6. Ratter

RATTER

M y mother Haven was a soft-curved, soft-spoken woman, who I knew loved me as much as any of her brood. But the tone she used when she addressed me the next evening, as I slid into my chair a few minutes late for our weekly family dinner, was one usually reserved for her schoolroom, when a student had been particularly naughty. “Ratter? Meet me in the training yard immediately after dinner.”

“Ah, sure,” I said, noting how the others at the table—except for the very youngest children—all kept their eyes on their plates.Plates that were mostly licked clean, except for dessert. Maybe I wasn’t just a little late. But I didn’t think that was what had her so upset. I grabbed a bowl still half-full of greens and took a large helping, eating fast. “Any particular reason…?”

Papa Niko snapped out, “Not around the littles.” Robert and Trevor, though they’d both moved out after they took their apprenticeships, were back for the night, and both shot me mocking looks of disapproval.

“What’s been going on in the schoolroom, Mama Haven?” I asked, hoping I could distract her by talking about the classes she and my dads taught to about two dozen children from merchant families who’d fallen on hard times. “Any new students? How are the supplies holding up? I could get you some more story books from the castle, even tonight if I nip back up right now?—”

“Don’t even think about it,” Haven hissed, trying to look stern. It was a little like having a kitten hiss at me, especially after facing Vilkurn’s wrath earlier. But when I blinked at her with wide eyes, she glared at my bodice. “The sweet and innocent act works better without the bloodstains.” Haven knew my crew and I all protected the queen’s brood, and that I was training as Vilkurn’s apprentice spy, but she liked to pretend not to know about the bloodier aspects of the job.

I peered down and mumbled, “Shit, how’d I miss that?” I licked a finger and rubbed at the spatter of blood that was almost hidden in the fancy embroidery there.

“Shizz,” Eliza repeated from her highchair at the end of the table, where Papa Rand was feeding her small, cut-up pieces of a cinnamon roll.

He stuffed a piece into her open mouth before she could repeat the word, but it was too late. Toby, our three-year-old brother, was already singing the word to his favorite tune. “Shit shit shit your shit, shitty down the shiiii?—”

“Language, Toby,” Papa Graham said calmly. “Just because a grown lady uses a word doesn’t mean you can.”

All the kids at the table burst into laughter. “Grown lady? Who’s grown?” Peony giggled.

“Who’s a lady?” Baby added with a mouth full of pastry.

Dev curled her lip. “Who wants to be?”

“That’s enough from all of you. Ratter, please tell me that’s not yours?” Haven sounded concerned. I wasn’t sure whether to be offended.

“It’s not my blood.”

Before she could ask anything else, the girls were giggling, and Peony had blurted out, “I bet it’s her boyfriend’s. That scrumptious one from Pict that she poisoned because he looked at that new castle maid for too long.”

“That’s not why I poisoned him!” I half-shouted. Papa Niko growled, and I went on, more quietly. “If I had, I mean. I’m not saying I did. He’s fine. I just saw him today.”

Fine with a fresh stab wound in his shoulder, but I wasn’t going to tell them that. I refused to feel guilty for my completely natural impulse to kill a man who tried to buy a kiss—my first one, no less! He deserved more than the tiny flesh wound I’d left him with.

“Ladies don’t poison the boys they like, Ratter,” Haven said sternly. “There are better ways to turn a man’s head.”

“I wasn’t trying to turn his head.”

“Unless you mean turn it a few full rotations until it falls off,” Verity muttered.

“Anyway, if I’d poisoned him, he’d be dead.” They all went quiet, knowing that was the truth. “I heard he just got some bad fish.”

Trevor snorted. “Yeah. I hear the poisonous trout are biting.”

“Enough,” Niko growled, Alpha dominance filling his tone. “No more talk of poison at the dinner table.”

Haven nodded her thanks, took a few more bites of her dessert, then said gently, “We still need to talk. General Vilkurn came by today to let us know what’s ahead for you. And why.” Her lower lip trembled, and Papa Rand leaned over and kissed her on top of her wheat-gold hair.

“All right, I may have poisoned Serak, but I didn’t do everything Vilkurn says—” I began to explain, and the whole table burst out laughing. Well, my crew did anyway.“What?” I glared at them all. “You don’t even know what I didn’t do!”

“Ratter, you always say you didn’t do the very worst of the things you do,” Trevor chuckled. “Just own up to it.”

Haven sighed. “Would you like to tell the little children your news before we talk?”

“Ah, not really, no,” I said, taking a big swig of apple juice. I’d met with my crew the night before at the castle, and that had been bad enough. “But I suppose there’s no help for it.” I mustered a smile for the littles. I didn’t want them to cry.“I’m going on a grand adventure. I’ll be leaving the day after the Solstice, and I’m going to journey all over the continent.”

“I go, too,” Toby demanded immediately. He loved to follow his older siblings around, which had gotten us into trouble more than once.

I smiled, rumpling his blond hair. “Not this time, Tobes. This time, it’s just me. But don’t worry. I’ll be back before you know it. And I’ll bring presents for all of you, so stop blubbering.”I glared at Baby, who looked like he might actually be crying, though a few of my crew had suspiciously itchy eyes all of a sudden.

Haven, though, decided she’d had enough, and stood. “Let’s go, Ratter. Trevor?” She nodded at him. “I’d like you to help Daddy oversee story time.”

“Story Daddy and Trevor are on the job.” Graham kissed Haven, then rolled his wheelchair toward the sink, while Niko and Rand grabbed their coats and a thick quilted blanket to wrap around Haven. “Everyone else is on dishes.”

The dramatic groans and moans almost made me laugh on my way out the door, into the wickedly cold evening air. Niko and Rand flanked their Omega as they accompanied us to the training yard. The two Alphas were tall and every bit as strong as they’d been when they were on active duty in the king’s army. But I wasn’t afraid of them. I was more scared of Haven, and her watering blue eyes.

“Don’t cry, Mama,” I said softly. “You know I get hives around emotions.”

She held the blanket wide and wrapped her arms around me when I stepped close to her. For a moment, I let myself relax into the softness of her hug, breathing in her cinnamon and sugar scent. She wasn’t short, but I was taller by a few inches, and I lifted my head to meet the gazes of two of the men I called father. Two of the best Alphas in the world.

“I’m not ready to lose you,” Haven sniffled.

“You won’t. Anyway, I can’t go,” I said softly. “Not yet.”

“We can’t get you out of this one, Ratter,” Niko said, his dark eyebrows lowering. “We did try. But?—”

Rand interrupted. “But some plagues kill fewer men than you have in the past year, daughter. And Vilkurn is right. If you’re going to take his place someday, you need the training. To become the woman you were born to be. Even if it means we won’t be there to see it.”

I fought back a sob, and found myself enfolded in a group hug. When I pulled away, I got control of myself, joking around with my dads until Haven gave them a look and they went inside. Then, we sat side by side on the bench Niko had carved. We waited to speak until we were truly alone, and I’d given the “all’s well” hand signal to Dev, who’d just snuck out her window to go do her shift at the castle. While the Mirrenese contingent were in residence, we wouldn’t leave the queen’s children without one of our crew in place.

Haven nudged me. “Now, tell me what has you so upset.”

“I didn’t mean I wasn’t going. I’m actually excited about it. But… I can’t go.”

“Why not?”

I couldn’t answer her. My crew and I had made a vow to the Goddess not to share the hiding place, or even the existence, of the women and children who were hiding in the heart of the city. But Haven had picked up some hints over the past years, and I had to tell her something.

“Have you ever had a secret you wish you could share?”

Her eyebrows flew high, and I felt my cheeks heat. What a dumb question. Haven was one of three Omegas known to exist. She had to bake cinnamon rolls daily to disguise her scent, and she and my dads had to retreat to the countryside once a year for an “adults only” getaway during her fertility cycles.

“Yeah, sorry. I mean, other than the obvious.”

Her gaze grew more penetrating. “Is your secret… the same as mine? Have you begun to?—”

I shook my head, hard. “No. Absolutely not talking about that, and no, I’m not an… I’m just not, all right?” Her eyes narrowed, but I went on. “I’ve had this secret for a long time. And I just need a little more time to… do something I’ve been wanting to do, needing to, before I leave.” There. That was vague enough. I’d been wanting to find a better place for the women and children for a while. Now that I had the money from selling my knife, I had everything I needed. Except time.

I had to make sure the place I’d scouted was still available and in good condition. I also wanted at least two trustworthy women living nearby, ready to help if needed, and willing to keep the secret of who had purchased the building and who resided inside. If I had to threaten with blackmail to make it happen, so be it. But it was easier if I could place them in a neighborhood that had sympathetic souls.

Haven cleared her throat, and I realized I’d taken out a knife and been flipping it end over end while I thought. “Where’s your good knife, sweetheart?”

“Had to sell it,” I said absently. My mind was still on the logistics of moving some of the assholes out of the area near the old glassmaking studios at the north end of town—especially the mean Alpha who lived just next door—and I didn’t realize what I’d said until I heard her gasp.

“What? Why? You love that knife. Where did you sell it?”

I told her the name of the jeweler, but shook my head when she insisted I go back to get it. “I needed the money.”

“What for?”

I had to tell her something. “You know how you had your dream of opening the school?” I asked. She nodded. “Well, this is mine. And it’s not just one school-sized dream. I want to make this happen all over, in every city. At least while the world is the way it is.”

I went quiet as I thought of the feral Alphas I’d had to kill. Of King Rigol himself, who’d almost succumbed to the Alpha madness before Queen Vali saved him, and even my own dad, Papa Niko. So many Alphas who wanted to be good were teetering on the brink of insanity. But it was the women and children who ended up paying the price for their condition.

“The world is fucked, Haven. I’m just doing my part to unfuck as much of it as I can.”

I heard a sound right then, a scrape of a shoe on gravel, outside the tall wooden fence. When I jumped up to see, no one was there. The only thing on the street was a basket by the gate, filled with fresh laundry from the lady who did Haven’s ironing in exchange for lessons for her son.

I left it there for now, and went back to my mother. The darkness of the evening was almost complete this close to the Solstice, even though it was early, and her hair shone gold in the chilly darkness.

“I’m so proud of you, Ratter,” Haven choked out, and I patted her shoulder, hoping the tears stopped before I either joined in or started getting itchy. “I don’t need to know the details of whatever you’re planning, but I know you’re doing what’s right.”

I shrugged. “I’m not going to pretend I’ve got honor like my dads, or a heart like yours. But I know how to solve the problem I’m working with. So what if I had to make a sacrifice? It was only a knife. This is more.”