"It's a long journey ahead of us, buddy," his brother murmured, leaning in close and speaking in the humans-on-an-airplane voice. "Why don't you try to catch forty winks?"

Amon's eyes gazed blankly out the window despite the fact that it was evening and he could see nothing. Far, far below them was the ocean. The sound of jet airliner engines was a dull rumbling, plugged-ear noise in the back of his mind, and his sinuses protested fiercely.

"I can't sleep," he replied simply, not looking at Nagira. The blackness of the world outside seemed so damned fascinating somehow.

Nagira seemed to consider something for a moment and then reached under the seat in front of them, rummaging through a small carry-on bag. Amon's hearing was piqued even if his eyes weren't; they stared out the window as before. The sound of pills rattling in a bottle caught his hearing enough however, to turn his eyes. "What the hell are those?" he asked as Nagira dumped a small white pill out into his palm. Robin looked over from the aisle seat, her green eyes curious.

"Valium," the lawyer answered with a grin. "No questions asked. Here," he said, and handed the tiny pill to Amon. "Guaranteed to fix all anti-sleep problems, especially when coupled with a beer."

Amon frowned at the tiny white pill between his massive-by-comparison thumb and forefinger. "I don't need to take pills to sleep."

"If you didn't," Nagira countered, "you'd be asleep by now."

Robin looked over from Nagira's other side once more, pen stuck between her lips thoughtfully. "What's a seven letter word for 'guffaw'?" she asked of Nagira. Her crossword puzzle was obviously getting the better of her.

Amon contemplated the pill while his brother made theatrical noises of deep thought. "Did you try 'snicker'?" he asked helpfully. Robin shook her head, stumped.

"It doesn't work," she replied.

Nagira shrugged. "Maybe it does and something else is wrong, somewhere."

The idea that perhaps she'd goofed earlier in the puzzle seemed to quietly exasperate Robin and she sagged visibly. "I really dislike these things," she murmured, looking at the puzzle dully. "I'm fairly certain that all of my other answers are correct. But then again, you might be right..."

For some strange reason the crossword puzzle discussion was tugging at the edges of Amon's already fraying nerves. Perhaps it bothered him because Nagira and Robin could be so concerned about something as trivial as a crossword puzzle and then be so nonchalant when making decisions about things like packing up all of their belongings and taking off with yet another person they barely knew; Sigrún. He popped the pill into his mouth and swiped Nagira's small rum and coke from his inattentive hand, draining the plastic cup and using it to wash down the pill. He placed the empty cup back in Nagira's hand and pointedly ignored the befuddled look that Robin was shooting him, and the amused look that Nagira was directing at him.

In the seat across the aisle, Sigrún quietly tried to shush Eirikur to sleep.

Amon fell asleep listening to the whine of jet engines and the faint babble of Sigrún singing in Icelandic, and the closer sounds of Nagira and Robin resolving to work together and defeat the crossword puzzle.

..........

He had mistakenly been under the impression that they were staying in Portugal once they got there. That wasn't entirely sure, however; his mind was still exceedingly fuzzy and his movements slowed from the combination of Valium and alcohol on the plane. Dry-mouthedly and drowsily he made it through half of a short flight from Lisbon International Airport to a much, much smaller airport—Portimão Airport—before falling asleep yet again. The fact that he'd been able to sleep at all on the flight amazed him and was a tell-tale sign that there was still quite a bit of functioning drug left in his system; the plane had been very small and the flight hadn't exactly been the smoothest. The rough nature of the flight had greatly upset Eirikur, who'd spent most of the flight giving short, choking wails despite Robin and Sigrún's best female efforts to quiet the squalling baby.

Amon had slept through most all of it.

In Portimão they boarded a train set on a north-easternly path towards Spain. Amon's muddled mind was trying to make sense of why they'd flown from Lisbon all the way down to close enough to the Azores to be the Azores, for all he cared. He supposed there was a reason for it, however, and resigned himself to it. Once on the train, however, he managed sleepy, semi-confused protests at their rooming arrangements for the apparent two-day train trip. Last time he'd been in Europe, he seemed to remember the trains being a lot faster. Sigrún had informed him that the trip was so long due to the fact that they were kind of riding the train around a bit for a while to confuse anyone who might have followed them.

"That still doesn't explain the rooming situations," Amon said, chagrined. "I won't allow it."

He and Nagira were originally set to room together, while Robin, Sigrún, and Eirikur were to be in another—mother and child in one bunk, presumably. Sigrún may have been Gróa's sister, but it still didn't mean that Amon was ready to trust her that much yet. He hadn't kept Robin alive all that time just to have her killed in her sleep, right under his nose. Nagira was watching the exchange with amusement.

"Well, what do you propose, then?" Sigrún asked, clearly trying to be civil about the whole affair and Amon's sudden insistence on modifications of the plan. "That Robin rooms with your brother and you? I'd think that there'd hardly be enough room," she remarked.

"No," Amon said, even though he wasn't really sure where he was going with his argument or even what a suitable solution would be, "I'm not saying that."

"Well, then, what?" Sigrún asked, clearly at a loss but clearly (and subtly) amused by Amon's prudishness. "Should we allow her to have her own room?"

Amon's brow furrowed in thought—while under any other circumstances that would have been the logical solution, he liked the idea of Robin alone in a room even less than he liked the idea of her rooming with an almost perfect stranger. "No. That's..."

Nagira huffed and stepped forward, leaving a typically reticent (and now somewhat embarrassed that everyone was talking about her like she didn't exist) Robin a step behind him. "Okay, look. How about this, buddy—I'll room with Sigrún, if that's alright with her, and you and Robin can room together. Although," Nagira said, an underlying, indecipherable emotion in his voice, "I'm not sure why you're so concerned about it. It's only for two days, and Robin has already proved to us on several occasions that she's more than capable of defending herself if need be."

Silence reigned for a moment. "That's fine with me," Sigrún facilitated politely, nodding. "I trust you and you're right—it is only for two days. Train-travel is never particularly comfortable or easy. I knew that going into this. I only regret that Trygve couldn't come instead...it certainly would have made rooming arrangements simpler, yes? Then you would have been able to room with another male instead of a female and her child."

Nagira shrugged. "Don't bother me none. I'm a gentleman." He grinned.

Nagira and the Icelander with the child headed off down the hallway, leaving Robin and Amon to stand there in the hallway and glance at each other; one still somewhat embarrassed, the other tired and too embarrassed to let the embarrassment show. Instead, he glanced down at his ticket stub and sighed, hefting his bag. "Let's find our room," he said, and Robin nodded wordlessly, following.

.............

The prospect of the train moving through Italy elated and terrified her. It was her home and she thought it the most beautiful place in the world—but it was also the center of everyone and anyone who wanted her dead. And not just dead, but eradicated.

Robin clenched her pillow tighter and stared out the train's window at the scenery that flew past. Below her on the bunk, Amon read. They said nothing to each other. He'd been unusually reticent since yesterday. As per usual, it worried Robin immensely that Amon wasn't speaking to her, but she was too preoccupied with her own thoughts to try to goad him into speaking.

She felt like Alice; curious and getting curiouser. She was falling further down the rabbit hole and she was pulling Amon and Nagira with her.

Over dinner in one of the dinner cars last night, Sigrún had taken the time, while feeding soft, cooked baby carrots to Eirikur, to explain to them (quietly) in greater detail most of the situation.

Being the Eve of Witches was going to be a lot, lot more difficult than she'd originally imagined. Part of her still wished that Amon had complied with her wishes that night on the couch in Gróa's house and packed them off to somewhere far away to live in anonymity forever.

Before taking on SOLOMON could even be considered, Robin needed to establish herself in the Witch world. That had been the downside of Amon's paranoia, his unwillingness to associate with others (and Robin wondered if he was being so quiet because he felt guilty about all of it)—she and Amon were like fairy tale characters in Witch society. Some believed they lived, some didn't. Some thought the idea of an "Eve" was perfectly ridiculous—especially when that "Eve" was an awkward fifteen-year-old girl. Some resented the fact that they'd been a part of SOLOMON for so long. Some believed her to be some sort of second coming. Some—most—believed that even if indeed Robin and Amon had existed, they'd probably long since been killed by SOLOMON.

"Here's the general consensus," Sigrún had said, scooping mooshy bits of chewed carrot off her son's chin. "You're about half and half supported, I think. There are those like Trygve and our Coven who believe whole heartedly in you and your powers. There are some—and you'll meet them—who are either fearful of or scoffing at a fifteen year old girl taking their power from them. There are those who are certain you have to be dead. And finally, there are those who might believe in your powers, but would probably frown upon certain aspects of this whole situation."

Robin had frowned slightly, looking over to Nagira and Amon, whose faces were almost identical masks of steely composure. The tip of Nagira's cigarette glowed briefly as it dangled from between his lips. "I'm not looking to take anyone's power away from them," she began, timidly.

"It does not matter. By nature of your existence, you will take the power away from those who do not deserve it." Sigrún appeared determined even as Eirikur decided to fling bits of mashed, gummed carrot everywhere, baby-speaking.

"Who are these people? And why would they frown upon my situation?" Robin asked then, eyeing Sigrún with trepidation.

"They're the heads of the other major Covens—at least in the European theatre. They form a mostly old, stuffy, and bourgeoisie committee who operates behind the scenes, sometimes within even SOLOMON itself. We're not entirely sure, but we don't even think SOLOMON knows that such an advanced Witch ruling party exists."

Nagira had laughed somewhat, looking over at Amon. "Figures we'd have to get involved with the fucking Craft-using Illuminati."

Robin shrugged slightly then, relaxing a bit. "Well, then. Gróa had told us that your husband was the head of the most powerful Coven in Europe. We shouldn't have to worry about this committee, should we?"

Sigrún smiled faintly then, looking wistful. "Ah, Gróa. Always a staunch believer in the grass-roots aspect of resistance." Tipping a cup of milk to Eirikur's lips so he could drink, the blonde Icelandic woman sighed. "In terms of sheer number and geographic location, yes, we probably are. However—"she couldn't help but ignore Amon's piercing glare, here, "—there are a lot of young, inexperienced members. It's very loose knit and somewhat...clandestine. Very grass-roots. And the committee is still a bit of an issue for us seeing as how we're a member of it."

Amon had blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Like I explained before," Sigrún said with a sardonic little smile, "they're very stuffy. And they don't like the idea of 'half-breeds' and Seeds in their little group. We're not..." Here, she searched for the right word. "...old money enough, for them. We're sassy upstarts, simple punks, to them." She frowned. "And all this talk of an Eve definitely has them talking."

Robin looked at Nagira and Amon, bathed weakly in the dim light from the small lamp on the table. The shadows played across their faces, and for a moment, as they conversed via their eyes, they looked like some kind of figures from a Greek tragedy, or some ancient statues on the sides of a cathedral. "Talking?" she'd asked quietly, swallowing. "Saying what?"

"Do you really want to know?" Sigrún asked, sympathetically. "It might hurt your pride, Robin. What they say is of no importance. They are old, foolish power-gluttons who don't recognize your powers, but soon will."

Silence from Robin. She had been busy internally debating whether or not she'd wanted to hear the words of the shadowy Witches who already hated her, simply for existing. "Yes. I want to hear," Amon said, darkly. His eyes stared over at Sigrún flatly, some shadow of injury there. People were doubting his power, and hers too. And Robin knew that very few things made Amon madder than when he was underestimated or pushed aside.

A sigh. Eirikur flung a fork onto the floor, singing in baby language. "They hear the tales of a fifteen year old girl, not even good for making babies—too young, hips too small, nothing aided by the fact that she grew up in a nunnery. If she's so all-powerful, they wonder, why would she ever disgrace herself and her kind by bowing to work for SOLOMON? Why would she have to run from them when they pursued her, instead of making them her own prey? And why, they wonder, does she need guardians at all?" Sigrún paused, listening to the silence around her. "Especially, they wonder," she went on, knowing that the man across the table from her was growing silently angrier and angrier with every word, "why she has a guardian who isn't even a witch and one who is a witch but is only a Halfling, and merely a child in the art of the Craft."

There had been more silence, heavy and awkward around the table. Nagira appeared to have been appraising the words of the invisible committee, and Robin had settled for simply looking very taken aback. Amon had been glaring off into space at some invisible spot in front of him, his eyes burning indignant fury.

The sounds of Amon turning a page in the bunk below her brought Robin out of the reverie, the remembrance of the evening prior. Her lithe fingers gripped her pillow tighter, looking out over the blurring countryside. It seemed they were to be fighting a war on two fronts, soon. This wasn't as she'd imagined it, at all.

But then what did you imagine? Her mind asked her. Every witch in the world welcoming you with open arms? Just like anyone else in the world, people in power don't like to have their power threatened or usurped—even if they are witches. Did you think it would be easy? Fun?

Her nails were almost cutting into the fabric of the pillowcase, and Amon turned another page. Robin's teeth ground against each other lightly as she pondered whether or not she'd have the strength to prove herself to the witches she'd encounter, or if she'd end up rejected and alone.

...........

By sunset the train was approaching the city of Prague. Robin had slept for a bit after wearing herself out by staring out the window, thinking. When she awoke, sitting up, she squinted groggy eyes at the form of Amon sitting next to the window on the bench seat, gazing out at the scenery flying past them.

"We're nearly to Prague," he said to her as she rubbed her eyes, stretching. Blinking, she turned her attention to the window. What seemed like millions of little red-roofed buildings dotted the landscape, crammed together so closely that no earth or greenery was visible. It reminded her of Italy, in a way.

"The Czech Republic," Robin murmured in assent. "Is this where we're staying?"

Amon paused while looking out the window in a way that managed to be distasteful and wistful at the same time. "I hope not."

Robin furrowed her brow. "Why not?"

Heavy, uncomfortable silence ensued. Finally: "I was born here."

Robin's brain reeled with the possibilities. The cramped, crowded city sprawling out below the train tracks was the city of Amon's birth. They'd come full-circle enough to return all the way to the place where he was born—another bit of his past history that she never would have known of any other way, and she quickly filed it away within the file folder in her brain. Amon Novotne was born in Prague, Czech Republic.

"Are we going to stop here for a bit?" she asked of him, feigning disinterest.

"Most likely. The train station here is fairly large. We'll more than likely have a couple hours here on the train before it leaves the station again."

Robin began to make her stealthy maneuvering towards her goal. She itched with a need to see the city of Amon's childhood, to see the streets he would have seen as a child with his mother. She stretched again, feigning lingering drowsiness. "That's good. I want to get off the train for a little bit and stretch my legs."

Her warden looked at her in a manner that seemed precisely knowing, in a subdued way. "Really."

Robin swung her legs over the edge of the top bunk, sliding down carefully until her feet hit the floor with a thud. The movement of the train felt odd to her stationary body and put a strange feeling into her stomach. "Yes. If we have a few hours here...it wouldn't be such a problem, right?"

He looked at her. "I don't think it's wise."

"Why not?"

"Because it isn't."

She blinked at him, staring. His gaze did not flinch away from hers, in true Amon fashion. "You don't want to go, do you?" she asked suddenly, quietly, and pointedly.

He broke eye contact with her and resumed his looking out the window. "That's neither here nor there. I just don't think it's a very wise idea."

Robin frowned and leveled a calm yet somehow imperious look at his form, which wasn't looking at her. "I'll get Nagira to go with me."

"Nagira would probably get horribly lost. This isn't exactly an easy place to navigate." Amon cracked his thumbs.

Robin arched an eyebrow. "I'll get Sigrún to go with me."

Amon's normally downturned mouth turned down into a slight scowling frown. "I doubt she'd want to trek all around the town with a fifteen-year-old girl and an infant in tow."

Robin folded her arms over her chest, feeling somewhat offended that Amon had semi-lumped she and the baby Eirikur into the same category—annoyances and hindrances for Sigrún. "I'll go by myself, then."

He was scowling, then, darkly. "Out of the question."

The urge to pucker her lips into a taut little line was strong, but Robin resisted. Her arms tightened about herself and she tilted her head back even more imperiously. "Then you're coming with me."

Grey eyes slid from the window to her face. "No, I'm not."

"I will go by myself."

A muscle in Amon's jaw twitched. "You will not."

Her teeth clenched. She wanted to throw something at him. "I will."

He only stared at her stonily, coldly. She hardly ever spoke to him thusly, and he was already in a bad enough mood as it was from the previous night's revelations of their standing in the witch world. The look in his eyes told Robin that she was about two steps from destroying his last good nerve, perhaps—or having him erupt into laughter in her face. She never could tell

Some part of her refused to back down, however.

"You will not," Amon said after a momentary pause, slowly, placing emphasis on the words.

Taking a deep breath, she hardened her face. "Yes I will. You may either come with me or I will go unattended. That is all there is to the matter."

He was still looking at her with the same furiously cold look plastered on his face, but his smoky eyes spoke of some untold deep emotion. She'd won. "Throwing tantrums isn't like you," he mused quietly.

Blinking her green eyes at him patiently, she attempted to maintain all of her dignity even though he'd just accused her of winning by throwing a temper tantrum. He wasn't going to cheapen her victory by making it seem like she'd gained it through immature, lesser means. "It's not, and that's why I didn't. I stated my opinion."

The corners of Amon's eyes crinkled faintly. "An opinion eloquently and subtly stated through a tantrum. I'm sure your subordinate witches will fall right in."

Feeling suddenly spunky and haughty, Robin looked down her nose at Amon slightly, making the most of her diminutive height—which was a little easier since he was seated. The subtle, amused smirk on his face only served to make her feel all the more irate. "You're a subordinate witch, aren't you? You fell in."

Amon's look of amusement did not fade. "Big words from a small girl."

Her eyes widened at him indignantly, her superiority forgotten. "I'm not that small."

"Compared to your subordinate, you are," he countered. He leaned back, hands folded in his lap. "I think that perhaps this whole Eve business has gone to your head."

"It hasn't," Robin replied earnestly. "I don't want it to seem like I'm bragging or anything." She picked at a nail suddenly, furrowing her brow in thought. "I suppose that being the alpha witch does have a certain guilty pleasure in it, though. I mean..." She trailed off frowning slightly when a bit of her nail flaked off. "...I haven't ever really been good at anything in my life. I wasn't even a very good Sister, at the convent. I got into trouble constantly—I was always caught sneaking food at night when I was supposed to be in bed, I always had hair sticking out from under my head scarf, and..."

Amon looked decidedly amused at this point—not that Robin noticed. She was too busy picking at her nails in a somewhat mortified manner. "...I even used to fall asleep when we were supposed to be studying our Scriptures or praying. I guess...maybe I was a downright rotten Sister."

Amon shrugged after a spell, mirroring the action with his eyebrows. "You might have been a rotten Sister, but I think you'll make a pretty good alpha witch."

Robin looked up at him, astounded. "Really?"

"What do you think?"

She cocked her head at him inquisitively. "I...don't know."

Amon, apparently in a rare moment of extremely good humour despite having been defeated and sassed by Robin, allowed one corner of his mouth to quirk up just a tiny bit. "I think you would look better in a pointy black hat than in a penguin outfit, anyway."

Robin couldn't stop herself from blushing, and she turned and pulled herself back up onto her bunk to keep Amon from noticing—he probably already had, knowing him. "Oh, habits don't look like penguin outfits! You're awful."

........

Nagira had probably never looked more ridiculous in his entire life. Amon had to try—really try—to keep from bursting into outright laughter. His older brother was standing outside of the train on the boarding and departure deck, bouncing Eirikur in one arm and smoking a cigarette with another. He looked decidedly harried.

"Babysitting?" he asked of the harried, smoking man in a deadpan jovial tone.

"The hell does it look like?" Nagira grumbled, taking a deep drag from his cigarette. "Remind me to kill you for being so damn possessive of the kid and forcing a room switch." He was referring to Robin, but Amon did not allow himself to take the bait. "The little guy here was up crying for half the night—and I don't know how, but after a while I just smashed my pillow over my head and passed out. Sigrún was exhausted today, so I offered to watch the kid for a bit while she napped."

Silence.

"Me and my damn big mouth," Nagira groused as Robin came fairly bounding off the train, almost colliding with a couple in front of her. She was still fumbling with the buttons on her peacoat. She spotted the brothers and the baby and moved towards them, fingers fussing at the buttons. "Hey, kiddo," Nagira offered by way of greeting as Robin took her customary place next to Amon, waiting for some sort of leading cue from him.

"Hello," she replied, still preoccupied with her buttons. Amon watched Eirikur staring at him, slobbery baby fingers poking into his mouth.

"We're going out around the area for a while," Amon said to Nagira, who looked fairly shocked. "Are you coming?"

"Fun for the whole family," Nagira said, bouncing Eirikur as he smashed his cigarette on the platform with a shoe. "Nah. This kid has a habit of randomly deciding to throw tantrums whenever something he doesn't like happens. And these aren't quiet tantrums, either."

Amon couldn't help himself from commenting. "Sounds like someone I know." He caught Robin shooting him a fleeting baleful look out of the corner of his eye. "Suit yourself. We won't be long. Robin wants to get some air."

"What Robin wants, Robin gets," said the lawyer, with a hint of a teasing tone. Amon did frown at him then, taking half the bait. The Eve herself finally finished fixing her buttons and looked to Amon, waiting for the cue. He turned and began to walk away from Nagira, and she followed, following her cue. As they left the train station, she asked him a few small questions about the city; how big it was, how old it was, how long it'd been since he lived there. The last he answered with a bit of a clipped tone, his way of indicating to her that he didn't wish to discuss the private connections of the city to his life. He'd quote figures and history to her all day long, but he wasn't going to quote his figures and history.

Robin seemed preternaturally interested in Prague, even though they'd been to all manners of places by then. Prague was a beautiful city, that he couldn't deny; and it certainly was lively, but Robin was acting as if she'd never seen a city before. He felt like he had a pretty good idea why.

Because it was something that was his, something that was a part of him; therefore Robin was devouring it vivaciously, taking it all in as quickly as she could, burning it into her brain. She supposed that by visiting the city of his birth, walking the streets that he might have walked as a child that she would somehow gain some kind of insight to him as a person, perhaps figure out what made him tick. It was almost as if she was scanning the streets intensely, excitedly, hoping to catch a glimpse of a much younger, happier ghost of himself, hand in hand with his mother—a little boy and his beautiful, crazy, eccentric, kept mother. Her eyes were struggling to see him, eight years old, bounding down the street towards the apartment he lived in with his mother, the apartment her rich parents paid for—the apartment she didn't clean, or cook in, because she didn't know how. She spent her parents' money on dinners every night—Robin's green eyes were searching the Czech streets, fervently, for the little boy and his giggling mother bounding into some expensive restaurant, severely underdressed and too loud.

Amon knew that Robin was hoping that by integrating herself into this part of his history, that she would become somehow closer to him.

If she only knew how close she'd gotten. If she only knew.

His musings of Robin searching for the ghost of himself and his mother began to play tricks on his own mind. Every tall, thin, long brown-haired woman he suddenly looked, in a glimpse, like his mother—her full lips pulling wide into her non-stop insane, infectious grin, her brown eyes sparkling with joy and something that wasn't quite right. Every teenage girl whispering into the ear of her boyfriend became his mother, stooping to whisper into his six-year-old ear that the spirits were talking to her again.

Suddenly it seemed that he too was looking for the ghost of his mother in the streets of Prague. Amon knew he shouldn't have come into the city.

"Amon?" her voice cut into his thoughts—Robin's, not his mother's.

He looked to her suddenly, his hallucinations turned reveries cut into. "Yes?"

Her hand moved towards him, timidly and slowly. "Are...are you alright?" Her long fingers alit on his overcoat's sleeve, daintily. "You're sweating," she said—the unspoken afterward—your Craft is bothering you, isn't it?

The tactile sensation of her fingers upon his arm felt like points of light searing into his arm, even through the layers of clothing. Yes, his Craft was acting up. "I'm fine." Her hand moved away and he looked away, vaguely embarrassed and angry at himself for becoming so worked up. His eyes strayed across the busy street, looking for something stationary and inanimate to focus on.

"You seemed as if..." she trailed off, and he looked back to her suddenly as if he hadn't heard her start to speak.

"Are you hungry?" he asked pointedly, and she blinked, her train of thought halted. Her eyes spoke of understanding—Amon steering me away from something, yet again—and she nodded.

"A little," she replied, playing along with his strange little games of aloofness.

"We'll find something to eat and then head back to the train station," he said, walking—but doing so slowly, so that she would catch his cue and walk with him.

...........

"Thank you so much for watching Eirikur while I slept," Sigrún nearly gushed, accepting the child into her open arms with the most thankful look that Nagira thought he'd ever received. "I was terribly exhausted."

He nodded. "No prob."

"I hope he wasn't too much trouble?" she said, a lilt to her voice indicating that it was a question. The baby appeared very glad to see his mother.

"Not at all," Nagira said with a show of bravado, scratching the back of his head. "He just definitely reminded me that I'm probably not ready for any little tots of my own."

Sigrún laughed. Eirikur made raspberry noises.

............

The sounds of travel and the rhythmic movement of the train didn't seem to help her sleep any. Not even her full stomach (vepřové s krenem —pork with horseradish sauce, and Èeský zelný salát—Czech coleslaw, which was very strange indeed) seemed to help lull her to sleep. Her warm blankets seemed stifling rather than comforting. The soft sounds of Amon's sleeping breath below her prevented her from moving, fearful of waking him. A few minutes later, Robin heard him stir minutely below her; a simple rustling of sheets and covers, nothing more. She let out a breath she didn't even know she'd been holding.

It felt as if she'd been laying there for hours, trying to sleep. In actuality, she didn't know how long it had been since Amon had turned out the lights, but she approximated her time in bed at around an hour and a half or so. Normally she had no problem falling asleep. Usually it was Amon who seemed to have difficulty sleeping. Fate had decided to switch their roles, this night.

The train rolled on, away from Prague and the Czech Republic, destined for Budapest, Hungary; from there they went to Budapest, Romania, to Warsaw, Poland, to Leipzig, Germany. From Germany they would finally reach their destination—Copenhagen, Denmark. Robin's mind reeled. So many countries, so little time. There was no possible way that SOLOMON could have successfully followed them; even she didn't know where she was, exactly. Her warm breath fanned out on her unfamiliar train pillow.

All the pillows her head and hair laid upon were unfamiliar. The train pillow was no different, except that it was a train pillow. That was something new and different.

From Denmark, where? Who? What? How? How to be a big girl and command respect, win over a committee of surly, unfamiliar witches; how to establish herself as the Eve? And to what means? In the beginning—oh, how naïve—she'd merely wanted to take on SOLOMON.

One girl and her warden against the world.

Taking on SOLOMON had turned out to encompass sucking in her warden's brother, and a woman who laid down her life for them. It turned out to encompass having to take over the witch world before she could think about anything else, and it had served to complicate her life tenfold.

All on the road to becoming the alpha witch. Had she really commanded respect today, bending the unflappable Amon to her will, or had he been subtly teasing her as he sometimes did? Robin admitted, internally, that it had felt immensely bizarre having Amon acknowledge her—perhaps even in jest—as the alpha among them. He'd always been her alpha, and still persisted to be. Even if she had to argue with him sometimes, even if he frustrated her (an emotion she was still relatively unfamiliar with), he was her alpha. What he lacked in control over his Craft he made up for in intelligence, composure, actions, and—

--and Robin sighed very quietly and softly as she realized her train of thought had degenerated to daydreaming about the man sleeping in the bunk below her. Perhaps as a way of getting back at him for invading her thoughts, she rolled over noisily, making sure she made plenty of movement and rustlings. Stilling, she heard Amon's reply stirring as he awoke at her shufflings.

"Amon?" she whispered in the darkness, and more rustling was heard from the bunk below her. "Are you—"

"Yes. I'm awake." He sighed through his nose. "Why are you?"

"I..." Verdant eyes squeezed shut in the darkness, feeling impossibly silly. "I can't sleep."

Travelling-train sounds filled the small cabin. Someone walked past heavy-footedly in the hall outside their compartment.

"Shall I tell you a bedtime story?" Amon asked, in deadpan.

Robin rolled over again, almost tossing, her small body moving about under the covers in frustration. "I'm serious, Amon."

"You're usually asleep far before I am," Amon said, a frown present in his voice. "Something is bothering you."

Robin bit her lip, staring at the wall of the cabin. When was something not bothering her? It seemed as if her brain was working non-stop double-time, all the time, and she didn't know how to shut it off. She was beginning to feel the tendrils of a wicked headache wrapping around her skull and she winced. "Do you really think I'm the alpha?" she asked him suddenly, a split second later wondering why she'd chosen to blurt that out.

Amon was, as ever, enigmatic and distinctly Amon in his reply. "Perhaps. Why?"

The tow-headed witch squirmed in her bunk; was this what teenagers who referred to summer camp experiences were familiar with? Sleeping in an unfamiliar, uncomfortable bunk bed, having conversations with someone that they kind-of-knew late into the night? "Not even talking about witches all over the world. What about just between you, Nagira, and me?"

What sounded like a chuckle came from below her. "Nagira's not a witch."

"He's a witch sympathizer. They're kind of the same in SOLOMON's eyes, right?" Robin frowned. "Well? Am I still the alpha?"

Once again, the reclusive reply: Amon was waiting for her to come out and explain herself before he gave her any kind of definitive answer. "Why?"

"It just seems a bit odd, is all. To hear you refer to me as the alpha witch...I know your powers over your Craft aren't all that developed, yet, but among the two of us I'd definitely consider you the alpha, in terms of skill and other things." Robin bit the bullet and explained herself, waiting for a reply.

"Are you saying that because you believe it or because I am the older half and the male half, the more violent half?"

Robin stopped to think about it for a moment; feeling the headache in her brain starting to condense and take form. Why couldn't he just answer her? Why did he have to answer her questions with more questions? "Well, no," she finally replied, somewhat embarrassed. "It's just because you're...you, I suppose." Robin felt as if they were straying into rather strange territory. She couldn't recall a situation where they'd discussed the dynamics of their relationship so in-depth a manner. "You do have a quite specific way of unintentionally asserting your...alpha-ness to people."

This time, the noise that came from below her most definitely was a chuckle. "Who says it's unintentional?" Amon said, a measure smugly. "Robin, half of power—perhaps more than half of it is making people believe that you have it. Intimidation is a lot of bending people to your will."

She shifted, uncomfortably. "You make it sound so horrible. Manipulative."

"Perhaps, sometimes, it is." Amon's tone was even, well-natured, like that of a parent speaking to a confused child. "But it works well. And whoever doesn't bend to your will often doesn't have to bend because they simply move out of your way. Even if you do not have the power, making a person believe that you do can often trick them into handing it over to you. You have the power, Robin; you just are not adept at making people believe you have it. A bit of the opposite is true for me, I believe. And when you learn to make people believe you have the power, when you learn to make people move out of your way—it'll be all the better, because you'll actually have the power to back up your actions."

A weighty question balanced on the tip of Robin's tongue and she wasn't sure if she wanted to ask it or not because she wasn't sure if she wanted to know the real answer. "This philosophy, Amon—do you often use it on me?"

Silence. Stark, startled silence. She could almost sense Amon's surprise. He hadn't thought she'd ask a thing like that.

She was almost holding her breath. "Do you?" More silence. A genuinely rotten feeling began to gather in Robin's gut. "Do you, Amon?"

A sigh, exasperated. "What do you want me to say to that?" he asked, sounding worn. It was as if he was verbally throwing his hands up in the air. "Damned if I do, damned if I don't—if I say yes, you'll think I'm a monster, if I say no, you're not going to believe me, are you?"

Teeth rubbed against each other lightly as Robin pondered that. Her heart sank some. "Why do you think I wouldn't believe you? Because you feel like you do use that strategy on me, sometimes, and I had picked up on it?"

"Does it ever occur to you, Robin, that I am raising you?" Amon asked, suddenly, dodging the question artfully by once again bringing up another question. "There is no other guardian figure in your life, is there not?"

"Nagira."

A distasteful noise issued forth from Amon. "He'd make a rather poor guardian, I'd be inclined to say. You're the one who lived with him in my absence—how was that?"

More silence. Apparently the ex-Hunter had assumed that he'd effectively steered the conversation away from the relationship dynamic by directing it towards Nagira, but Robin clung fast. "I...Amon?"

"What?" Exasperation.

"You do, don't you?" Her voice was small, betrayed.

A fierce rustling of covers and sheets was heard from below her and she batted her eyes in surprise at the sudden commotion, propping herself up on an elbow and looking over her shoulder with a confused look on her face. "Ah Jesus, Robin, this again?" Amon's face appeared at level with her bunk, looking put out and irritated and out of patience. "Look," he began rather fiercely, perhaps as fiercely as he'd ever spoken to her, "I'm not that much of a monster, little girl, and I refuse to let you make me feel like one. You can think of me as some big, bad, evil creature all you want, but don't try to force guilt on me."

She looked at him with a plaintive look that was part sadness and part pleading. "Why can't you ever just answer me? I just wanted an answer. I wasn't trying to force guilt on you at all."

Amon's intensely irritated disposition did not wane. "This is not you versus me. I am not your enemy, no matter how convenient it is for you to make me into that."

Robin sat up more fully, frowning, her face then displaying complete hurt. "I never—I didn't think that you were my enemy! I didn't mean that at all."

"Well, then, Robin," Amon said, hands coming to rest on his hips as he stared at her intently, "honestly, what? What do you mean? What are you trying to say?"

At that point, he'd succeeded in flustering her so and leading her around in circles so many times by answering questions with more questions that she honestly didn't know anymore. She couldn't even really remember what her internal goal had been when she'd started the conversation a few minutes ago. All she knew was that Amon was standing there, staring her down, waiting for a reply. And somehow he could always avoid giving her any kind of straight response but she always had to reply, to explain herself.

Something was not adding up, somewhere—a small portion of her brain told her this. Another, larger portion crumpled under the weight of Amon's stare.

"Oh, nothing," she sighed miserably, laying back down and turning her face to the wall. She could feel Amon's stare burning into her back as she burrowed down under her blankets. "Forget I said anything. I just want to sleep."

"So you don't have an explanation for being unnecessarily accusatory, out of nowhere?" he asked again, unmoving.

"I didn't mean to be that way," Robin replied, voice muffled by layers of cotton and stuffing. "We should just sleep."

Without warning, she heard Amon's footsteps and then the opening and closing of the door. He'd left. She'd actually irritated him enough to make him leave. That was a first, out of all the times she'd irritated him.

She wasn't proud.

........

Outside the cabin, Amon walked down the hallway, brain whirring. Robin was more perceptive, at times, than he would have liked or that she would have let on. She was more perceptive than most women twice her age.

She'd been so close. So close to suddenly ripping the cover off the whole process of his defense against her, his way of keeping her quiet and meek and unthreatening to him; his failsafe way of keeping her from eating him alive with the force of her personality, will, and beauty.

She'd also been so close to just grabbing the reins of control from him with that same motion, reversing the scales of power and asserting herself as the true dominant party between them. He was only in power because she let him be, because she didn't know what kind of power she held on her own. Some day, she would realize not only because she would have to, but because she was going to figure it all out. Gaining control over him was the first step towards realizing that she had power, at all, and that once she conquered him, she could conquer anyone. And he would help her, if she didn't exercise her power over him and kick him to the curb, like he probably would deserve.

It frightened Amon—frightened him to death, actually—that the Robin's two realizations would almost certainly have to come hand in hand, and that they would have to come soon. In order to be that which Sigrún and her husband supported, loved, needed, Robin was going to have to learn to muscle people into line. She was going to have to learn how to scare other witches who didn't believe in her power, and make them jump at her command. She would have to learn how to command respect from those witches who already believed in her. All of that had to come before she could ever hope to take on SOLOMON.

And in light of the speed at which events were moving, the speed of the train hurtling towards their destination with cold efficiency, Amon knew his days as the alpha were limited. Robin would learn—and he would help her there, because he wanted her to succeed and flourish and be beautiful and happy, damnit—or they would fail. Worse over, they would more than likely die, and it wouldn't just be them. It would be Nagira, Sigrún, her child, her husband, and everyone else associated.

Gróa was already dead. Was it a pattern, he wondered, for people who helped Robin and him to advance, to die?

It was funny to Amon, sometimes, how big of shockwaves being invisible could cause.

All of this—and more—he pondered, walking aimlessly between cars in the middle of the night, as the train moved inevitably towards Northern Europe.