Notes: And we finally get to Wren and Socket! I apologise in advance for how emotional this chapter is. It definitely made me feel sad to write it.


If they hadn't been looking for it, then the group of travellers might well have past by Chillingham without paying it much notice. It turned out that the village was tiny, even more so than most of the others they'd past on their way to find it.

"At least it means we have less places to check," Gus reasoned, as they began the search for Wren and Socket's new house.

They were all glad of that after the long journey here. On another day they would probably have split off into groups, so they could cover ground quicker, but right now they were all weary enough to want to stick together. So they quietly trudged through the village, gaining little attention from the few people who were about the streets. Badger reasoned that they must get a lot of travellers passing through, given how far apart all the places here seemed to be.

After a short while, they stopped to take a look around a small bridge over a ford. It seemed that ahead of that there were only a few more houses before the village broke off into more countryside. An eager sign nearby advertised visits to see some kind of rare cows that seemed to be the highlight of Chillingham. Certainly most of the stonework they'd past by was proudly decorated with carvings of cows. Badger couldn't see what the big deal was himself, but then maybe he just wasn't looking at it right.

"I don't think there's much more to check that way," Louis commented, "Maybe we made a wrong turn back there."

"There ain't enough o' this place to make wrong turns. An' the sign back there said there wasn't anythin' but the castle in other direction," replied Crow.

"There's a few more houses we could try. This does seem to be the right street, going by what the notes say..." Gus suggested.

"Looks like we won't need t' do that," Badger cut in.

He pointed ahead and three sets of eyes followed to see what he was talking about. They were all shocked to see two familiar people walking towards them, too engaged in conversation with each other to notice them just yet.

Wren and Socket truly were a sight for sore eyes, but something about them seemed different from before. Not bad different, Badger told himself, just... different. Probably because the clothes they had on couldn't be further away from the sort Badger had been used to seeing them wear back at the market. Ill-fitting, baggy t-shirts and puffy jackets had been traded in for two smart sets of matching school uniforms. To anyone else, they would have looked like two respectable young students who wouldn't have anything to do with the likes of the Black Ravens.

He only had a brief moment to take this in, however, as Crow quickly called over to them.

"Oi, you two! Look who came to visit ya!" he shouted. He sounded pleased enough to see them that he put across what all of the group felt.

Needless to say, they both looked surprised to meet some of their old friends in a place like this. But it didn't take long for them to rush over. Socket excitedly splashed through the ford, instead of sensibly taking the bridge, like Wren did.

"What are youse lot doin' 'ere?" cried Socket. He practically bounced up and down as he drew level with them.

"Came to see you two, didn't we?" assured Louis.

"You came all the way up here just for a visit?" Wren checked. She sounded doubtful. Badger couldn't blame her for that.

"There is a bit more to it," Crow confessed.

"Oh?" hummed Socket, as he gave the leader a curious look.

"Well, I didn't get to say goodbye to ya before ya left. But I also didn't get to 'ear what ya both thought o' it," Crow answered, "It don't seem right that ya 'ad to move away when ya were so 'appy back at Mist'allery."

"Mum needed to come here though. She has family in the village and things weren't working out well for her down South. When a job came up here, it made sense for her to come back," Wren explained.

"That's all fine for ya mum, but what about the two o' ya? Ya can't wanna leave the 'ome an' friends ya 'ad since ya were kids," Crow pressed.

"Where mum goes we go," replied Socket, "Ya can't 'spect kids like us to live without 'er."

"You're 'ardly kids any more," Crow countered. This was clearly more aimed at Wren, given that Socket, as the youngest Black Raven, was only just old enough to be considered a teenager.

"But we're still not old enough to live on our own," argued Wren, "What did you expect us to do? Buy a house in Misthallery? You know we don't have any money to do that."

"Ya coulda stayed with any o' us. We look out for each othah," reminded Crow.

Privately, Badger felt that he could speak for himself in that regard. As much as he'd want to help Wren and Socket, there'd be no way that he could let them stay in a house with his dad. His dad who Badger should have stayed to-

...No, not now. Worry about that later.

"It's a nice idea, Crow, but we can't do that in the real world," Wren said, sounding more and more exasperated with each sentence, "Please don't tell me you came all the way up here just to ask us to come back."

There was an awful silence in which that sentence settled in. Because yes, that was exactly why they'd come here. But hearing it said like that seemed to bring home what a bad idea it had been. What were they thinking? Even if the two of them had wanted to come back, how would they have convinced their mother that this was a good idea?

After they'd gone an uncomfortable length of time without a word from Crow, Wren continued; "Look, I know that you have a lot on your mind. Why don't you go wait in our house until we get back from school and we can all talk about this properly? It's just down the road and the door isn't locked. Mum might come back from the post office at lunch time, but you can just say that you all came to see us and she probably won't mind."

"Ya don't wanna come back, do ya?"

It was a harsh shot and hearing it come out of Crow's mouth shocked them all.

"That's not what I-"

"Why would ya wanna be in Mist'allery, runnin' around with a buncha poor losahs, when instead ya could be in a posh, knobby school, learnin' 'ow to be doctahs or lawyahs or somethin'?"

"Don't talk to Wrenny like that!" yelled Socket.

"It's all right, Socket. I can handle this," assured Wren, before glaring at Crow, "You're hardly being fair. You know that we both love the Black Ravens and doing what we do. But our family is here now. And yes, I am glad that we can finally go to a proper school. Maybe you don't think it's important, but we could actually make something of ourselves if we stick in here. So then we don't have to be dragged from one temporary job to another, like mum is. We need this chance. Our teacher says that we're smart-"

"I say that you're smart!" Crow cut in.

"That's not what I meant! You've always been proud of us, but we can't get through life on your praise alone," snapped Wren. She was so angry. Proper angry, Badger felt, not the sibling sort of angry she often got with Socket; "Maybe you sniff at paper qualifications, but the rest of the world doesn't. There was no point in school back at Misthallery, because the teachers labelled us as... as not worth their time. We were just two more poor kids in a class of many. But here they actually care about what we can do! Socket's been taken a side and put into a metalwork class, because they saw how good he was at it. Who except for you lot even cared about Socket's skills back home?"

"The people whose 'ouses 'e fixed," retorted Crow.

"And what good was he to them after that? They're not awful people, Crow, but they're also not going to help us find work for ourselves," insisted Wren.

"When did it become about findin' a job? Ya 'ad work back at the black market!" Crow shot.

There was another uncomfortable pause, then Wren mumbled; "Did you really think that would last forever...?"

This was clearly too much for Crow. Without a second-glance he turned on his heels and marched away from them all, back up the road they'd come from. Unusually, none of the group felt inclined to go after him.

"You hit a sore spot there," commented Louis, as they all watched him go.

"Someone had to tell him," Wren insisted, "I'm just sorry that he dragged you all up here before he heard it."

"Nah, it's our fault for not saying anything sooner. This whole thing could have been avoided. It's just that... no one wanted to do it," admitted Louis.

"What're ya talkin' about?" pressed Socket, "What did ya need to tell 'im about?"

Gus looked equally as confused about this. And, although Badger couldn't see his own face, he reckoned that he did as well. It seemed like Wren and Louis were in on something that the rest of them had been left out of.

"That we can't always be Black Ravens. As nice as the idea would be," answered Wren.

"It's something that a few of us have known for a while now," Louis added, when he saw how much it seemed to take the others a back, "And we know it's hard to accept, but change happens. Heck, life happens and we just can't be sure that all of us are gonna be there forever. It's been good to us while we were kids and maybe we'll get a bit longer out of it, but even Crowlo's started to get restless, what with his disappearing."

"But we can't..." Socket sniffed.

It seemed that he didn't know what to say after that. Despite that he'd moved away from Misthallery, it didn't seem to have dawned on him that the Black Ravens could ever split up. As if everyone would keep doing the same thing while he was away and it'd all be waiting for him, should he ever want to return to it.

Maybe Crow had felt the same way when he left them.

"We already have been," Wren sighed. She put a comforting hand on her brother's shoulder.

"You're wrong," Gus piped up, "We'll never stop being the Black Ravens. Maybe in time we'll stop doing the black market, but that isn't all that we are. We're friends and the Black Ravens means that. I-if we stop being the Black Ravens, we s-stop being friends. And I d-don't think we c-can do that..."

His shaky nerves were apparent as he spoke, even if what he was saying seemed like such a confident statement. Maybe none of the others had been thinking about it like that before, but his words clearly resonated with them all.

"Yeah, you're right about that," Louis mumbled, "I deffo feel a proper fool for thinking we were falling apart..."

"We should go aftah Crow," Socket squeaked.

"No, the three of us will go after Crow," corrected Louis, "What Wren said about you and her is right – you need these chances. Just go to that school and be the best you can be. I promise we'll sort things out with him and it'll be all right."

"B-b-but 'ow am I s'pose to focus o-on school work an' junk w-when Crow's all angry an' cross with Wrenny...?" Socket demanded, clearly on the verge of tears.

"Because we all want you to do well," Gus said, "Crow being cross won't last forever. He cares too much about us. And when he's thinking right, he'll be so proud of you both, you'll see."

"If ya sure...?" Socket mumbled, doubtfully.

"We're sure," concluded Louis, "Now we'd better be off – that Crow's got some set of legs on him when he wants to."

"Take care," Wren whispered, seeming a bit emotional herself, even if she was better at hiding it than her brother was, "And good luck with him."

The five of them murmured various awkward farewells to each other, before Louis, Gus and Badger headed off after Crow.

It was hard for Badger to look at Wren before they left, because he felt so sorry for her. At least back when they had been kids, Wren had such a huge crush on Crow (a fact that Socket broadcast to them all, much to Wren's dismay) and, even if it had died down now, having Crow yell at her like that must have been hard. Badger knew exactly how he'd feel in that situation and the nausea it brought upon him seemed to sting in his throat. He wanted to tell Wren that he knew how she felt and that, somehow, it'd be okay. But he couldn't do that without it being weird. So he'd just given the two of them a silent nod and followed after the others.

They reasoned that Crow would probably be going back the way they came and, if they followed that road, they'd soon catch up with him. None of them felt in too much of a rush to close the gap between them, however. Even though with Badger's skills at running he could easily have done so in little time.

"What are we gonna say when we do find him?" Louis checked, as the three of them trudged along.

"I think he just needs time. So even if we do catch up with him and he doesn't say a word, that's fine. He just needs to know that we're there for when he's ready," answered Gus.

"You're probably right. Just like you were before. When did you get so wise, Gus?" Louis mused.

"I, um, I just say what I think I should..." evaded Gus, clearly embarrassed.

Although he hadn't voiced it, Badger felt the same way that Louis did about this. When they were kids, hardly a word came out of Gus's mouth that wasn't about Aunt Taffy's delicious sweets. But in the recent years, Gus had gotten both quieter and seemingly more worldly when he did talk. Maybe, even if he had mostly been confined to Misthallery, Gus had learned a lot more than they gave him credit for. It definitely made Badger feel slightly guilty that he hadn't noticed it much before now.

They walked a few miles more before catching sight of Crow, a distant figure on the hilly roads ahead. He seemed to be marching with intent even now and they followed loyally behind him. Each of them was probably thinking about what they'd say when Crow did want to talk to them. Or at least, Badger knew that he was.

Perhaps they could just tell him what Gus had said, about how they'll always be Black Ravens, even if they're apart. That might cushion the blow of Wren and Socket not coming back with them. And hopefully, when he's had time to think about it, Crow will realise that he should be proud of the two siblings for doing so well in their school. Because, even if they don't come back to Misthallery, that doesn't mean the rest of the Black Ravens can't visit them, right?

Or maybe Crow's too shaken at the thought of his friends drifting from him. Even if they might still think of each other as friends, it didn't change the fact that they won't be able to keep up the black market much longer. With Wren and Socket gone, that was a massive dent in the amount of repair work and auction ideas they'd have. And, although it hadn't seemed like a big deal to Badger before now, he had to admit that Marilyn had been spending more time on her parent's stall and less time with them lately. While Crow had been away, many of them had been finding other places for themselves to fill the void he'd left. Only Scraps diligently kept seeking out treasures to sell, while Badger kept hopelessly waiting for Crow.

They couldn't run a black market with just three of them...

Although maybe Crow could perform some miracles. Even if Badger was forced to admit that his faith had been dampened by how unprepared Crow had been for when they met up with Wren and Socket. He focused on the speck in the distance and knew that he had to have faith in this person.

Because, if he couldn't rely on Crow, then who could Badger rely on...?