By noon, we had a plan. It wasn’t elaborate or clever or roguish. It was straightforward. Her knew how to navigate the Lane. According to her, she even knew a shortcut that Maps had been unaware of that would get us there in a third the time. She would deliver me and Boddy, along with additional security on loan from Lady Liu in the form of Mean Uncle and a couple of burlier Cousins. My House would owe the Lady for that, according to Her, but that was a problem for the future.

When we arrived outside the ornate wrought-iron fence in mid-afternoon, I felt an inexplicable sort of sadness. I had known Carver for less than a month. I had entered the House grounds only a handful of times. Why did it seem familiar and nostalgic? I checked with my guardian constructs. It wasn’t outside influence. I guess I’m just a nostalgic sort of person.

Somehow, Little Cousin had managed to procure me a perfectly tailored suit almost as soon as we entered my new grounds. I wore it now, sans tie. I never cared for ties. Something about the suit made me want to stand up straighter, as if the suit itself was representative of my personal confidence and strength. I realized that others probably wore suits for this exact reason. Plus, it made what I was about to do feel a lot more official than the hiking clothes I had worn when I last left Carver’s grounds. With as much gravitas as I could muster, I yanked the pull cord on the outside of the gate. Somewhere close to the estate, the current doorman would hear the clang of a bell.

Sure enough, before long a hob was pacing down the footpath, long and purposeful strides managing to carry his small frame faster than seemed reasonable. He stopped just inside the gate, then did a double take when he saw me. I realized I recognized him. He had served as Gofer one of those nights I had spend chatting with Carver.

Gofer-turned-temporary-Porter took in my entourage. Three menacing-looking cobbles backed me up on my left, the tallest over six feet high and the shortest scarcely four, but somehow exuding the same level of physical threat. On my right, I was attended by Boddy and Her the Interpreter. Then the little doorman hob looked back at my face. I was wearing my best scowl. I had actually practiced it in a mirror before coming out here.

“Tell Mister Carver I’m here to renegotiate my contract,” I said. Gofer hesitated, glancing at Mean Uncle and his muscle, then at Her the crone. He seemed to be avoiding looking at Boddy. Shame? I could work with that. “Tell him that if he doesn’t agree to meet with me, I will be forced to make my concerns public for the entire Lane. I’m sure he’ll want to see me.” It was a gamble that Archie had suggested, attending the planning meeting despite my protests. If Boddy and Archie weren’t in the know about Carver’s original plan, it was likely that many of the House staff were likewise uninformed. This should get me in. Once there, I hoped to simply browbeat the old fart into turning over his House. It was not likely, but I really would rather take that route than the violent one that had necessitated the attendance of Mean Uncle.

Gofer-slash-Porter ran, actually sprinted, back up to the House in a panic. I tried to determine if that meant he was in on Carver’s plan, then decided it was unlikely. Gofer was too young to add any particular advantage to the plan’s execution, so looping him in would have just meant risking one more turn-coat. It was the same logic that Archie had used to guess that the staff who weren’t in on it would outnumber the staff who were.

She had been a lot more quiet when I asked what she thought the split was on the staff who would agree to it once they found out against those who would reject it. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to find out.

It was a painful ten minutes. I knew Carver kept modern realis cameras around his front gate, so I refused to relax my posture. I had to be in charge. Carver had to see that I was in charge. Never mind that I hadn’t been properly in charge of anything in most of my adult life. Never mind that I was now two days late for my menial job, without explanation or even contact. Shit, Dana might have even reported me missing by this point. I wasn’t sure what I’d do in that situation. Would the police be waiting for me at my apartment?

My muscles were starting to ache from standing in a way that I rarely stood when the gate swung open on its own. Without having to be prompted, Boddy started in, a sort of half-march, half-slink that made him seem dangerous. He reminded me of a large cat pacing its enclosure. I followed two paces behind him, letting him act as my herald. The Cousins took up positions a half-pace behind me on either side, their gait businesslike and their eyes alert for any threat. Two paces behind them Mean Uncle was walking with the same implied threat as Boddy, elevated to a much larger stature. Her strode at his side, somehow matching his pace despite her shorter legs. Unlike the cobbles and Boddy, Her merely looked faintly interested. There was no sign from her that she considered herself threatened. In a philosophical moment, I wondered whether that made her seem the most dangerous of all of us.

Gofer-Porter was waiting for us at the front door. The proper, huge, double front door, not the little private entrance I usually used. Well, that made perfect sense. This was a formal visit. Might as well make things formal about it.

“Master Carver has agreed to see you,” stammered the young hob. I felt bad for the kid. He was just supposed to be filling in, as far as he knew. Now I showed up with scowls and swords and demanded entry ‘Or Else’. “Please, follow me.” he finished.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Gofer-Porter led us to one of Carver’s studies. Rich-looking shelves covered every wall, all of them filled with identically-bound books. The cost to make every book’s binding the same size and material must have been staggering. Unless Carver had simply bought a bunch of blank display books to fill the shelves. I tried to decide which was more offensive.

“Mister Corners. I hear you’ve been promoted. Congratulations.” Carver said from his seat at a big moon-shaped desk. He was on one of the wings of the moon. A familiarly tall human woman was seated at his left, and I allowed my scowl to deepen at the sight of her. A hob I hadn’t met but with the same dangerous burliness as Boddy or Mean Uncle sat on his right. Probably the Bodyguard who was supposed to have followed me.

Three chairs sat on the other arm of the moon, facing Carver’s group. Without answering Carver’s greeting, I moved to the middle chair, pulled it out, and sat myself down, trying to seem confident. I looked at my group and met Her and Boddy’s eyes in turn. They each moved to take one of the wing seats. Mean Uncle and the Cousins were forced to loom in the background behind us. There were no other seats in the room. I recognized that as Carver’s first attack in the negotiation, but I didn’t have an answer for it.

“You lied to me,” I opened. I’d thought about how to approach this conversation a lot over the past thirty hours. I decided to be blunt. I wasn’t a lawyer. I wasn’t a good orator. But I was right, at least. I would use that. A hammer, not a scalpel.

“Oh? I think you’ll find that the contract I provided was quite complete in what it asked you to do. Nothing you were to be faced with should have been a surprise.”

“You lied to your staff,” I answered. Carver was an old hand at negotiating and wordplay. I wouldn’t answer him. I wouldn’t take his bait.

“My staff is accustomed to a certain amount of discretion in what I do. It’s essential to the job, as you should learn sooner rather than later.” Carver was smiling. I wanted to punch him right in the stupid smile, I realized. Violent tendencies were not something I had ever thought about myself. Her stirred briefly in the chair next to me, but said nothing.

“You coerced other Houses into your scheming against their wishes.”

“Really, Daniel. If all you have are unfounded accusations, I think I perhaps shouldn’t have let you in. Besides which, it isn’t like common law applies to inter-house relationships. All that matters is the nature of this place. And we both know by now that what I did was perfectly in harmony with that.”

I broke down and took the bait. “Just as high explosives are perfectly in harmony with physics. It doesn’t make them acceptable to use on your friends.”

“Friends?” Carver chuckled. “They were my allies, not my friends, Daniel. A distinction I think you maybe never developed.”

“A betrayal is the correct description for either,” I countered. I felt a brief surge of triumph and then Her poked my thigh with one of her talons. Sure enough, I had allowed Carver to lead me off track. This wasn’t about right and wrong, Her had coached me. That may motivate me, that may motivate all of us, but the Lane didn’t care. This was about my demands and Carver’s response. I had to lay justifications down to rattle him, not engage in moral debate.

“Oh, Daniel. What I was doing was not a betrayal. Did you know that the Alley changes? Houses move from Alley to Lane every century. I was just fostering such a change rather than waiting for perceptions to shift. And I did it for the strength of all Houses. House used to mean something. Community used to mean something. And now?” He gestured all around him. “This isn’t right. People aren’t connecting. I was going to fix that. And your morals need not come into it.”

Her’s talon poked deeper into my flesh. I took a deep breath, realizing that my eyebrows were starting to ache from the anger and not caring. I tucked the anger and the ache away a munition’s closet in my mindscape. The woman next to Carver seemed to notice something and whispered in his ear. He shook his head.

“Mister Edgar Carver,” I managed through teeth I wanted to clench, “I have come here to depose you. Your actions were reckless and dangerous. They were taken against the natural progression of human thought. They were taken against the desires of your House or the eight other Houses you manipulated, bribed, or threatened into declaring you their proxy. Will you relinquish your seat peacefully?”

“Oh, Daniel. Very bold. But no, I will not.” He began to stand, and everyone else followed suit. “You have five minutes to leave my property. You have two days to return the delivery you stole from my House in breach of contract. If you fail in either endeavor, I will kill you. Personally. I suggest you leave the Lane entirely.”

He turned to leave. I sighed. Peace had been an option. I hadn’t wanted it to come to this. I reached inward, pulling the essence of my torchfork out into my hand. The woman with Carver shouted a warning, and I sensed a blurring of the fabric of the Lane near her own hand.