A quarter hour later found Rane Roth and Arthur Morgan trotting their horses towards the far side of the bayou. Despite the candidness of their conversation before, Arthur had fallen grimly silent, and Rane, all too conscious of what might turn out to be a massive mistake of a confession, was not prepared to break it. He was looking ahead, hat pulled low over his eyes, at the trail beyond, pacing his horse with hers.

"Tell me about him," he said at last, his voice low.

Rane started, surprised to hear his voice so suddenly after such a long silence, jumping in the saddle and then clutching at her chest, shaking her head. "Jesus, Arthur. Who?"

"Your man, Sirius."

Rane looked over at him, an expression of faint dismay passing over her face. "Sirius?"

"Yeah."

"Why the hell do you want to hear about Sirius?"

Arthur shrugged. "Curious."

Rane continued to look at him, scrutinizing his profile, then snorted without much humor. "Seems weird, is all."

"Why's it weird?"

"You know why it's weird." Rane studied him. "Especially now."

"Well, if ya want the truth, I just watched you break down screamin' his name, and I don't get the feelin' you're much the crying sort." Arthur turned to look at her. "If a woman feels that way about a man who's four years gone, I think it's worth askin' after. 'Specially if she was halfway to turning you away because of it."

Rane's face reddened a little. "I don't like talking about him, Arthur, it was a hard time. He died in a bad way and I had to pick up the pieces, and the next couple years I didn't handle it well. Just . . . hid away and drank myself stupid."

"You don't wanna talk to me about it."

"It's not you." Rane sighed, scrubbing at her forehead agitatedly. "It's just -"

"You tell John about him?"

Rane scoffed at this, glaring ahead at the trail before them. Somewhere nearby on the bayou, a loon called, low and eerie.

"Below the belt."

"Oh hell." Arthur glanced over at her, his expression grimly amused. "Come on. Tell me about him. And start with why his daddy gave him such a dumbass name."

Rane took a breath and let it out. She'd never had to describe Sirius Black before. His face swam to the front of her mind, angular and handsome, lit by his sideways grin, his hair in his eyes. Her heart broke a little bit at the thought. How many times had she woken up to that face?

"He was a looker. Tall . . . long dark hair . . . skinny as a rail . . ." She sighed roughly, shaking her head. "Big gray eyes. About as pretty as they come. "

"Alright, alright, Christ." Arthur looked surly.

"You just asked me to tell you about him!" Rane remarked, giving Arthur a scandalized look.

"Yeah, not wax poetic about how goodlookin' he was." Arthur waved an impatient hand. "Go on, keep goin'."

"Well, he was kind of a trust fund baby," said Rane. She was still steering her mare with one hand on the bridle, but her mind was taken by the memory, and Arthur could see it in her eyes when he glanced sidelong at her. "Rich parents. Came from old London money, all that. Ancient Pureblood family lines. Very fancy."

"Pureblood?" Arthur looked confused. "What, like . . . full Scotch?"

"Pureblood means that both his parents were wizards," said Rane. She placed a hand on her chest. "I'm half-blood, even if the Elvish shit wasn't factored in, because my dad was a wizard and my mom wasn't. Generally speaking, people tend to think Purebloods are a little bit more hoity-toity. If you come from a family without magic you're muggle-born, and it's seen as a kind of . . . well." She waved a hand. "That's a whole 'nother thing."

"Damn. Rich and well-bred. Likes of me can't compete with that."

"Well, he's dead, so you don't have to," said Rane shortly. Arthur glanced at her, chastened.

"Sorry. Go on, I'll hush."

"So he joined the Order early on, and there was some trouble. His two best friends were sold out. This was in the early days of the resistance, everyone was already wound up tight. Sirius got pinched for their murder, no trial or anything. Just thrown into the clink. He went away for like a decade."

"Christ." Arthur looked at her, a little shocked. "He killed 'em? His best friends?"

"No." Rane was shaking her head firmly. "No, absolutely not. It was a setup, and he was the fall guy. Long story. Anyways, he escaped and went on the run, and the Order picked him back up."

She fell silent, the thud of the hooves beneath them becoming loud. Arthur could see the roof of Shady Bell up ahead, distant, rising above the moss-draped oaks. Not much further, then.

"So that's it?" Arthur prompted her. "You met him and fell for him?"

"Sort of. I was an auror by then, but I hadn't really earned my spurs yet. Him being a convict and me being the one supposed to be tracking him down . . . you can imagine. Our first meeting didn't exactly go over. He put the fear of God into me that night, let me tell you."

"I have a tough time believin' any outlaw coulda gotten the drop on the likes of you, after what I seen."

Rane looked at Arthur grimly. "Sirius was a powerful wizard, Arthur. Like . . . notoriously powerful. I wouldn't have gone toe to toe with him unless I had no other choice. The only reason he didn't blow me out of my boots was because a mutual friend was sitting right there mediating. Trust me, I was outmatched. And I'm very fucking good, I don't mind saying," she added, glancing at him and smirking. "That man performed some magic before he'd even graduated grade school that most of the Wizengamot couldn't even do. He was scary good."

Arthur met her eyes, a touch dismayed at the idea of a wizard tough enough to frighten her like that. "Christ."

"Yeah. Then, I dunno . . . I mean, you know how it goes, he was handsome and witty and I was young and lonesome, sort of had a little crush on him -"

Arthur grunted, looking surly. Rane looked over at him wryly.

"You asked for this, sir. Quit acting all sulky."

"Yeah, I know it," he admitted gruffly.

"Well, finally one night it just sort of came to a head. I'd avoided it, I think, feeling anything for anybody. Training to become an auror was pretty much all I did for like three or four years," Rane went on. Her eyes were miles away, and Arthur hated to see it a little. Whoever this Sirius fella had been, he'd stolen her heart away, that was for sure. She sighed, shaking her head. "I didn't have time for anything else."

"Is it tough? To become one of them aurors?"

Rane rolled her eyes. "Very. They only accepted one or two people a year back then. I worked my ass off."

"To be a lawman?" Arthur looked amused. "Hell of a thing to suffer for."

Rane cast him a genuinely insulted look. "An auror isn't a lawman, Arthur, we're an elite taskforce. We take down the most deadly wizards there are. It's dangerous as all fuck, and we're trained harder than the goddamned SEALs."

"Couple of fellers shootin' sparkles off at ya?" Arthur's voice was light and teasing, but the look on Rane's face sobered him quickly. She looked none too amused.

"No. More like men and women firing killing curses at you faster than you can see, trying to dodge it and bring them down as quick as you can. All the while not letting any muggles know you're there. It's not easy, Arthur, and I don't like to hear anyone say it is, quite frankly. I worked my ass off for what I became."

"Okay, okay, Jesus." Arthur lifted his hands. "Anyways, what happened with you and your man?"

Rane sighed. She'd had to relive Sirius's death more times than she'd cared to over the past few days. "He was shot down in a fight, like I told you. It was nasty, we all had a tough time with it, especially his Godson. I was about six months along with Idril or thereabouts."

"Idril." Arthur cocked his head. "Purty."

"It's Sindarin. Means brilliance."

Rane's voice had become a little clipped; her eyes were roving ahead of them, her eyelashes flashing in the low light, her mouth set. She was humoring him willingly enough, but it was clear to Arthur that she wasn't exactly crazy about it. He'd seen the weird, confused look in her eyes when she spoke about these things, as if she wasn't quite sure if she'd dreamt it. And all that strange talk in the cave . . . he'd been too enchanted by her at the time to really take it all in, but it disquieted him when he thought on it now. I think I died, she'd said. The year Idril was born was 1997. That was ninety-eight years in the goddamned future. It was crazy to even entertain such a thing.

You wouldn't have entertained that a girl with steel on her hip and a wand in her pocket saying she was a half-human witch wasn't full of shit either, Arthur thought grimly. But here you are. So maybe it ain't so out of the realms of possibility, at that.

"Arthur, I need to tell you something," said Rane, jarring Arthur from his long thoughts. She pulled the morgan to a stamping halt, and Arthur did the same, surprised and a little concerned.

"What? What's wrong?"

"John." Rane lifted her hands and let them drop into her lap, looking defeated. "He told me he was falling in love with me the other night."

It was as if a cold hand had reached up and seized Arthur's heart inside his chest. He looked at Rane, brow furrowing. Here it was, not an hour after the fact. She was backing out, and his fool heart was about to be broken.

"Well color me surprised." He nodded, chewing his lip, trying to keep his voice stable. "And what'd you say?"

"I didn't say anything." Rane sighed. "It was the night we went to Saint Denis. It's been eating me up all morning, I just thought you should know."

"What the hell cause did he have to bring that up? I thought y'all just took Sadie for a damn drink!" Arthur was trying to keep the outrage he felt out of his voice and failing. His heartbeat had picked up and was racing beneath his shirt. "Now I'm hearin' this, after what I said to you back there?"

"I don't know, Arthur, we were drunk. It just came out."

"I know John Marston, Rane. That kinda thing don't just come out of him for no reason, especially with Sadie standin' right there -!"

"Sadie passed out. It was just the two of us." Rane was beginning to feel a touch of regret for opening her mouth. Arthur had come over a little pale and his eyes were glinting beneath the shade of his hat as he glared over at her, hellishly perceptive. She would never be able to lie to this man, that much was clear. The birds were singing merrily in the trees, and both horses stood mildly enough beneath them, oblivious. "Listen, Arthur, I'm only telling you this because I don't want to lie to you. I wasn't trying to piss you off, but this is all gonna come out in the wash eventually and John's gonna be upset, and I feel like you should know why -"

"Jesus Christ, Rane," said Arthur, passing a hand over his face and sighing roughly. "I knew I shouldn't have said nothin' to you -"

"Hey, hang on!" said Rane sharply, alarmed. "It isn't like that, Arthur -!"

"Well, tell me this," said Arthur, lifting one hand and massaging the bridge of his nose, eyes squeezed shut. "You were alone with him without Sadie, past cut off. So that musta meant you two got a room, because you didn't get back 'til the dawn."

Rane was stricken again by his hellish sharpness. She looked into his eyes, silent.

"Rane." Arthur grasped his face in both hands and leaned his head back on his shoulders, groaning deep in his throat, dragging his fingers down his skin. "God damn you to hell, woman. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Arthur, nothing happened." Rane could feel her heartbeat quickening beneath her shirt as she looked at him. Oh, this was fucked to the heavens. "Listen to what I'm saying. I'm not telling you this because I want to confess some kind of, I dunno, secret desire to be with him or something -"

"Oh, like hell." Arthur's voice was harsh. "You're telling me because you feel guilty. I didn't fall off the wagon yesterday. It don't take a damn genius to put it together."

"Just -" Rane glared at him. "Shut up a second and listen to me. I don't love him. I just thought you should -"

"Well, coming from someone who fucked the pair of us in the space of -"

"Arthur, I swear to God, I'm about to get pissed off. I'm trying to be honest with you."

"What, are you gonna run me through too?"

"Maybe!" Rane was glaring at him, her eyes hard and bright. "Are you listening to me? Why would I tell you this otherwise?"

"I dunno! Because you got a bad conscience?"

"Arthur -"

"Did you sleep with him again?" Arthur hated the desperation in his voice and could do nothing to stop it. "Did you? A couple hours after me?"

Rane slid off her horse, and Arthur did too, his motions slow and hesitant, watching her warily. She went for his hand and he yanked it back, and she stepped backwards, looking unhappily up at him.

"We didn't have sex, if that's what you mean."

Arthur wasn't fooled by this mincing of words. "You stayed with him in his bed, though."

Rane sighed, hands dropping to her sides. Arthur saw this and put his hands on his hips, laughing without humor.

"And not a full day after you had me in that cave." Arthur was shaking his head. "You get around quicker than a cold, don't ya?"

Rane recoiled at this. "What the fuck did you s -?"

"I said you get around quicker than a COLD!" Arthur repeated, his voice rising to a shout that echoed over the empty marshland around them. The horses stamped anxiously, ears swivelling toward him. "You hear me that time, Rane, or should I say it again?"

"You wanna yell some more, Arthur? Because I can yell too." Her voice rose, flat and angry. "We didn't FUCK. I just SAID that."

"Oh, well how very fuckin' chaste of you, ma'am. Wait 'til Swanson hears of this, he'll wanna make ya a lady of the cloth, moral compass like that. You show me a pair who spend a night in the same goddamned bed and try to say it ain't to do with romancin' and I'll show you a couple of liars."

"Arthur." Rane laughed without humor, her hands on her hips, shaking her head. "You're so fucking wide of the goal posts here it's almost funny, I swear to God."

"You just can't decide between the pair of us, can ya?" Arthur glared at her, his eyes hard, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn't remember being this angry with a woman, not since Mary Linton's fool of a father had tried to run him off. "You just can't figure out which one you want, huh? So you string John along by the ear, and you tell me a bunch of pretty lies so you can string me along too. That your game?" And when Rane only looked at him coldly from beneath her brows, her fists clenched at her sides, he kicked at a rock on the trail, sending it flying into the bush with a clatter. "Huh? Say!"

Rane stared at him for a long moment, her eyes hard and glimmering beneath her dark brows. Arthur was reminded of the evening she'd threatened him. Her face was very still, her breathing slow and long, her hair wavering in the breeze. It was that same predatory look she'd worn when she'd told him he insulted her at his peril. The girl who'd wept in his arms earlier that morning while her frightened heart thudded against his chest had vanished. This time, however, he felt no fear; his terror, and his rage, at the thought of losing this woman he'd only propositioned an hour before to the likes of John fucking shit-for-brains scarfaced turncoat Marston was far too large to allow him any room for much else.

"You wanna hear it?" she said at last. "About John?"

Arthur spread his arms expansively. "Sure. Get it all out about the dumb son of a bitch, Rane. I'm all ears."

"After I lost Sirius I wasn't with another guy up until the end of it," said Rane. Her voice was low, almost too low to hear over the whistling wind and the loons crying over the marsh. "Years. Without another person. People need to be touched, Arthur. Otherwise we start to go crazy."

"Rane -"

"Shut up," Rane said, her eyes flashing. "Shut up and let me say it, for once in your fucking life, Arthur Morgan."

Reluctantly, Arthur did.

"And John," she went on, "was without Abigail for the better part of a year. And from the sounds of it, she wasn't very nice to him even while she was around. So now you've got two people, starved for affection, drunk and together in the same place, alone. And the pair of us, without our others, without anyone to care about us anymore . . . of course it would go that way. Of course it would. And Saint Denis, drunk again . . . it shouldn't come as a surprise. I thought to myself the morning after we slept together that I could care about him, maybe, later on. But it wasn't the same thing, Arthur. The potential for a thing isn't the same thing. Okay?"

Arthur said nothing, only continued to watch her, his eyes glittering beneath his hat.

"Then you happened, after I'd gotten that initial shit out of my system." Rane looked up at Arthur frankly. "There wasn't any clouding of my judgment just because I was lonely. There wasn't the potential for feeling something . . . there was just feeling it. Surely feeling it, not later on but right then. My people don't take more than one in life, and after Sirius I never thought I would, but I can feel it. I can't hardly believe it, and a part of me is ashamed for it, but it's there."

She placed the flat of her palm over the center of her chest, looking up at him, her eyes still cold.

"I felt it here. When you woke up and saw me cold and pulled me in, it was done with for me. Not because I was drunk and lonely and sad and starved for touch, just . . . in love with you, Arthur." She stepped forward until she was nearly chest to chest with him, looking up at him nakedly. "I've felt it before and I know what it is. I know the difference. Gi melin."

Arthur looked down at her for a long moment, then with a brusque motion pushed his hat back and leaning down kissed her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. Before either of them could say anything more, however, a shot rang out, loud and close, and both the horses spooked, whinnying loudly and bolting into the marsh. Arthur and Rane spun around, shocked. There were a pair of men riding toward them, both holding shotguns aimed at them.

"The hell you doin' here? Get the hell out!" one of them shouted, and another shot rang out. Rane, who was normally quick enough with her blade to beat the devil himself, wasn't quick enough; it was the conversation with Arthur, and her disarmed state, likely, but the bullet ripped through her midsection, far on the left, flying out with a spray of blood. She fell back, gasping in shock, clutching at her side.

"Sons of BITCHES!" Arthur pulled both his revolvers and fired off four bullets, one after the other. The first two misssed their mark, but the second hit; both the men fell from horseback, blood dashing from their temples, and their horses cantered off into the swamp, braying in alarm.

"Son of a fucking bitch!" Rane was getting slowly to her feet, still clutching her side. Blood was seeping from the wound steadily. "God fucking dammit, that hurts -!"

"You're alright. Here, come here." Arthur grasped her shoulder, looking down at her in real alarm. Christ, but this morning had been a shitshow. "It ain't deep, you're okay -"

"What the hell? Who the hell is that?"

Arthur turned his eyes toward Shady Belle. There were more shooters, and then were striding out of the house to meet them, guns in hand. He cursed himself silently. They'd strayed too close, and gotten wrapped up in their talking, and now the whole goddamned place was likely privy to their presence.

"I'm fine, get off," said Rane sharply, shoving him off of her. She stood, wobbly, drawing her wand. "Come on, Arthur."

"You're shot, you goddamned fool -"

"I'm fine. Just come on." Rane was clutching her bleeding side with one hand, her face contorted, blood seeping from beneath her hand. She wasn't; she thought the bullet had grazed her lung, judging by the labored way her breath was coming, but she wasn't about to tell Arthur this. It'd get fixed later. "They're gunning for us. Is this the place you and Dutch were talking about?"

"Yeah." Arthur was still looking at her with sharp concern. "Rane -"

"I'm fine, I said." Bullets whined overhead of them, and Arthur ducked. "Come on, let's go get this fucker."