Owen collected all manner of wonders about the world in his journals.

  Things he read, songs he sang, poems he heard, beauties he witnessed and later poorly sketched. His lovely and wild mind asked of him many questions and he sought the solutions in kind, desperate to capture anything and everything to lend answers to them.

  Scram, however, collected the threats. He etched them into instinct, carved them into experience, paid for them with trust and sometimes—blood. He observed and he listened. All the lies he’d been told, the suspicions confirmed, the tics and body cues filed away until they were ground in as deep as the bondmarks. It was easy to get lost in the wonder of the world and miss the underbelly. Easy to hear the soothing words and miss the knife.

  Scramvyrn blinked at the girl, at the abandoned cloth on the floor, then leaned over to shift the hissing kettle off the open flame. She watched him and wrapped her arms around her stomach, shivering theatrically. He frowned. It was a practiced motion, performative, at odds with the raw honesty of moments before. He could hear her heavy breath, could see the tremor of her hands at her waist. That was real terror.

  The dewy, over-wide eyes, the exaggerated trembling mouth were not. She had dropped the wrap to reveal smooth cream shoulders and a low-cut bodice, the pillowy breasts Maribelle had admired spilling artfully over the bodice like rising bread dough. Even their heaving was overwrought, her desperate pleading posture arching her spine just so, all the better to display them to advantage.

  Scram willed himself to keep his expression neutral, at once amused and dubious. She shifted on her heels when he leaned back, a glimmer of uncertainty as he crossed his arms.

  She probably got away with much by appearance alone, he acknowledged. Her rosy dumpling features smoothed over harsher expressions by nature, long lashes and full lips lending soft sincerity to any steely calculation beneath.

  She was also—he figured by how easily she had slipped into the role—extremely practiced at determining which to employ to take back control. She’d marked him for a lech, and thus to make her plea she made herself appealing to a lech’s tastes. There were not many who wouldn’t be tempted by this display for one reason or another.

  Not much tempted Roland Scramvyrn.

  “Smaller than I thought they’d be,” he tossed out, letting his eyes drift to the silvered brand of a mark, a handspan across her chest of fern-like fronds barely visible in the dim morning light, dipping into the shadow of her cleavage. There was another on her shoulder, a series of jagged splitting petals, like a spiraling flower, curving over the arch in soft pink lines. The cloying fear she’d painted on dissipated as easily as the kettle’s steam, turning to affront.

  “Fewer scales, too,” he added. Her expression shifted to confusion, darting a glance down to her chest.

  “Demons,” he reminded her. It took her a moment to catch the sardonic tilt of his eyebrow, the twitch of his lips at the corners as the smirk fought to break free.

  “I’m serious.” Avenna scowled, bending to snatch up the lost wrap without further artifice. When she straightened, her glare could have cut wheat from the stalk. She jerked the wrap back into place around her shoulders. Scram nodded with mock solemnity.

  “Me too.” He pitched his voice into faux conspiracy. “Swear I heard tell the young’uns were large as a bull calf. Teeth like a panther’s. Maybe she’ll grow into ’em.”

  Avenna didn’t reply. She turned on her heel and stalked across the room, skirting the gently rocking basket and the passed out septuagenarian. Scram rounded the bar.

  “Is this it, then?” he asked. “The fresh new fuckery you bastards are raining down on us today?” He gestured broadly at the tavern. “Demon babies? I’ll give you lot this — you don’t skimp on pageantry.”

  He peered into the basket at the tiny form tucked inside. The wet smudge of red from that night was a lick of fluffing orange hair now, the rest of her large head smooth and bald. She looked plumper today, pink and round and Scram reluctantly admitted—rather cute as far as human babies went. Her eyes were huge and mostly iris — a deep blue and slightly crossed like she was determined to see her own button nose. There was no sign of the flame or the yawning darkness beyond. She appeared to be a rather ordinary baby not that he had a huge frame of reference.

  “I’m trying to warn you.” Avenna snapped, pulling the wrap more firmly around her shoulders. Scram grinned at her.

  “I can see why. This one looks right fierce.” The baby had a thick line of drool running down her chin.

  Scram hooked a stool with the toe of his boot and dragged it out between the baby and the snuffling Grizzle, falling onto it. He grabbed the fire iron and started moving the glowing embers to the center, edging the ash away.

  “I know you felt it,” Avenna said to his back. “I heard you and Owen that night.” Scram paused mid-stroke.

  “That so? Can’t say I recall saying anything that would be worth much to you,” Scram shrugged. “Owen tends to talk mostly nonsense. And the only thing I feel is a bit nippy so-” he motioned to the open hearth with the iron.

  “I heard you calling for him,” Avenna went on. “I was taking the baby back to my room. You asked him what happened with the delivery and then you started calling his name. Owen! Owen! So I came to the stairs. You screamed it. You were begging.” The last of a log crumbled away under a harsh prod sending cinders spraying, little bits of heat landing on the backs of his hands. Avenna’s voice had dropped to a low whisper. “That is what she does. She messes with your mind. She changes things.”

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Scram’s neck prickled and he swallowed around the dryness of his throat. The fire iron was slippery in his sweating hands, he adjusted his grip.

  “Sure you ain’t talking about your bitch master?” Scram tilted his head to look at her over his shoulder. She was staring down into the basket, her fingers twisted in the wrap.

  “I told you, it’s different,” Avenna said after a moment. “Mistress-she-“ she cut herself off. Scram raised an eyebrow.

  “Go on,” he turned himself around on the stool to face her. “What about her?” Avenna opened her mouth and then scowled shutting it again.

  “Oh,” Scram said, delighted. “She has you locked up tight as a drum now, doesn’t she?” The glare grew nastier but the silence remained. “You can’t even speak her name. Mistress this, mistress that.” If glares could burn Scram could start a new fire in the hearth with his bones alone. He rubbed at his jaw and considered her for a moment.

  “Now, I’m not one to judge based on the company you keep, sometimes company’s keeping you, I know that well enough. But either you worked up a fairy story in your head because you’re so deep in that witch’s bullshit you truly believe it or—“ Scram leaned forward, pointing the fire iron at her. He let his voice tip low. “—maybe you have a different reason entirely for trying to feed the bullshit to me?”

  The baby gurgled. Grizzle snored. Avenna pressed her lips together and refused to meet his eyes. Scram let the silence linger, she pressed her lips together tighter, her head giving the barest shake.

  “How about I give you a warning then,” Scram set the fire iron to the side to give her his full attention. “In a few hours your mistress is going to take her wretched ass back to The Span along with all her little lick spittles and you, well you’ll be stuck here with us, at the ass end of nowhere down the lane from fuck all. Can’t do shit about that, the Mandate’s the Mandate. Stuck with whatever trash or trollops they see fit to send our way.”

  Avenna winced but remained silent, her gaze locked on the basket.

  “The bunkhouse won’t be finished until after the spring thaw, longer if the mud’s too deep for the sleds. So we’re all going to be spending a lot of time together. Cozied up all through winter, one big happy fucking family, just waiting for that ice to crack.” He leaned closer.

  “Keep feeding me bullshit, Avenna, and you won’t live to see it.”

  She jerked a nod and let herself collapse into the chair. Scram turned himself back around and went back to tending the fire, stacking new logs and sweeping the ash into the iron bucket. He was just finishing when she spoke.

  “I can’t tell you anything about her—“ Scram swiveled back around and she tilted her head up with a meaningful look at the ceiling. He nodded. “But I’m not lying about her.” She tilted her head to the basket. “She may be a baby, but that is precisely why she’s dangerous.” Scram licked his lips.

  “Lots of things are dangerous. Bears. Wolves. Me. Don’t see how a baby can be worse than the woman who’s name you can’t even fucking speak.”

  “Just past the Outskirts on the way to the Danmire Outpost, near Bucket Rock, our caravan was attacked.”

  Scram furrowed his brow in confusion but she pressed on, her voice soft and rapid.

  “The Edgewards were able to take care of it, there were only five or six, they must have thought from the size it was a supply run, but one slipped through and came for our carriage. We couldn’t see anything.” Avenna shook her head. “We heard the signal for all clear but then he ripped open the door and just yanked her out.” Avenna winced. “She hit the ground so hard—right on her front.“ Avenna motioned to her stomach. “I went to the door to help her and he went to grab her again and as soon as he did he just…disappeared.” She snapped her fingers, and Scram blinked, startled. “I saw it with my own eyes. One second he was there, the next he was gone. His footprints were still in the dirt.” Scram glanced to the bowl.

  “Taneah,” he said. Avenna shook her head.

  “No. I-“ Avenna struggled for a moment, constructing something in her head. “That’s not something she can do.” She settled on, she tensed for a moment, waiting and then relaxed when it seemed to be allowed.

  “Pregnancy,” he gruffed. “There’s…eh…changes.” He waved his arm to encapsulate what he was unable to say. A wisp of a smile crossed her face before she shook her head.

  “We made camp there so the Captain could investigate for another ambush, and Lazrin could check everything was okay with-“ she gestured to her stomach again. “The man came back in the middle of the night.”

  Scram raised an eyebrow.

  “Pieces of him. It looked like he’d been mauled by a bear.” She looked faintly ill just recalling it. “Or a demon. Right where he’d disappeared even though we’d moved the carriage by then.”

  “Flow wore off.” Scram shrugged—Owen’s words again in his mouth. Scram didn’t know how it fucking worked. He imagined it like a well pump, sometimes the well went dry and you had to wait for the rain to fill it up again to pump some more. “S’not endless. And a woman like that? Keeps shit close to the chest. Just cause you don’t know she can doesn’t mean she can’t.” Avenna shook her head.

  “No. I’m telling you it wasn’t her. There were other things. Little things. Colors of clothes would change. Hair. We’d lose track of time. One moment the navigator tells Lazrin we’re just past the Ventus encampment and then we’re all the way up to the river crossing. Strange fires. Lightning strikes.”

  “It’s a long trip,” Scram said. “Days blend together, weather happens, you get weary, mind starts playing tricks.” If she were younger she would be stamping her feet at each of his rebuttals, instead she let out a moan of frustration and kept glaring at him.

  “I listened to your Edgewards,” Scram reminded her. “Those fuckers clucked at each other like peahens the whole fucking night about every fucking league. Not a one of them said a word about any o’this.” Now she looked like she wanted to claw his face off.

  She sat for a moment, wracking her brain.

  “The candle! When she was hungry, that first night,” Scram tilted a head in question. “You saw it! It went out.”

  “Its a draughty place. Built in a hurry.”

  She threw her hands up.

  “Look, it seems like you got a little spooked, cooped up for months with them magic fuckers, started putting things together in your head—“ Avenna went to interrupt him but he held up a hand. “— could also be that you’re right, babe’s got a powerful “gift” and not a lot of control over it.” She didn’t look mollified but she closed her mouth and nodded.

  “We’ll talk to Owen,” Scram decided. “He knows more about this shit than just about anyone. Probably has fifteen journals about this very thing. Take weeks to find it though.”

  “Weeks to find which?” Owen asked at the back door. He was wearing his coat today, his hair fluffed up by the wind, eyes bright from the morning chill. Scram stood, taking a step towards him.

  “There you are, saved Pot Lad a trip after all,” Scram pressed his best smile into service as he came across but Owen’s answering one was tepid and weak.

  “Yes. I have a log now, you know,” Owen said with a little sniff, nose in the air. “By topic. I carved labels into the shelves.”

  “Did you?” the smile came a bit easier. “What do you have filed under Demons?”

  Owen blinked, confused.

  “Demons?” He looked over Scram’s shoulder to Avenna in question and then back to Scram. His eyes narrowed. “Are you still drunk?” He peered into his eyes as if he could tell by that alone.

  Above them a door slammed, and heavy boots landed overhead. Lazrin was on the move.

  “I fucking wish,” Scram muttered wanting to push Owen back out the very door he’d just come through. Behind him Avenna went to grab the basket as the Bondsmage started down the stairs. Owen went up on tiptoes, craning his neck to catch a glimpse, the tepid smile growing warm and excited as he caught a peek of the baby, giving a happy little wave, the dimple lighting up though it was likely he was no more than a moving blob, if she could see him at all, fuck if Scram knew.

  “Later,” Scram said to them both. Avenna nodded, carefully stepping over Grizzle and ducking underneath the stairwell just as Lazrin met the landing. His lip curled as she slipped past to go back up but he made no move to stop her, focused on Owen. Scram shifted in front of him but he might as well been invisible, Lazrin ignoring him completely. The Bondsmage had a sheaf of papers in his hand, and a ratty expression of annoyance on his face. Scram wanted to punch his sharp little teeth in, his fists squeezing at the thought. Lazrin shook the sheaf at them both and gestured to the tables impatiently.

  “Well? We haven’t all day.”