel it if you want to,” Barnes said. “It’s real. So’s the rest of me if you want to give that a try.”

He tried to think of something to say in response to this nonsense, only to end up at annoyed silence. She chuckled.

“Again, just practicing my imitation. Admittedly that’s far too forward for her.”

He got up from his feet, not paying attention to Barnes words.

Ignoring whatever the current thing was with Malvia, Barnes didn’t seem to be an idiot, so this had to have some purpose. But what?

“What are you?” He asked, mostly to himself. “Are you a traitor shape-changer perhaps?”

Barne’s smug grin gave way to shock for half a second before she snorted, chuckling once again.

“Wouldn’t that be a twist? No, no I’m not a shapechanger. What I am is something that they ape. Whether specifically or not who knows, but I am their superior version.”

“Ah,” Gregory said. “So you can turn into an even bigger giant white worm with fleshy tendrils?”

Barnes’ smile froze into place. “What a compliment you’ve given me. I’ve heard so much about your silver tongue as well.”

“Well, in comparison to my father, certainly.”

Speaking of Father, he had popped back up, emerging from wherever he’d gone to hide with the others. Currently talking with Henry and the guards, but certain to come over here soon.

Contemplating Father also drew Gregory’s attention down. The number of corpses in between father and son.

“I couldn’t help,” Gregory muttered, staring across the carnage strewn about the tea party. Body parts were littered like napkins, and the only reason the floor wasn’t coated in blood was the pounding rain.

“I’ve seen worse cases of freezing up,” Barnes said. “You ever been in a fight before?”

Before this mess? Before the poisonings?

“Duels.”

“To the death?”

Some had nearly been. Some had been offended enough by the things he did to try and arrange that, but it had never gotten that far.

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“First blood.”

“Then you’ve never had your life really at risk before,” Barnes noted. “Oh, I’m sure someone’s mother and father got angry enough that they may have discharged a gun in your general direction, but nothing like this.”

“Nothing like this,” he faintly agreed. “But still, I could have…if I’d….”

Barnes’ expression sobered as he continued looking at the field of gore. He couldn’t even tell what part belonged to who. If he could even identify the who.

“I won’t say forget about it,” she said. “That always seems to lead to its own problems, if not the special little hell our mutual acquaintance is carving out for herself. You could have done better, you didn’t. You’ll probably have questions for the rest of your life if you could or not. The question is, do you think you’ll run into this situation again, or live life free of this kind of trouble?”

Gregory knew which of those options he’d prefer, obviously. But the world’s respect for that decision was probably low.

“I think I need to prepare for it to happen again,” he said. “I don’t think I can just go by hoping it never happens again. That doesn’t mean I want to be like some people and barely let it weigh on me at all.”

“Getting cold feet before dipping your pen into an inkwell full of crazy are we?” Barnes said, teasing tone back in her voice.

“Do you have to tease and prod?” Gregory said. Just when he’d thought she was being genuine. It would have been the first time since they’d met.

“I kind of have to,” Barnes said. “I’d say more, but I’m not allowed to spread that info around as much. No one else being around is the only reason I’m risking this much. But still, answer the question.”

“I…she seems complicated,” Gregory said.

Barnes rolled her eyes. “Ah, an evasion if ever I’ve heard one. Most people, in my opinion, are complicated. Especially the ones most likely to be dismissed as simple. Do not do the devil the courtesy or discourtesy of treating her like some special little snowflake. Very few of those exist, and she is definitely not one of them. You look hard enough, you’ll find a dozen Malvia Harrows, only I think for most of them you won’t be nearly as sympathetic. Your first meeting, she happened upon you apparently frisking her rooms, so how much did you question her first response being to wrestle you to the ground with a knife to your throat?”

“I think if my sisters caught me going through their rooms, they’d not hesitate to put a knife to mine,” Gregory admitted, a small smile creeping onto his face.

“Yes. Now what if you stumbled onto one of your siblings cutting someone's eyes out till they told them a safe combination?”

The smile vanished. “What?”

“Sorry, sorry. I suppose my thoughts were influenced by the fight a little. What if you happened upon one of them biting someone’s fingers off as an intimidation tactic then?”

“Do not be ridiculous.”

“Fair. I suppose it would be harder for humans than it was for her.”

He was about to retort when the wording caught his attention. “Was? Then you know she did this before.”

“Educated guesswork,” Barnes said. “Have I read whatever file she has with the Watch? No. But they don’t have reserved cells for ordinary criminals, even if they’re Black Flame. Some of the stories Voltar has told as well have been…interesting.”

That Gregory would have considered more a few weeks back when the detective was an intelligent figure he occasionally crossed paths with. Weirdly, ever since the party, looking back through his own thoughts….the detective had been acting much lesser than he used to. Strange.

“So educated guesswork,” Gregory said.

“If you want to doubt it, go ask Captain Malstein of the watch for the files on her. I’m sure you’ll find plenty to make up your own mind.”

That wasn’t actually a bad suggestion. Not that the Watch would be unbiased, but they’d be less biased than Barnes. Probably.

Any further conversation was cut off by the arrival of Father, who’d finally worked his way far around the tea party floor and the bodies on it to them. A scented handkerchief pressed firmly against his face to block the smell, he stared at Barnes before turning to glare at Gregory.

Gregory didn’t wilt. It was a mild scorn, one that essentially always colored his Father’s gaze when pointed his way. Lord Montague was not upset. At least not any more than usual.

“Gregory. And someone else. Someone who was not at the party. Who are you?”

“An associate of Voltar’s,” Barnes’ said. “Sent by the detective to make sure things went alright and to keep an eye on certain people.”

“You are doing just as good a job as he did,” Lord Montague said, bitterness in his words.

“Whoops.”

You know, perhaps he shouldn’t have felt so bad when Malvia had been berating Barnes earlier.

"A pity she died,” Father noted, looking down at the dead Malvia with a hint of regret. That, to Gregory’s shock, actually sounded genuine.

“I’m shocked you go so far as a pity, Father.”

“I’m not heartless, boy,” Lord Montague said reproachfully. “She did end up doing me a good turn in the end, regardless of the road it took to get there. Did she worship any deities?”

The question took Gregory off-guard, and he looked over to Barnes who shook her head minutely while his father’s attention was on the corpse.

“I don’t think she worshipped any,” Gregory said. “What little she spoke to me of any of them wasn’t admiring in any way.”

“A public graveyard then,” Father said. “I will cover the costs out of my own pocket.”

“Generous,” Gregory noted sardonically.

"I pay back my debts. As you should well know by now Gregory. And a public graveyard is what she deserves.”

Well, the debts he was held accountable to. And when lawyers wouldn’t cost more than the debt. And when the contract set up for debts wasn’t written with a nifty little escape clause. And-why was he thinking this much about it? It was purely for the benefit of Miss Barnes probably.

“Something to be arranged later,” Lord Montague said, already heading back to the guards, carefully treading among the dead bodies, handkerchief held so tightly it probably should asphyxiate him. “We will talk more next time you are home, Gregory.”

His father slipped on a wet patch on the stones, landing with an undignified squawk amidst the corpses. Barnes sniggered.

“Oh, come on. It’s a little funny.”

“Less funny when you know the people whose ribcage just got a boot through it,” Gregory said, wincing as Lord Montague swore up a storm while trying to remove his boot from Donald Derren’s limbless torso.

With a final squelch and a disgusted groan, Lord Montague finally pulled his boot free, and turned to glare at Gregory and Barnes. The latter had stopped sniggering, so after a few seconds he continued walking toward the guards.

“I think it’s pretty clear who was supposed to die at today’s events,” Barnes said quietly. “Very….elegant?”

“Me, my father, and Malvia?”

“Remove that middle name from the list, and I think you have it,” Barnes said. “Forgive me for not falling for the mournful act your father is putting on. Mind you, I don’t think he’d act like I would and prance on her body as soon as it was cool, but he’s nowhere near as mournful as he appeared. And that venom for you-”

“Is normal for what he thinks of me,” Gregory finished for her.

“If he normally has murderous intent towards you, then certainly,” she replied. “He was very close to that shapechanger. Yet not a scratch. Same for the rest of your family it looks like. Meanwhile, if it wasn’t for me impersonating Malvia and then intervening to prevent your death, would the two of you be alive?”

“No,” Gregory said, looking at where his father now talked with several of the guards.

Father has been acting suspiciously yes, but working with the shapechangers had never crossed his mind until now. Now though, well it was only suspicion.

Unless they found proof, it would only remain suspicion.