Friendly Negotiations

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. They came when they smelled a fresh deal, perching low on the eaves of trees and gliding over nearby mountaintops, stone gargoyles admiring their congregants.

Tonight, they'd arrived just as she had, beating their wings softly against the wind, and for a moment she'd been sure she smelled what brought them here: something cool and bitter, a nagging certainty that this trade would go wrong—then it was gone. Lost in the dark.

Cassida took a puff of the honey's breath pipe Dorian offered her, scanning the scene.

The moon sat tall and fat in the sky, salt-white. Her ears pounded with the sudden overwhelming rhythm of four new heartbeats. Across the Valley, still half a mile away, the Links had arrived.

She took another puff, trying to make out their faces.

Hendrid, she'd expected, a grizzly man famous in the Drums for surviving so long without an ounce of brain or charisma to show for it. He was the one who'd called this meeting, so he was in the lead. Beside him was Galder, his right hand. He was only absent when there was more entertaining trouble to be found elsewhere, and he would not find tonight lacking. The last man was Frisk. He was... a surprise.

Cassida shook out her legs, trying to stay warm. Not for the first time, she wished honey's breath left a few key senses unheightened.

"Show of hands," Dorian said, sidling up next to her. "Who thinks we're gonna die tonight?"

Nadia and Godric's hands raised, but Lucien kept his stubbornly at his side.

"Ooh, looks like you're outnumbered, Cass." Dorian threw her an easy grin, teeth flashing white against the deep umber brown of his skin.

"Not for long."

She handed the pipe off to Lucien next, and he took a long pull, blowing an anxious cloud of green into the air.

"Do me a favor, man?" he said. "Shut up. I got plans for my life, okay? Big plans. None of them involve dying next to you."

"I'm hurt," Dorian replied. "We could've had something good together."

Nadia stretched her arms lazily across her chest. "Remind me what those plans are, again? A pretty girl and a cask full of skutz?"

Lucien blushed bright red to his roots. "Just because you have no interest in, in—"

"Buxom young women who lie about how handsome I look?"

"In fun," he corrected, "doesn't mean the rest of us have to live like saints."

"Simmer down." Godric tuned the flame of his lamp to rise higher, striking shadows across his angular face. “Do you really want those to be your last words to each other?” He sounded remarkably unconcerned.

It took a few moments for Lucien to summon enough composure to mutter, “If I have to tell ma you‘re dead, I’m gonna kill you.”

Nadia’s response was a dazzling smile and three quick smacks on the back. “Cheer up, old boy. Odds are: if I’m dead, you’re long gone.”

The Rubble continued leisurely toward the center of the Valley. Cassida did not miss the way their jackets bulged with lengths of lead pipe, nail-studded clubs, and heavy chains. A toothy dagger winked at her from the leather strap on Godric’s thigh, and a crossbow was slung across Dorian’s back. Despite their easy pronouncements, this crew was made of survivors, the very people she trusted most in this world. None of them would die without a fight.

“Shouldn’t she be here by now?” Lucien asked.

“Relax,” said Dorian. “Take a snare. It’d be more worrying if Irene was on time for once.”

“He doesn’t need drugs,” Godric said. “Nerves are normal. Embrace it.”

“With all due respect, doc,” said Lucien, “if this is normal, I’m killing myself tomorrow.”

“Why wait?” Cassida asked.

“So many opportunities tonight,” Nadia agreed.

“You would be idolized forever,” offered Dorian.

“Wow, okay, you know what? None of you are invited to my funeral.”

Cassida snorted. It had been four years since she’d recruited Lucien and Nadia to join the Rubble, back when they were just thirteen. They’d needed funds to pay for their ailing mother’s medical treatment, and there was nothing Cassida liked better than desperate people who didn’t know how much to give.

She’d let them work for her as brokers, racking up incurable reputations, all the while keeping it a secret from their mom. It had been a year now since Cassida had finally noticed their real talents.

Tall, weedy Nadia, with her red currant hair and pearly white skin, had an inexplicable memory, the kind that helped her count cards for three games at a time, convince rich strangers she knew their families, and recall exactly what ingredients Godric used in every trial of a new drug.

Blond Lucien, soft and round as a pad of butter, was a deft hand at forgery, but even better at appealing to animals. He could charm dogs into allowing Cassida to rob their owners, convince horses to let him steal a nobleman’s cart, and even—so he claimed—rub a dragon’s belly.

That she’d like to see. But not tonight.

Cassida turned over her shoulder at the sound of footsteps dashing from the looming willows behind them. The trees had shepherded the Valley for a century, large black smudges of a giant’s thumbprint against the sky. She recognized the smooth, breezy pattern of the runner. Irene.

And based on how fast she was coming, she’d taken a meltage tablet earlier that day and was still riding the high.

Irene slid to a stop once she was within speaking distance, panting for breath. Though meltage could make every muscle in your body stronger, impervious to strain, it could not compensate for lungs that had sampled every substance this side of the Brass Sea.

“Riders,” she gasped. Her pupils were tiny pinpricks in her wide blue eyes. She waved away the pipe Godric offered her.

“Where?” Cassida demanded.

Irene pointed to the mountains, dragon wings netting a web across the horizon.

“You’re kidding, those?” She craned for a better look.

Riders were the stuff of legends, the storybook characters her father would murmur about as he tried to put her to sleep. Back home, it was common knowledge that you could not control a dragon. They were wily, unfettered things. Here in the Valley, where the land held and cradled so much sin it had never earned another name, the same was not said.

Nadia grabbed Dorian and Lucien’s shoulders and pushed herself up. She laughed the kind of exhilarated laugh everyone seems to have forgotten by the time they turn twenty, a delighted, uncontrollable thing. “I can see them!”

“Get off me!” Lucien said.

“They’re not exciting,” Dorian added.

She jumped down to the ground, grinning brightly at Cassida’s narrowed eyes. “What?”

“I've forgotten why we bring you along.”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to forget how pretty I am.”

“Ah, that must be it. Next time, I’ll keep a portrait in my pocket.”

Godric tamped down the pipe and returned it to his vest. He shook his head. “I don’t like this. Dragons here with riders on their backs? They must smell the promise of blood.”

“As long as it’s not ours,” Cassida returned, but she was glad she hadn’t been the first to admit this night felt wrong, tenuous on its strings. Riders meant the dragons had intention, a purpose beyond swooping over the pickings of her team’s belongings the next day. The rest of the Rubble had laughed at her superstitions before. Dragons were animals; they had the desire for food, shelter, family—nothing more. She knew they were wrong.

Irene cracked a smile. “I needed a bit of your optimism.”

“Oh, Cassida’s just brimming with it,” said Dorian. “No, really, ask her how she thinks this trade’s gonna go. It’s hilarious. I bet her a gold paring we all die.”

“Might be hard to spend money from the grave.”

“Not if you’re crafty.”

Cassida‘s gaze flicked to Irene’s for just a second, but it was long enough to confirm everything she needed to know.

The rest of the Rubble had been kept in the dark about the mysterious packages appearing in Irene's room for the past six weeks. It had disrupted every aspect of her routine, turning the place she went to for safety into somewhere she knew she was being watched. At first, she had blamed other members of their crew, then rival dealers, then her family. But she’d been to visit them today, ignoring all the bruises of her past, and, from the look of things, come away empty-handed.

Cassida cared less about Irene’s family problems or who might have been responsible than how they were doing it.

On one of the most watched streets in lower Purdel, in plain light of day, someone was slipping into Driscel and leaving little presents on Irene's pillow, wrapped in brown butcher paper and tied with string. Once, she had even been home the entire day, holed up inside from a minor bullet wound, and awoken from a nap to find a package resting on her chest.

Cassida didn’t like it because it meant every room at Driscel was equally vulnerable, including her own. She’d boarded up the windows, reinforced the locks, sealed away air vents and laundry chutes, and still, the packages came. A glass pipe, a mortar and pestle, three copper brooches, an old knife Irene thought she'd lost… something new each day. They’d puzzled over it for hours, but Cassida had refused to let Irene ask the rest of the Rubble for help, just in case one of them was responsible.

They had more pressing matters to tend to now, though, so she barely spared it a thought. No matter what she said, Cassida was not under the illusion that her life was in no danger.

“Anyone need a little something extra?” Godric asked. “I brought a couple things just in case.”

Dorian stopped bouncing on the balls of his feet, restless energy slackening out of him as he ran a hand over the waves of his hair. “Ah, you glorious man, I knew there was a reason we kept you around. Tensworth, please.”

Godric pulled back the front of his thick woolen coat, extracting a vial of dark purple liquid and handing it over.

Cassida looked away.

She did not like tensworth. It made you agile, ready for any fight to come your way, but it erased all outward signs of who you were inside. With Dorian, it was particularly alarming. The blacksmith was usually relaxed and easy, supplementing his large frame and hard, chased features with a nature that begged you to feel comfortable around him. Now, his movements changed, echoing the flow of water in a stream: steady, persistent, inevitable.

She hated streams.

“Blister?” Nadia asked hopefully.

Godric did not pretend to be surprised. Everyone had their favorites.

“My beloved,” she said, admiring the bottle and exchanging a quick cheers with Dorian before downing it.

The pull came a moment later, pressing them all gently.

Make her happy. Tell her she’s pretty. Give her your wallet.

It wasn’t impossible to resist, but Nadia still used it for most negotiations, relying on her natural charm to do the rest.

“Maybe you should ease up,” Lucien told her. “That stuff’s addictive if you take it too often.”

“I don’t know,” she drawled. “What do you guys think?”

The others rushed to disagree, not bothering to fight her sway, and Lucien rolled his eyes.

Godric pulled a watch from his coat. “Time in twenty.”

Her eyes flicked across the dry fields. The Valley was set in a big bowl of earth, far away from the Drums of lower Purdel, unclaimed by any major organization. But everyone knew it. It's where you went when you had nothing to lose.

Tonight, they’d cleared the area to make this trade, as one always did when the goods weren’t particularly legal. It was protocol, but it made her uneasy. When things went wrong, she didn’t want to be screaming into an empty field.

The Links were not far away now, only a minute more. As the second hand of Godric’s watch ticked over to the hour, he extinguished his lamp.

She followed, drawing them into the dark. Three dots of light in the distance burned out a moment later.

The honey’s breath worked through her system, allowing her to make out a small circle of the area around them.

“You know, if I had one complaint about these deals,” said Irene, “and I do, it would be this part, right here.”

“Shame we couldn’t have a clearer night,” Godric agreed.

"I’ll be sure to take it up with the sky,” Cassida said distractedly, just as the Links entered her field of vision.

She strode forward, clasping Hendrid’s hand in greeting but keeping a careful eye on her surroundings. They would not be ambushed because of sloppy observational skills.

“May fortune favor us tonight,” said Hendrid. From anyone else, it would’ve sounded pleasant; from him, it was smarmy.

“I certainly have no objections,” she replied.

Galder and Frisk dropped a crate between them.

“We'd like to examine the haul,” she said.

“Of course. The passport?”

Lucien joined them, lifting the forgery from his back pocket and unrolling it for Hendrid to see.

“Godric,” she said, and jerked her head toward the crate.

He hurried over to kneel before it. She always liked watching this part.

From his coat, Godric pulled an eye dropper and a flask, working quickly. He propped open the crate and extracted three tiny crystals of the substance inside, Selwyn's lot.

He dropped them in the flask, dripping a dark liquid over them. They turned from blue to a dull, minty green, popping and fizzing.

“Pure,” he said, with just a touch of awe. She let it slide because she was also having trouble keeping her tongue in her mouth.

Godric backed away, and so did Lucien.

“I’m reluctantly impressed,” said Hendrid. “I didn’t think you’d bring anything of quality.”

It was hardly an insult; this was the Valley. No one came here if they could make a fair exchange elsewhere. No one came here to make a fair exchange.

The only question was whether or not you were the one being swindled.

“Well, now, don’t hurt my feelings.”

He smiled thinly at her, a rough, emotionless press of the lips. This was the work of years spent watching his back, churning every genuine emotion into something negotiable. She wondered what his face would look like if she held a knife up to his belly.

“I take it you’ve heard the rumors about this stuff,” Hendrid said.

“I know what I know.”

“Then you understand its dangers. This isn’t the kind of thing you can be selling on the streets. It's a new type of business venture.”

“Let me worry about that.” She nodded to her crew. There was no need to draw this out. “It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Hendrid. We'll take our leave.”

He took a step forward. “Not yet.”

“Problem?”

“I’m just not so sure I’m getting my money’s worth.”

She nearly laughed. Nadia spoke up.

"Surely you remember agreeing that the forgery is perfect." Her voice was as luring as a hot cup of coffee on a cold winter's morning. "What more could you want?”

She had taken him by surprise.

"Of course," he said. "It isn't anything to worry about at all, I just..." Hendrid shook himself, and his neutral expression turned into something resembling a glower. "This negotiation is between me and Miss Bendt. Not another word from you until the blister's worn off."

Nadia looked to Cassida for instruction, and she nodded. Nadia stepped back, pantomiming locking her lips shut.

Hendrid scowled. "What I'm wondering is if passage through the Brass Sea is really worth a hundred pounds of the grim reaper.”

Cassida shrugged. She'd only heard one other person call Selwyn's that before, but they'd said it with exactly the same intonation—less like a name, more like a warning.

“I’m not the one who thought it would be.”

“Perhaps I’m realizing this stuff doesn’t belong on the streets.”

She tilted her head. “Don’t be coy. If you're not going to make the trade, just admit it and we can leave.”

“That’s the thing,” he took another step forward, “I don’t think you can.”

“The forgery's still in my hands."

“But your fate is in mine.”

Cassida smiled, unamused. “Where do you get off?"

“I'd like you and me to understand each other. I have a proposition."

"How wonderful. Feel free to continue talking about it, but I'm leaving."

He grabbed her shoulder as she turned, and Cassida went for her knife, grasping empty air instead.

Her eyes darted to the ground.

Nothing.

She watched her crew pat down their clothes with growing horror. Frisk. She was no fool, she knew how he'd gotten his name, but he hadn't been anywhere near her.

Hendrid reached into his coat and pulled out a thin, hawk-nosed revolver, pointing it at her chest. She did not flinch, but she heard Lucien inhale sharply.

Finally, the unease of the night took shape.

“You’re making a mistake, Hendrid. Let’s settle this like allies.”

The honey’s breath haze was starting to fade now. She could no longer place Galder and Frisk in the darkness, so she focused all her attention on the revolver, returning the barest hint of moonlight her way.

Hendrid huffed a laugh. “You make it sound so easy. Why would I—why would anyone—trust an allyship with you?” His eyes spoke stories.

“Someone’s been tattling on me, have they?”

His hand shifted on the gun. “Does that excite you, Miss Bendt?”

“It’s always nice to be talked about.”

The revolver pressed directly into her sternum. The metal felt cool to the touch even through her shirt. She'd have one chance to get out of this, nothing more.

Hendrid shook his head. “I can’t figure out for the life of me why you think you’re special. Cassida the liar, Cassida the crook. Cassida has knives for fingers and she’ll carve you a new face in your sleep, wasn't it? Not so different from the stories you hear about most of the folk around here.”

She held up her hands, wiggling her fingers around. “Must be thinking of someone else.”

“You know what’s most important to have when you’re a dealer, little girl?”

“A good time?”

“A sparkling reputation. Because, that way, when someone like me wants to kill you, people won’t assume I've been swindled. They won’t say to themselves, 'Poor Cassida, but she had it coming. He was only after his dues.'”

She laughed, unimpressed. Anyone who wanted you dead would shoot; only someone who wanted leverage would make a point of showing you the gun.

Still, she was starting to wonder if his idiocy wasn't just a story Hendrid had built up for himself, something to convince people to let their guard down.

"What gets me out of this alive?" she asked.

"We're going to have a conversation. When we're done, I will ask you a question, and we'll see if I have to shoot."

"I'm a lot better at talking when my life's not in danger."

"We all must make peace with our shortcomings."

Something niggled at the back of her mind. If he hadn't wanted to make the trade, and he wasn't planning to just kill her and steal the forgery, what was the point of it all? Why even bring the Selwyn's along?

"If I gave you the passport and left the Selwyn's here, you'd let us leave?"

He smiled, showing gritty teeth, but sweat prickled on his brow. “I’m not an unfair man. You don’t bite me, I won’t take your teeth.”

It was an old saying, one she’d heard from her father countless times. But the way his eyes had flicked to the crate made it clear he wasn't speaking the truth.

Which meant she still had to find the limits of what that was.

“Looks like I was wrong, Dor.” Cassida withdrew a gold paring from her pocket and flipped it behind her. “Maybe we will die tonight.”

He snatched it out of the air, smooth as silk.

Hendrid’s finger twitched on the revolver.

“What are you waiting for?” She stepped closer, forcing all traces of good humor out of her voice. “Shoot me.”

Hendrid’s silence was heavy. In the distance, she could hear the dragon’s wings beating softly against the breeze.

“Go on,” she goaded.

After a long hesitation came a rolling click.

Cassida dimly registered the sounds of her team rushing forward.

She held up a hand to wait. This was too interesting. As far as she could tell, there was nothing that should be holding him back.

"Call off your dogs," he said, "right now! If I don't make it safely back to lower Purdel, the Links will send people to their families' homes, I swear to you."

She paused.

"Yes," he continued, clearly feeling that he was regaining ground. "That blonde girl's parents?" He gestured to Irene. "She visited them today, did she not? How would you like to see their house go up in smoke?"

"More than you could ever possibly know."

"Oh? What about your twins and their dear, sick mama? Should I put a bullet in her head?"

She did not care how he knew these things. They couldn't be all that hard to find out. But what made a grown man holding a loaded gun try to convince you not to hurt him? Morals? Some special knowledge he hoped to obtain.

"I get my turn first."

"Ten seconds, Miss Bendt."

“If you want to do it,” she insisted, “then do it.”

“You’re bluffing.” Hendrid’s voice hitched. “You don’t want that.”

“I assure you, I really, really do.”

He shifted his weight.

“Tell you what—” Cassida reached out a gentle hand, clasping it atop his, “—why don’t we pull the trigger together?”

She slid her fingers down over his, pausing for a breath, just resting them there.

Then, quick as a viper, she twisted the gun around in his grip, pointing it at him. The whites of his eyes were the only thing still clearly visible, but she saw how they widened in alarm, and a thrill of satisfaction racked her frame. That was real.

"I tried to give you a chance to stand down and come willingly," he said.

"Come where?"

Cassida was so focused on the gun in her hands, on the startling improbability of it being there and the question still on her teeth, that she did not notice he had pulled a whistle from his pocket until he was blowing it.

She jerked back, stumbling over uneven ground and falling. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the shape of the mountains change.

Hendrid stood towering above her, face a mix of satisfaction and ire.

Cassida scuttled backward, trying to find her way to her feet, but the stars were blotted out of the sky, and she could suddenly see nothing at all. Everything was quiet. She could feel the fear wafting off her team in waves as the air grew thick and sticky with warmth.

Run. Every instinct in her body was telling her not to stay here. Shoot the gun. It was too dark to be sure she wouldn't hit one of the Rubble.

Three soft thumps, large bodies landing in the grass. She could not tell which direction they'd come from, but she knew what they were.

The night grew long, leathery tails, webbed wings, and sharp teeth.

She tried to scoot backward, heart nearly falling out of her chest as she pressed up against something solid. Then a hand, a human hand was gripping her arm tightly enough to bruise, and she recognized the peculiar certainty of his movements, every breath intentional. Dorian.

Any relief she felt was lost, the massive bodies taking big, shuffling steps toward her.

A scaley whip flicked against her feet and a snout dove within an inch of her neck, sniffing. She held back a pathetic whimper, feeling the putrid breath wrap around her face and squeeze as tight as a vise.

Her lungs ached. Could you suffocate out in the open like this, breathing freely? Then, a bigger question: what did the dragons want? How had Hendrid gotten them on his side?

The first light she saw felt like a dream, a disembodied lantern floating over the dragon's skull. Its nostrils were the size of her fist, its eyes a startling, human sort of blue.

Kill it, her mind screamed. The gun, get the gun.

She remembered lying with her head in her father's lap every night as a child, listening to stories of heroes on great adventures, saving villages, and slaying dragons. That will be me someday, she’d thought.

Cassida could not move her hand.

The dragon reared back and spread its vast, horrifying wings. She choked on a shock of fresh air.

A human cry came from somewhere out in the night, and the dragon squealed roughly as it fell forward once more. Astride it sat a woman, flowing kerchief caught in the wind. She looked like something holy.

Two more lights became visible in the distance.

The woman had reined the dragon, thick black cords tied around its neck, a saddle on its sloping back. Riders, Irene had said, but part of Cassida hadn’t believed her. The stuff of legends, the stories you convinced yourself by the time of adulthood couldn’t possibly be true.

The woman looked down from her mighty throne, lantern in hand, eyes meeting Cassida's directly. She could not think of a thing she’d done to deserve this acknowledgment.

The dragon’s wings spread, stretching outward to the trees and collapsing back in leisurely.

“Cassida Bendt,” said the woman. “Dorian Hapner. I see you’ve met my associates. It’s time we talked.”