“I hear you have good news for me,” I say, taking a seat in the Mud Hare’s meeting room.

  Jack assesses me silently, crossing his arms as he leans against the wall before finally nodding. “Word travels. The island fell back under us, and we grabbed a street leading to your merchant friend.”

  “Good,” I smile. “How’d you get the street?”

  “Made a deal with the mage. She found herself in a fight with two bigger gangs. Held her own, but could only be in one place at once. So, she gave us the strip that made up the border with one, ending the fight unless they want to go through us to get to her.”

  “And they won’t expand their war against you?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “They weren’t quite at war yet. Just skirmishes and brawls. Only a couple dead.”

  “…Right… Well, I bring gifts. In congratulations, I suppose.” I place the bundle on the table and unwrap it to reveal the magic weapons I kept for them. One heavy crossbow with five mundane bolts and Briarhart’s ironphasing longsword. “They’re for emergencies only. You know, just in case a knight decides to raid this place or something.”

  Klar gives a sceptical look as she walks up to examine them. “These will kill a knight?”

  I nod. “If you hit. Start with the crossbow to wound and run in to finish with the sword. It’s ironphasing, so it should do.”

  “Don’t know what that means,” Klar says.

  “It um… let me show you.” I take a mundane dagger from one of the goons I haven’t bothered learning the name of and make to strike the sword with it, but it just passes through without contact. She takes it and confirms the trait with her own dagger.

  “Right… that’s weird. Useful though.” She nods and picks up the crossbow and tries to cock it manually, uselessly grunting until I show her the autocock symbol.

  “Just don’t practice with it, okay? It’ll shoot through the walls and kill someone a mile away. Use the mundane ones from before train. The difference won’t matter much at the distances you’ll be using them at. Oh, and don’t use the bolts for the regular ones with the magic one, they’ll just shatter before leaving the bow.”

  “Formidable weapons,” Jack says, “what do we owe for them?”

  I lean back and shrug. “I didn’t exactly pay for them. Figured they’d be more useful as an investment to keep you alive in an emergency than trying to get a few coins selling them.”

  Jack scowls. “We don’t need charity.”

  I suppress a sigh and shrug instead. “Alright. I’ll just sell them then,” I say, taking them back.”

  “Jack!” Klar says, glaring at him. “Don’t be so stupid. He said his reasons, no cause to refuse them.”

  Jack regards her, then sighs. “Fine.”

  I smile. “Well, if you’re worried about me not getting enough, you can always say you owe me a favour for them.”

  He glares at me, then nods. “One each?”

  It’s my turn to stare. Why is he negotiating up the price? “Sure. One favour per weapon. Now, let’s talk about the future. First, do you have more wounded?”

  “Yeah,” Jack nods, “a couple of stabbings and broken bones. Nothing urgent though.”

  “Then I’ll take a look after the meeting. As it happens, I’ve become more capable of helping since last we met, so the bones shouldn’t be much of an issue. Next item. The merchant will come to you with a deal, probably asking for easy access through your territory for his own expansion. I don’t know what exactly, but you should probably take it.”

  “Is that a favour?” Jack asks.

  I shake no. “Advice. Negotiate a fair price for whatever he asks, but I do think it’ll be innately beneficial to you too. Probably at least. You be the judge.”

  Jack squints his eyes, but nods. “We’ll think about it.”

  “Good. Now, that’s all from my end. What about you? Has everything been going smoothly here? Any new conflicts I should know about? Has the guard arrangement with the alchemist been working out?”

  “Everything’s fine,” he says, but I can tell he’s hesitating about something.

  “What is it?” I ask, taking a sterner tone.

  He glances down, then back up to me, taking a step from the wall to stand straight. “There’s something I need to know.”

  I shrug and lean back in my chair. “Ask.”

  He nods. “I need to know if you’re serious about us?”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “Has there been something in my patronage that you’ve been dissatisfied with?”

  He shakes no. “Nothing specific. In fact, everything has been surprisingly good. But I just have a feeling. Unease. The sort of feeling I’ve always listened to, and it’s served me well so far.”

  I resist the urge to point out that if he listens to the feeling every time he gets it, then epistemically he should be uncertain as to whether it’s trustworthy, as the acting on it would alter the outcome of the warning. It would be true to say so, but I don’t think he’d appreciate bringing up basic divining principles into the conversation.

  “And what does this feeling tell you?” I ask.

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing? I fail to see how ‘nothing’ can be a problem.”

  He smirks. “That’s what I mean. It’s telling me that I know nothing about our relationship. I mean, you kill those we can’t, and heal us up after we do fight. All good. But then you bring us weapons that we can’t even use without setting the entire section against us?”

  “It’s just a precaution. One with little cost to me, given how I came by them.”

  “Yeah, that’s the thing. It’s trivial to you, but even I can tell that sword outclasses the one you let Klar take. It probably doesn’t just do the thing with the iron either, does it?” I shake no. “In fact, I think this sword is powerful enough to rattle this entire section. Any side who has it could be unstoppable if they wanted to expand.”

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  “Until their conquests draw the attention of outside actors for whom that sword is also trivial.”

  “Yeah, so why are you giving it to us? Do you just want to see if we’ll use it despite your orders? Do you giggle inside at the thought of how tempting it must be for us? So, I ask if you’re serious about us? Are you doing this for amusement, as some weekend hobby, or are you actually trying to accomplish something with us? What are we even to you?”

  I tilt my head slightly to be propped up by two fingers, elbow on the chair’s armrest, to stare assessingly at him. There’s an earnest desperation to his voice, leaking out of his usual mask of hostile indifference.

  I need to shake myself from this stupor that’s been lingering on me ever since I left Allan. I guess I had always assumed that Allan would tell me how to best use them, when the time came to tell him about them. Until then, I would just quietly grow them in the hopes that they would eventually be useful. But I can’t rely on Allan anymore for strategy… I probably should have told him about them before, when he was still pretending to care about the cause so I could trust his suggestions about them. Though perhaps the reason I didn’t was that I sensed how unserious he is about the mission.

  …Huh, unserious. The same word that they accused me with. What are they to me? What am I to him? Well, I at least know the answer to one of those questions.

  “You’re an investment.” I state flatly. “I hope to reap far more benefits from you than I put in. The weapons were given because I thought you had proven yourselves capable of handling the temptation, and that they might be necessary for you to have. Nothing more.”

  He scoffs. “If you want an investment, go to a merchant.”

  I shake my head. “Not that type of investment. I do need coin, but what I’m ultimately after is a force, inside of the city, loyal to me and capable of performing acts of violence on a scale beyond anything you’ve experienced or even imagined your small group of ruffians capable of. Acts that would require you to grow. Acts that would require you to have swords like that, and more potent items still.”

  I stare him down, daring him to challenge. He stares in return, then leans back and laughs uproariously. “Is that all? Why didn’t you just say so?”

  My stare turns from daring to shock. He’s not being ironic. He sincerely views what I want from them as trivial. “You understand that the things I might potentially want you for would likely be highly dangerous?”

  He dismisses the thought with a gesture. “Yeah, but if you’re growing us for something big, that means we have to live long enough to do it. We’re not some ante to be thrown away in some twisted plan you have that’s just step two of thirty-two to briefly one-up your petty rival. You’re not going to abandon us if we face a little challenge, like the Thrushes were.”

  I nod at his reasoning. “Yeah, okay. I guess I can see that.” I guess it explains his odd reactions to me somewhat…Or no, not really. But I feel that it at least provides a clue that might explain it if I spend long enough thinking about it.

  “Great. Cause we’re going to have to change our agreement.”

  His words hit me out of nowhere, and it’s all I can do not to wince. “So, there is something you’re dissatisfied with after all?”

  He nods. “Yeah, I guess there is. The favour trading thing? Keeping a ledger of who owes what? It’s no good.”

  I give a baffled look. “It was your objection that brought about the system in the first place.”

  “Sure, but, it’s like for children, or worse, merchants.” His face twists in disgust at the thought. “It may have been needed before, but now it’s getting in the way. It leads to that thing you do where you have a thing you want but you don’t want to use a favour, so you say it like it’s something good for us and make me decide.”

  I open my mouth and close it in surprise before I manage to collect my thoughts enough to speak. “I was trying to respect your autonomy and the fact that you’re more knowledgeable of the local situation.”

  He shrugs. “Yeah, sure, you get to say to yourself that you acted with your high-minded intellectual ideals, or whatnot. But while you were busy congratulating yourself, we were busy making decisions to keep us alive, and having to second guess whether your suggestions are something you really want done or just an idle thought doesn’t help.”

  This time I do wince as he throws words at me that so closely mirrors ones I said to Allan mere hours ago. High-minded? Me? I struggle not to laugh. “…So, what are you saying should change?” I ask.

  “I’m saying you gotta be the boss. No more ‘oh so considerate suggestions’. From now on you give orders, and we’ll trust that you want us to grow, even if a given order might not help. But that means you can’t hide behind your ignorance anymore. You make the decisions, and also take the responsibility.”

  …What? That certainly wasn’t where I thought he was going.

  He’s so baffling. When I started this agreement, I thought that letting him stay in charge was one of the benefits for them, but now they’re treating it as a favour they’re doing for me? I believed that letting them exist independently was best for both of us. In fact, he explicitly stated that he didn’t want them to be too beholden to me, but now he’s saying they’re not beholden enough? And he’s saying I’m the one causing confusion?

  But… I suppose this isn’t bad for me. I can’t really think of a reason to refuse being given more authority.

  “…But,” he says the moment I come around to his position, having clearly read my acceptance on my face. I guess I haven’t been putting effort into concealing my thoughts as well as I usually do. Perhaps that’s why he decided to say this now. “For us to trust you to give the orders, you gotta show that you trust us. You gotta tell us your name.”

  I wince again. I don’t want to. Part of me just knows that I’ll be having them do illegal acts, so the less they know about me, the better. But I also know that he’s right not to trust me the longer I delay giving it. So why am I still hesitant? Haven’t they proved themselves enough by now? Every act and divination suggests that they want to be loyal, provided I am.

  …But there’s something more here than just prudence, isn’t there? I spent three years in a place where giving one’s name was taboo. Where it could get you or others killed if the enemy could link your name to acts, to people. Where we needed to seem as large as possible, and every name known made us seem smaller.

  So, I tense, paralyzed with fear at the thought of giving a name in such an illicit context. It’s all I can do not to hyperventilate. I look up, and find Jack’s gaze waiting. I have to give him something.

  “…I’m… a student at the central academy…” I say, hoping that it would satisfy something, though saying it, I don’t know what.

  He scoffs. “Yeah, we figured that. Your name?” He senses my indecision and shakes his head. “Look, it’s your choice. Either you give us a name and become the boss, or we’ll give you your tribute for the week, repay your part for all those shiny weapons, and go our separate ways.”

  I close my eyes, breathe in and out twice, then speak. “…Malichi Monhal, son of a baron to the west, near Caethlon.”

  Jack smiles. “Well then, pleasure to make your acquaintance, Malichi Monhal… Boss.” The others in the room echo the word, making brief, informal, signs of fealty. “So boss, what are your orders?”

  I nod, slowly to myself. I really do have no one to fall back on anymore about what I’m doing here, Allan won’t help me with them…probably, who knows. Assume he won’t. I breathe in.

  “Okay, first thing then. Jule is too talented to properly learn magic here. I’m taking her to a better place, plus anyone else who has become a mage in my absence. I’ll go and prepare someplace closer to me, then come back on my normal day to retrieve her.”

  He nods. “Sounds good. Why didn’t you take her sooner?”

  “I didn’t want you to think I was taking a hostage.”

  He laughs. “Yeah, I guess I probably would have. What else?”

  I smirk. “I guess that depends on what you can tell me about the situation.”

  He goes into a lengthy report of everything that has been going on. Telling me about all the gangs that they’ve run into and their relationships, and going over plans for them.

  I also revise the method of communication between us, leaving a listening token in a quiet spot, which I’ll keep active. They just need to take it out of its box and speak into it, then wait for my message.

  A couple of them have made enough progress learning to read to at least understand simple one-word instructions. The system being that they receive the first bird, say what they think the message means to the token, then wait for a second bird to confirm or deny their interpretation. He also agrees to make daily progress reports that I won’t need to respond to.

  I feel… good. Energized… not drained at least. My mind being focused on problems, working through them together with people who listen to my instructions and provide competent feedback. I don’t know when the last time I felt so… hopeful? Is that it? Well, I like it either way.

  … I think I would maybe try to keep them alive at this point even if I didn’t have plans for them. What a weird thing to think, when I know they probably won’t survive the mission.