“Your brother?”

The moments when Tay saw Cari doubt herself were rare, and he took special note of the way that she tentatively stepped back on the balls of her feet, as if she were walking through a branch-ridden forest and intending not to break a twig. But all that gingerliness fled not even half a second later, when Cari’s hair ruffled in a strong breeze, as if the world itself were willing to her fight back and confront this scar-faced woman in green.

Cari slammed her right foot down in front of Gharhell, and stood as tall as she might, bringing herself to an equal height with Gharhell. Tay couldn’t recall how tall Mond was—couldn’t recall much of anything—but if he was anything like his sister, he must’ve been a giant. Gharhell stood of equal height with himself, and the fact that Cari could make herself seem more or less the same spoke to how she had the extraordinary ability to fill out a room with her presence.

Gharhell’s guards took notice of Cari’s challenge though, and moved to intercept her. While Cari was standing her ground, the guards were more than twice her size. Together, they’d have no trouble at all toss her aside, let alone moving her. But Gharhell held up a hand and nodded, and the guards both took steps back. Their hands both still rested on the handles of their cudgels.

“Yes, my brother,” Gharhell said. “And as his sister, I have the right to put his body to the pyre. I knew it was only a matter of time before his past caught up with him.”

“Mond had no sister,” Cari said. “He never talked about you before.”

Ghahell seemed a bank teller forced into listening to a shopkeeper begging for an extension on their loans, for all she gave Cari was a slightly-raised eyebrow, as if she’d heard these sorts of pleas more than a million times. “He never mentioned me, did he? Then again, what business would he have talking about family to a bunch of street rats?”

“He was our family,” Sally said.

Gharhell peered around Cari, sized up Sally, and let out a puff of air with a slight grin. “Was he? That must be my mistake, because here I thought you were just the product of my weak-willed brother’s soft heart. Three urchins, taken in off of the street—all orphans.”

Wait a minute. All orphans? Tay glanced down at Sally, who’s gaze had turned to the ground. All that energy that had been burning inside Cari extinguished in that moment too, with nothing more than a crestfallen and hurt look spreading across her face.

“As usual, I’m right,” Gharhell said. “So, if you wouldn’t mind, I have to find the best way of preparing my brother’s body, since you obviously had somewhere else to be just now.”

Gharhell’s coal black eyes shot first over to Cari, and then straight at Tay, resting on him for a long moment. Her eyes rested even longer on his bandaged right hand and Gharhell squinted before returning to stare him in the eyes.

“I—” Tay started.

“You can’t take our home,” Cari interrupted, dragging her hands through her black locks and pushing them back out of her face. Her crestfallenness dissolved and again that burning rage Tay both loved and hated returned. “You can’t just come out of nowhere, claim to be the brother of the man that basically was our father, and then take our home from us.”

Gharhell took a step forward, putting her own angular nose not even two inches away from Cari’s round one. “I’m not. The man who died today was not your father. He was an incompetent fool that made one big mistake after his biggest mistake. And this was never your home. It was mine.

“You really think Mond paid for this house? With what? The stolen coin he alleviated from Ramseth Polamund? Please, Mond spent that money on what he always spent it on—more Runicka cards, whole inns rented out to himself, and a mansion so extravagant, he was practically begging Ramseth to come and find him.”

Gharhell turned about, her arms folded against the small of her back, and looked up at the two-story candy shop. “No. I bought this place with coin that I earned from businesses I created with my blood, sweat, and tears. And you better be sure I kept my eye on it, because I knew no matter how well I hid my brother that he would eventually find some way of attracting the attention of Ramseth again.”

Gharhell kept her face upturned throughout her speech and punctuated it with a nod to the candy shop. Even if she didn’t want to look at them, Tay could see through her words though. Maybe it was because he couldn’t remember Mond at the moment, and so he wasn’t distracted by the thought of never seeing his body, but something about Gharhell’s explanation stuck out to him plain as day.

“You knew and you didn’t help?” Tay said.

Slowly, Gharhell turned about, face still as stoic as it had been before.

“You had eyes on this place, so you should’ve seen the attackers come while we were away?”

“I have eyes everywhere in Duskborough, kid. They’re not on every street at once. But even if they were, my eyes don’t pick fights with runekeepers. There are many dangerous things beyond me in this world, and both Mond and I learned time and time again that runekeepers are at the top of that list.”

“Is that so? Would you like to test it one last time?”

In less than a second, Cari had a Runicka card between her middle and index fingers. It glowed a dark black against the dark tones of her face, warping her usually calm visage into a fierce grimace. In her other hand, she held two white cards which sank into the palm of her hand. A thick sheet of darkness enveloped Cari’s whole body.

Gharhell’s guards didn’t even spare a moment. Both had their cudgels drawn and were moving to grab Cari and yank her away from their boss. Quincy gave a little shout, and used his body to shield Sally. Sally was looking at Cari in shock, but she said nothing.

If Sally had time enough to ask a question though, Tay suspected he knew what she would have asked. Did they really have to spill more blood today? And the blood of family at that? Because even if Gharhell didn’t want to admit it, that was what they all were.

They were the only family he had left. And that was only if his revenant situation didn’t worsen.

“Stop,” Tay said. The words tumbled violently out of his mouth—more forceful than he meant for them to. Both guards stopped, turned, and stared at him, as if they were assessing whether or not he was the larger threat.

Tay didn’t draw out a card. He could’ve summoned Garudigas, and there was a thought bouncing around in his mind that wanted him to, but he shoved it back into the dark annals of his thoughts. Tay then stepped forward and repeated, “Stop. Cari, we should leave.”

She gave him a wild look, like she wanted to unleash her card upon him instead. “Tay, I’m not going to leave our home. I’m not living on the streets again.”

Gharhell, who hadn’t flinched from this entire affair, suddenly had a large grin breaking across one side of her face. It was like she enjoyed hearing Cari admit that she had once been an urchin. Only a maniac would derive joy from knowing others had starved themselves in trying to survive.

“You won’t be,” Tay said. “You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. But we won’t be if we pick fights that we can’t win.”

Mond had known that. Tay if that qualified as remembering the man, but from what had happened in his life, Mond must’ve known when to fight and when to back off. There was a reason he’d only dueled Rantho after someone else had lost to him first. That hadn’t been because Mond pushed him into something he hadn’t been ready for.

Even if he couldn’t recall Mond’s face, Tay could still honor his memory. And that started with keeping Cari from unleashing something she would regret.

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Nobody deserved to die at the hands of a revenant. Even if Cari didn’t transform herself into something quite like he was becoming, she’d still regret it. Fourteen Above, Tay already regretted those guards whose bodies were still strewn across the street. Folk would return from their festivities and find them both mauled in the road, with teeth marks puncturing their bodies. Death was unavoidable when one tried to survive, but no one deserved to die quite like that—overwhelmed to the point of annihilation.

Funnily enough, it was Quincy who piped up, saying, “You three can stay at my place, for now. It’s not going to be much, but I’ll be able to get a bed or two for the three of you while we work out something.”

Cari took her first full step away from Gharhell, and Tay considered that a full victory, sayin, “Thank you, Quincy. You see, Cari? Everything will be fine. Just, come over here.”

Cari lowered her hand, but she did not unattune from Chaos 3 and she did not stow away her drawn card. “What about Mond’s body?”

“He’s with his family again,” Gharhell said. “It’s none of your business.”

Cari would’ve spun around again. She would’ve forced both guards into bringing down their cudgels on her head. She would’ve forced her sister into seeing her battered against the street. But Tay swooped in and yanked her back before she could raise her card again.

And he embraced her.

Gharhell took that moment to roll her eyes, as if compassion in the wake of a family death was something to be frowned upon, and then strolled into the candy shop. Her guards followed after her.

Cari leaned into his embrace, trembling. Tay could feel her tears dripping against his shoulder and she did her best to recompose herself. The darkness from her attunement faded and she returned back to normal again.

Or, well, as normal as it was going to be from here on out.

~~~~~~~~~~

Tay might not have remembered Mond’s face, but he had tons of memories of the candy shop and it’s quaint and cozy upstairs. Quincy’s home elicited none of the same feelings as those memories.

In fact, Tay had quite the opposite reaction. Half of the whole singular room that Quincy called his home was dedicated to various craftsman’s tools and a woodworking bench. Apparently, he was what he liked to call “the local handyman.” Which meant, a third of all free space was cluttered with half broken and smashed pieces of furniture, ripped clothes, cracked wheels.

Thank Quincy rented out a room just above a botanist’s shop, so all the thick and stagnant smells of a woodworking station were compensated by natural aromas drifting up through the boards from downstairs.

Apparently, when Quincy said he had two or three beds waiting for them, what he had meant to say was that he had a small wooden cot made out of three planks and a bunch of blankets for himself, a pile of ripped linens he wanted to give to Sally, and then a table that he thought might serve well for either Cari or Tay.

It wasn’t too long before Quincy was rubbing at his thinning hairline, and then gave a short chuckle. “I’m, uh, going to ask around for some blankets and pillows. You three make yourselves at home. I should be able to hammer up another cot or two by tonight. No need to worry.”

Quincy muttered to himself as he left, and the three of them listened until they were left with nothing but silence. Cari immediately went over to the bed, pulled one of Quincy’s two blankets off, examined it for a long moment, and then brought it and Sally over to the table. Cari delicately placed the blanket over Sally’s shoulders, before coming to stand near the window next to Tay. She just stared out at a nearly deserted crossroad on the outskirts of Peace and Quiet, with only a lone, flickering street lamp to stare back at her.

“What happened?” Sally asked after a while.

The wavering tone of her voice told Tay exactly what she meant. She wanted to know how so much could change within a single day. Tay was still trying to find an answer to that too. Both for this time, and the last so much had changed. He woken up underneath Claudus in their bunk bed, and left that very same night, after forcing Claudus under his heels.

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” Cari said. “You should rest though, Sally. I’m sure Quincy wouldn’t mind if you took his bed.”

“I want my own bed,” Sally said.

“You can’t have it tonight,” Cari replied.

“What happened?” Sally repeated. Her voice was quieter now.

“It’s my fault,” Tay said. He came over to the table and nearly put his wrapped hand over Sally’s to comfort her. He’d have to be careful about that from now on. Instead, he reached out with his good hand—his left hand—and deftly moved a strand of white hair away from Sally’s piercing eyes.

Sally then brushed his arm aside and asked, “How is it your fault, Tay?”

Tay sucked in, prepared to explain that Purvon, his first opponent at the Runicka tournament, had been the one to kill Mond. But he couldn’t force the words out. Cari didn’t even know that they’d gone to a Runicka tournament in the first place. She’d just quieted her rage down. He needed to protect her—protect them both. And he couldn’t very well do that if Cari threw him out of Quincy’s and demanded for him never to come back.

There would be a better chance to confess his mistakes. Once they were all safe again, he’d make sure they knew everything. And that he’d never meant for anyone to get hurt.

He never did mean for people who helped him to get hurt.

Cari then answered, “It’s not his fault, Sally. Don’t blame yourself, Tay. It’s Mond’s fault, really. He was never going to be able to keep his head down in the same city as the Polamunds. We should’ve left Stormwall a long time ago.”

“This is our home though,” Sally said. “It’s always been our home, Cari.”

“Maybe it doesn’t have to be anymore. I don’t know, Sally, but this city hasn’t done us any faovrs, recently or ever for that matter. We should cut our losses and leave while we have the chance.”

Sally fumbled with the blanket and gave Tay a worried look. “I don’t want to leave here,” she said. Tay saw the flickering white glow of Runicka cards coming from beneath the blanket. Sally drew one up close to her face, and Tay did not need to peer at it for long to realize that it was Scamper in his newly-acquired card form.

“I don’t either,” Cari said. She still stared out the window. “But we don’t have the shop anymore. Which means we don’t have any money. All I have on me are my Runicka cards from this morning, and as much as I’d be willing to sell them, they’re not going to be able to buy us a new house.”

Tay wished he had saved some more of his tournament money, instead of spending it on cards and a feast. There was no way he would’ve known this would happen, but that still didn’t stop him from cursing in his head. At the very least, he could’ve bought them nice pillows and maybe someplace to sleep that wasn’t going to end up being on stiff planks.

Something else nagged at him too. Something he needed to know. Maybe he wasn’t in the right boat to be asking for Cari’s honesty at the moment, but Tay needed to know that his actions hadn’t taken the last parent in Cari and Sally’s life. He hadn’t just made them orphans all over again, had he?

“You said Stormwall’s always been your home.” Tay tapped at the table, looking at Sally. “I know you lived on the streets before Mond took you in, but were you both living here before that too?”

“Yes,” Sally said. “We had a huge house topside and—”

“Sally,” Cari cut in.

Sally deflated and then looked back down at the table again, her white eyes seeming to dim. She fiddled with her blanket some more, before finally collapsing forward and resting her chin the palm of her hand against the table.

But Tay had to know this time. He wasn’t going to give up, and so turned around. “Cari?”

But Cari only shook her head. Then she sighed. “I’m sorry, Tay. It’s just not something that’s easy to hear. Today of all days, too. To have everything go so right, only for it to be snatched away before the sun completes its journey across the sky.

“We did used to live topside though. I wouldn’t call it a mansion, but we lived up near the Jar topside, in an open area of the city known as the Greenwood. It’s a park—a pretty big one too. It’s a tamer version of the larger Archeon Forest that stretches out from the city and to the north. Our parents liked it. They always said they wanted more green for us.”

Tay looked back at Sally and she gave him a small smile. “Dad always said that we’d get a house inland, once he worked up the coin for it.”

“He worked here?” Tay asked.

“He was a trader topside,” Cari replied. “He always put down coin on shipments that came in from ships journeying afar, and then sold what he bought to merchant stalls and other vendors along the docks and down in the Jar.”

“Cari used to help him,” Sally said. “She’s always liked doing a lot of work. Especially when Dad got his hands on rare shipments of Runicka cards.”

“Sally!” Cari said, stilling staring out of the window, hair ruffled.

“What?” Sally said, mischievous grin finding its way to her face. “It’s true. I remember you asking about it all the time.”

Cari scrunched up her face and looked away from both them and the street below. Sally also had her gaze downturned to the table again, having stowed Scamper back away underneath her blanket.

“Well? What happened?” Tay asked. “How did you both end up on the street?”

“We were attacked,” Cari said, storming over the the table and wrapping her arms around her sister. “We were attacked by a revenant. It came out of the trees in the Greenwood, killed our parents, and the city handled the rest. A bunch of orphans couldn’t pay taxes now, could they? Better to leave them to wallow in Duskborough.

“And that’s why, no matter what you say to me or how much you come to like it, Runicka will always be a monstrous game, featuring monsters, played by monsters.”