“Peace! Hah!”

The sky-plume girl spat out the word peace with the same venomous hatred that people usually reserved for words like rape, or torture. In that single word she bundled all the indignation and fury she felt at the utterly preposterous idea of vampire envoys vying for peace.

There was so much anger there. Her uncompromising tone promised no compassion, no forgiveness or hope, no chance of any consideration for my unusual circumstances should she ever find out. The last faint sliver of hope that I could ever find the same kind of acceptance I had received in Birnstead died.

And why would I ever deserve acceptance anyway? After what the vampires had done to Ostea, there could be no mercy for those monsters. With how many I had slaughtered to get out of that cell, there was little difference between them and me.

It was a strange feeling, to be hurt so deeply by a single word. Yet at the same time, I could only agree with her. Vampires were a plague beyond comparison. I nodded along as the girl vented her anger, encouraging her to continue.

Relieved at being able to share her grievances, she broke into a rant. There was no way those despicable creatures wanted peace. They couldn’t even be reasoned with. They had torn down everything we ever accomplished for Ostea and had plunged the continent into four decades of endless war. They had scoured away civilization, and had turned the place into an uninhabitable wasteland. Everyone there lived in constant fear of the savages, the night, and the dark itself. Vampires coming here meant horrors far beyond what anyone could imagine.

And she was right, she wouldn’t be able to imagine the horror of it. People thought they knew what a monster was, but most every creature labeled as a monster, from the aquatic ahuizotl to the hera wyrm and even the earthworm mimixcoa, was merely ordinary wildlife. They only get aggressive when their territories happen to overlap with human lands, or when people threaten their nests. They were animals that got the label when them eating livestock or harvest became inconvenient.

But truly unnatural creatures, real horrors like ash hounds, most people had no idea what they could do. And vampires would be even worse, with human intelligence, cunning, and predatory intent. The mere idea of negotiating with them was delusional. Perhaps the situation was even worse than Aunt Reya thought. Maybe we weren’t just losing the war, maybe we had already lost it, and this was nothing but a clever ruse to hide that.

While the girl continued her angry tirade, I meekly hunched in on myself and only devoted enough attention to her to nod along at the appropriate moments. From time to time, I took careful, measured bites from my food. And I thought of more important things. When Inquisitor Sung had questioned me, did he already know about the vampire envoys? Did Irina? Had she hidden that from me? Did Uncle Hadrian know?

If Irina knew, then her insistence I stay hidden made even more sense now. The vampires were here, right on everyone’s doorstep. They were perfect at blending in, and so everyone would flinch at the slightest hint of strangeness. I fought the fidgety, anxious feeling that made me want to bounce my leg. Finding my Uncle and getting him somewhere safe, it would be the greatest hunt of my life. Nerve-wracking and exciting, but I couldn’t let it show. My disguise, my ruse, my pretend-humanity would have to be perfect.

“So,” I asked when the wild-smoke girl’s angry ranting finally lost a bit of steam, “you took an errand to get away from the mess in the city for a bit, and took the kids with you?”

Feigning interest is an excellent way to get people to trust you. Allowing someone to rant at you about something they were passionate about is enough to get them to like you a little more. It even meant I didn’t need to talk to sky-plume myself, just listen. Now all there was left for me to do was charm her gaggle of kids. With her trusting me a little more already, and with them mirroring that trust, that would be trivial.

“Yeah, well, any job done is money earned,” she said. “With all that’s going on, we can use a little extra silver to feed these hungry mouths. If we don’t get some money saved while we still can, it’s going to be a rotten mess. Especially if it’s a long winter.” She turned towards her charges with a wistful sense of despair and sighed hopelessly. “It is going to be a long winter…”

As if summoned by her words, two little stomachs grumbled their need for sustenance.

I glanced over, pretending that I could see what was going on. Both the sky-plume girl’s misery and the apparent hunger of her kids made this the perfect moment to feign sympathy.

All three of her little nibbles were far too young and lean and hungry to be out running errands this close to the heart of winter. Yet they were out, and that vulnerability was exactly why I chose this group. In response to their hungry looks, I glanced at the sad remains of my meal, pretended to debate with myself, and then tore chunks of my food. Making sure I only presented parts that did not have my saliva on them, I passed the scraps to the three other kids.

There was a moment’s hesitation. It lasted far shorter than I thought it would. The sweet-nothing girl — the one who was so suspicious of me earlier — snatched the first chunk out of my hand and handed it out to the youngest, a little nibble of a boy of maybe six or seven, tasting of fresh clotheslines in a noisome and shady back-alley. The second bite she plucked out of my hand she passed on to the oldest sibling, whose entire presence was a roiling mess of confusing signals, all iron and salt and virgin squared defiance.

While I parceled out the remains of my meal, the Sky-plume girl whipped her head from me to the kids and back. “Hey, don’t you go spoiling them now.” Then back to the kids. “Oi! Oi oi! What are you supposed to do if people give you shit!”

“Rob them blind!” came the immediate reply from the back-alley clothesline nibble.

A wave of frustration and embarrassment wafted from the sky-plume snack. “I’m so sorry. I’m trying to take care of these brats but… just watch your pouch and I’ll um… you actually entering the city? I could pay your gate fee?”

“Really, there’s no need,” I protested, knowing that her offer to pay the entry fee meant I had achieved my goals. I now had a group to enter the city with, to vouch for my integrity, and to ensure the gate guards did not pay me undue attention.

We talked. We got to know each other — I, them, and they, an entirely fabricated version of me that was designed to maximize their sympathy for me. I hated every moment of it. They all reeked horribly, as if they hadn’t bathed or washed in weeks. I had to converse, something I was terrible at even when faking it. And worst of all, the entire time I had to pretend to be a dumb child.

We finished our lunch and then we were all ready to go again. The gaggle of kids hopped up and jumped around, ready to expend their excess of youthful energy. The sky-plume girl reluctantly forced herself back into motion, with the weariness of someone already looking forward to the end of the day even though it was barely past noon. I clambered to my feet as well, with the help of my staff, and explained away my awkwardness as an old injury acting up in this cold weather.

The oldest sibling, the Squared-defiance one, helped get everything into some semblance of organization and then we were on our way. The road stretched ahead, fields and farmland on either side. The first hint of salt and ocean colored the air. My Uncle and answers were now so close I could almost taste them. And three little kids darted around me, the sky-plume girl, and the other travelers on the road.

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“Fenne, by the way,” Sky-plume mom introduced herself. “Sorry. Kind of forgot to do the introductions.” She gestured towards her kids in turn. “Tam, Addy, and Eli.”

“‘s fine,” I assured her. “You’ve got a lot to manage.” I tilted my head towards the kids. “Name’s Rem.”

Remembering everyone’s name on top of the fake name I had just given was going to be such a pain. I tried to get them all straight in my head. Sky-plume mom is Fenne. The Squared-defiance oldest sibling is Tam. The flighty-fierce Sweet-nothing girl is Addy. And Eli is the mouthy back-alley clothesline nibble. All of this would be so much easier if I wasn’t so blind, if I didn’t have to first associate names with scents and then link those to people. Because one of these days I was going to mess it up, and accidentally address someone by their taste.

“Thanks, by the way.” Fenne gestured towards the sweet-nothing girl. To Addy.

“For what?”

“Well, you know, most people aren’t as kind to Osteans like her.”

If she’s from Ostea, how did she get—

Oh no… she’s not Ostean, she’s a native.

This explained her unique taste, the way she was so intensely wary of me, and how the other kids had huddled around her protectively. They had thought I had picked them to sit down with because I wanted to hurl insults at the little savage.

There weren’t many of them left these days. When Ostea got ugly, everyone had dumped their charity-hired servants, and they hadn’t fared well since. Even then, I could usually tell who was of native descent since they were ignored in disdain, or weaved around out of wariness. But here, sun-blind as I was, I hadn’t noticed her features, and I hadn’t even been able to guess because these kids all treated her like a normal person. Now, even if this changed my opinion of her, I couldn’t let it show.

I suppressed a frown and merely shrugged instead. Perhaps I could still use my suspicious and unusual acceptance of this native to my advantage. These kids were clearly happy to finally encounter someone who did not judge on appearances.

Maybe these people aren’t so bad if they’re taking care of a native as just another sibling.

Probably aware that we were talking about her, the little thing siddled right up to me and gave me a little hug. Then she skipped ahead again.

“Addy!” Fenne shouted.

“Yeeeees?” The little thing spun on her heels and continued walking.

“Check your pockets,” Fenne instructed me.

I did, remembering how the mouthy clothesline nibble had enthusiastically shouted “rob them blind” earlier. It would not surprise me if these street kids supplemented their normal income with pickpocketing.

It was hard to feel around in all my little pouches with gloves on, but I managed. I was missing a knife. A knife that a very guilty feeling sweet-nothing honey-cake snack deposited into her sky-plume mom’s outstretched hand. The savage really was a little rat. A sneaky sweet-nothing thief.

“Don’t be hard on her.” Fenne handed me the knife and shook her head. “She really can’t help it. Doesn’t even know she’s doing it half the time. It is setting a bad example for Eli though.”

I glowered at the kid and resisted the urge to reach for the amulet around my neck, to ascertain that it was still there.

Thief.

Sweet-nothing is a bloody klepto-cake.

The little klepto-cake shriveled in on herself under my gaze, and I quickly looked away, mumbling an apology as a guilty blush warmed my cheeks. No matter the reservations I had about this development, I needed to keep up my harmless farmers-daughter act. I still needed their help to get into the city. I could not let my real personality slip through simply because of one harmless act of pickpocketing.

The awkward moment soon forgotten, we continued on with a cold winter breeze at our back, the first seagulls circling overhead, the rotten stench of too many people living far too close together in the air, and the dark haze of probably-city-walls at the horizon.

The companionship of Fenne and her troupe of slightly younger kids made the walk surprisingly enjoyable. And yes, I did consider Fenne a child. She might have been older than her charges but not by much. She was probably just over half my apparent age, somewhere between Shae and Nebby maybe, and far too young to be running around with three other kids in tow.

“You alright, Rem?” Sky-plume Fenne asked me.

Something must have shown on my face for her to ask that. “Yeah, just memories,” I replied, a hint of bitterness seeping into my voice despite my best attempts. Memories of happier times that should have remained buried. They kept plaguing me, refusing to rest.

The two youngest children, Addy and Eli, soon cheered me up with wild tales of their daily adventures. Apparently, they were all orphans of some kind. Fenne and a boy named Call were taking care of them. It was clear they had trouble getting by though. Some of the narrated exploits, the ones that Fenne seemed less comfortable about, made me assume the errands Fenne had previously mentioned weren’t always perfectly legal.

Closer still to Tormund, even tales of wild exploits couldn’t keep the mood up. The three nibbles clung a little closer to me and Fenne. The handful of travelers turned into dense clusters of people pointedly ignoring each other. If anyone did look up, it was only for a nervous, furtive, sometimes even downright suspicious glance at the other travelers on the road. There was none of the usual amiable greetings and conversation exchanged between strangers. Even Fenne began talking in hushed whispers. And despite it being early in the afternoon, a late hour to set out on a journey, the mass of people leaving the city seemed to swell instead of slow.

Approaching the gates, I had never before seen such a crowd of people so close to panic. The throng was like a herd of sheep that sensed the wolf was near, but did not quite know where the predator would strike. I found myself growing tense along with everyone else. The kids huddled around us, because we all felt it. The brittle nervousness was everywhere, only barely constrained by a veil of propriety, only one unfortunate incident away from being unleashed.

It set my teeth aching. I licked my lips in anticipation, then reined in that nervous gesture before it could betray me. Any moment now, there would be a startled bleat, a confused chorus of cries that rose in response, a panic that rippled out from the epicenter, a terrified herd that rushed away from where the predator had struck.

I tried to tell myself I was the only real predator in this herd of humans. It didn’t help. I kept on wondering. What if there was another? What if there really was another vampire here, poised to strike?

We joined the few frightened humans queuing up to enter a city that everyone else seemed to want to leave. The line moved quickly. Fenne paid an entry fee for herself and two kids, then ushered all of us past her. The guards didn’t even notice that the amount paid did not match the number of people entering, they were too busy monitoring the throng of people trying to leave.

No one questioned my reasons for visiting the city. There were no Inquisitors studying the faces of all who entered, checking if any of the new arrivals was the fugitive girl Valentina Bryce. No one cared if vampires tried to get in, because they were already in and everyone was rushing to leave.

Once through the gate, we ran into an absolute exodus of people, all drumming to get out first. There was screaming and shouting. We tried to stick to the edges of it, but then I received a shove. My face collided with someone's armpit, and I breathed their delicious heady panic. When I pushed off I was surrounded from all sides. The prey was everywhere and it was all prey.

So much food. All those exquisite frightful aromas. I breathed hard, fast. I had to get their taste out of my nose but for that I needed to exhale and then I needed to inhale again because if I didn’t pretend to breathe then one of these meals would realize what I was. I had expended such an inordinate amount of Metzus to hide my unsteady gait, and there was so impossibly much food here.

A hand clamped on my shoulder, pulled me along. My face snapped towards my assailant and I hissed. Sky-plume sweat and panic entered my nose and I twisted my hiss into a panicked hacking. Delicate sweet-nothing hands clung to my waist and I snapped a hand around a clothesline-thin wrist in turn. Then, as suddenly as we had been in it, we were out of the press of people.

“That’s…” I heaved, catching a breath I did not need to catch. “I can see why you wanted to get the kids away from this.”

“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. I should have warned you.” The Sky-plume-blood spewed a stream of rapid apologies. “I thought you knew how bad it was.”

“It’s fine, just a little overwhelming, that’s all,” I tried to dismiss her concern.

I had been in cities before. It was always uncomfortable. The sheer stench of it, the taste of so much cattle so ripe for the taking always got me close to the edge of losing control. But this, this was something else entirely. This was food. This really was a hunt like no other, except it wasn’t mine and I was right in the middle of it. It was exhilarating beyond words. I needed this. I needed it so much.

Won’t. I won’t.

Control.

“Want to follow us to our place?” Fenne offered.

I pretended to study the crowd as I thought about that offer. I didn’t have time for this. I needed to get to my Uncle before this entire city and the surrounding hamlets exploded into a massacre of unseen proportions. But I was also pretending to be Rem, a poor farmer’s daughter looking for her uncle. Rem would be rattled by these dense crowds and tense atmosphere. Rem would need some time to calm down. Rem would trust the people she’d already met. In the end, I nodded at Fenne. I’d follow her for a little while, then break from her group and find my own way.