I sit at a booth in the restaurant, and Bruno hands me a tea.

  “Respect is rewarded,” he reminds me.

  “Thank you, mister Zucaro,” I say. Respect. All of this for respect. Was I that much of a brat the first time we met? “I wanted to meet an elder witch. Vern told me that Gaki could arrange that. That is why I’m here. I am prepared to barter for it, but I don’t have much.”

  “You have far more than you think,” he smiles. Every tooth is sharp, his tongue is black. He’s not drinking anything, which gives me the creeps. But it’s not like he needs to drug me again. I take a deep sip, my hands burn with the contact, but it’s drinking temperature on my tongue.

  “Can you help me, mister Zucaro?”

  He smiles, each of his teeth pointed, the little hologram projectors in his face just looked like freckles, now I can’t unsee them, how painful they look stuck in his swolen skin, dug into the bone. “I have what you need. I know three elder witches, one is extremely social, the other a dangerous recluse, the last- unpredictable.”

  “The first one?”

  “As a witch, I’m sure you’ve met Henrietta.”

  “Ah,” I say. “That’s not going to work. Who’s the second?”

  “I can set an introduction, but she will likely decline. You may have to force the issue.”

  “I can do that,” I say.

  “The third is somewhat too whimsical- spends her time in walltown, impossible to track down. She may visit boston three times in a week, or fly off for years.”

  “I understand. The second will do fine, thank you. What do you want in return?”

  “There’s a great deal a witch could do for me,” he says.

  “Mister Zucaro, I’m sorry, but I’m not a witch. Just a borrower.”

  “Ah,” he says. “And your witch is Vernon Mulloy.”

  “Nobody is my witch, today.”

  His stare is curious. Those dry, lightless eyes bore into me.

  “I am not on good terms with my witch, on good terms with any witch, sir.”

  “And this is your plan to win them back?”

  “This is my plan to beat them.” I take another deep sip of the tea. “If that means becoming a monster, so be it.”

  “Being a monster isn’t so bad,” he smiles. “I’ve come to my decision, then, borrower. If you’ll be so kind as to hear me out.”

  “I agree to your terms,” I say, immediately, and drink the dredges of the tea. I understand my position, any offer is generous, this is another test of respect, and I’m not going to fail.

  “If you live long enough to become a monster, you will join my family, and work under me, to whatever end I say.”

  “If I am a monster, I might be too busy doing monster shit to keep my promises,” I say. “But I can do my best.”

  “I know the nature of your disease, borrower, from the moment you spoke my name. Hag. Devil. Fey. Dealmaker. Whatever your metamorphosis, you will keep your promise.”

  I stare at him for a moment, understand, and give myself no time to hesitate. “If I become a monster, I promise to find Bruno Zucaro as soon as I safely can, and to serve him to the letter of his command,” I say. He nods, and I blink, binding myself in silver threads, with him as witness and benefactor of this deal.

  “Very good,” he says, weighing the strand of the promise in his hand before it vanishes. His yellow, corpse eyes rise to meet mine. “But that’s a what if, not a guarantee. And you could be a splatter against the wall after your meeting with this elder.”

  “Whatever you need,” I say.

  He pulls something from his frumpy brown coat, lays it gently on the table, clinking it against the empty mug. A steak knife, warped, serrated, rusty. “As a show of good faith, I have filled your cup. Now you get to return the gesture.”

  I tighten the bandage on my palm and stagger to the bus stop, clutching my fast food. My phone has no battery, or else I’d text Ali, tell him I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry, but I was right.

  I take the bus north, towards Salem, head pressed to the cool glass, fingers and toes burning as I pick at a greasy bag of french fries, sip from a soda the size of my head. No time to go and rest, the strike has already started. I just have to do my best with what energy I have left. What blood I have left. What time I have left.

  I feel the string of my promise to him, tight around my neck. I’m in no hurry to go monstrous, but it never seemed so bad to me. A blaze of glory. A chance to wield the rest of my short life like a bomb. Tear down what needs to be torn down with nothing holding me back.

  Now it’s different. I wouldn’t be a rabid animal, running free for one good day till I get burned. I’d be an attack dog, on someone’s leash, chained up till I'm useful. My power can’t just be mine, I always have to belong to someone.

  Salem’s skyline is not the blinding towers of Boston. It’s dominated by one huge building, an impractical, diabolical, middle finger to the universe, the witch hunt headquarters. Built on top of the memorial to the witch trials of the 1700s, its tower looms over a stadium that now hosts the next generation of burnings.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Thankfully, I wasn’t going all the way to Salem. I stand up, here in the dark stretch of highway in the middle of nowhere, and I hover next to the driver.

  “Let me off here.”

  “Wha- sir, sit back down,” says the pale woman with bloodshot eyes, behind the wheel. The plexiglass barrier between us is cracked.

  “Pull over wherever is safe, and let me out. I need to go.”

  “Sit back down.”

  I’m prepared to start smashing shit with the crowbar, then look at her. Anastasia Popov. The name feels familiar, even though the rest of her doesn’t. I wasn’t bluffing when I said networking was what I did best. “Vincent and I did you a solid once, let you keep those pretty teeth of yours,” I say. “Don’t test me tonight.”

  The driver does a double take at me. A pothole shakes the bus, which must be at least thirty years old, still operating on tires. “This is impossible,” she exhales. A single red tear wells in her eye. “No, I did everything right, I changed everything- the surgery, the documents- who sold me out- how did you-”

  “It’s a simple favor.” She thinks about saying something, then holds her tongue. I sit back down, wait for the bus to stop. Get out in the middle of nowhere, and start walking the other direction. When the bus moves again, I turn and walk into the woods.

  My experience with nature can be summed up with the little potted cactus I overwatered as a foster kid, one boring first date spent feeding seeds to poor endangered squirrels, and long nights selling drugs in a semi-wooded park, beneath a digital sky, eighty stories above ground level. I roll my ankle on the first step, plunge into the pitch black, vines and branches cut at my frostbitten skin. The forest is full of nomes, werewolves, dryads, and far worse: idiots with guns who come here to hunt them.

  I am swallowed whole.

  I’m not supposed to be where I am.

  It’s a clearing in the woods, not some fantasy druidic glade, but a little camp site, where a big tree has been cut down, its length divided into logs where one can sit, mossy and warm in the morning sun. There’s a white garbage bag with a couple beer cans in it, a shallow pond, and a station wagon, boxed in by thick trees in all directions. It, like the bus I rode a few hours ago, still has wheels.

  I sit on a stump, rest my tired feet, exhale, not taking any effort to sneak, but not announcing myself either. A snake raises its head from the grass, looking at me, tasting the air. It rattles.

  “It’s okay, little familiar, I’m just here to talk,” I tell the snake, and stay calm, and still. “Your witch is a hard woman to contact.”

  There’s a shifting in the station wagon, the trunk opens, and a bleary eyed, grey haired, overweight woman in a tank top and panties looks at me. Rosemary Roach.

  “Goaway,” she says, in one word.

  “I’ve been through quite a lot to get a chance to speak with you, ms. Rosemary.”

  She groans, grabs a pair of shorts, says in an apalachean accent: “You’re an intruder, under wards, you understand what that means?”

  “Rules of hospitality, I know.”

  “Rules of hospitality for you,” she says, fetching an old military jacket. “Not for me.” She shuffles through the station wagon, to the far side, climbs out, and then down into a wheelchair, and rolls over. She’s missing her legs, above the knee, both of them. I hadn’t realized, and now I was staring.

  The rattlesnake rattles again.

  “I’m sorry for intruding.”

  “Who’re you talking to?”

  “Your familiar.”

  She rolls up between the mossy logs, takes a look at the snake, then an exasperated look at me. Maybe I shouldn’t have said the F word out loud, but she said we’re under wards. She pulls a gun out of her jacket.

  “Whoa- whoa- whoa-”

  She aims it in my direction, closes an eye, wraps her finger around the trigger, and fires. The sound of the gunshot is deafening, no echo, no disturbed animals fleeing, I think it’s cause I’m dead before I hear it.

  A few seconds later I open my eyes, and the snake is gone, scurrying away from the little dirt crater in the ground Rosemary has added.

  I look back to the old witch.

  “If you go around assuming every dangerous animal you see is a familiar you’re going to have a short life,” she says, eyebrow cocked. Her hand twitches fiercely as she puts the gun back in her jacket, she wipes sweat from her brow even though it’s cold. “What’s there to speak about?”

  “First off, I’ve got a pact seed, so if you need guarantees like ‘I won’t use your name-’”

  “Won’t do you much good, I’m a wanted woman, far off the grid. Just skip to what you want.”

  I shut my eyes. I’ve rehearsed this so many times, and now I’m lost for words. “None of the elders show up to the witches' ball.”

  “It’s a stupid idea, being that social.”

  “There are pacts. Precautions. Weird glowing hats that make you impossible to remember.”

  “At the ball, but the texts you send after, the friends you make with no explanation how? Networks are a risk, best to insulate.”

  “Then don’t make friends, don’t send texts, but someone needs to come. I don’t care if you vote against me, you have a seat at the table and it’s empty.”

  “And what are we voting on, mister...?”

  “Heidi,” I say. “I’m a borrower, okay?”

  “A dangerous practice, too,” she says, shaking her head. No intrigue or people reading required, she at least is straightforwards with her angle. This woman saw the first purge, has been living with her head on a swivel for the forty years since.

  “Yes- it’s super dangerous, my witch didn’t even take me to get a pact of silence, not till I literally had the seed to do it myself. Most of us know enough to take down two or three witches but it’s ‘too much work’ to insulate us.”

  “Jesus,” she says. “This is the kind of show Henrietta is running?”

  “A friend of yours?”

  “Far from.”

  “I’m really glad to hear that. Everyone seems to be following her, and she’s wrong,” I say. “I’m trying to change things for borrowers, trying to establish some practices, things that’ll make life better for borrowers, but things that’ll make us all safer too.”

  “Look, mister Heidi, I do like the sound of that, but I don’t want a seat at the table. I don’t want to bicker with Henrietta, to have her rabbit come knocking at my door, to have to represent every other elder, and hear from them if I do it wrong.”

  “Right now, nobody is representing them. How can you possibly do worse?”

  She clicks her tongue. “Stubborn, aren’t you?”

  “You have no idea,” I smile, let the exhaustion show for a moment, then put myself back in order. “Is there any elder you think would be willing to do the job? Hell, maybe one has a borrower they trust to do it, to represent you. Like you said, it’s work, but someone’s gotta be willing. That table has its whole hierarchy decided, what Henrietta says goes. I can’t challenge her alone.”

  She makes a pained throat noise, looks away from me. “Next ball, there’ll be someone. Might be a borrower of mine. Might be Presley. And if I have to go my damn self, I will.”

  “Thank you,” I say. Without standing up, I offer a hand. She takes it, her grip is strong, her skin loose. No snaps, no tricks of language, no contracts and fine print. It’s a handshake pact, nothing but intention. “I have to ask- people talked a lot of warnings about you. How much danger was I in, here?”

  “My familiar is holding a dead man’s switch, semtex under your ass right now.”

  I’m too exhausted to process how insane that is. “Really?”

  She smiles. “You take a nap, get some strength in you for the walk back. Then you can tell everyone the tale of how you met Rose Roach and lived.”