Chapter Four

"Mother Night." Hands on hips, Wilhelmina examined the...contraption, was the only word for it...in the middle of the tool shed. "You had to mention the garden supplies, didn't you?"

"I didn't think they'd take it as a challenge." Diccan studied the two young males and their contraption with a carefully blank expression, but Wilhelmina could feel the undercurrent of laughter bubbling through his mind.

They'd been woken shortly after sunrise by the gleeful shouts of young children, who'd found that turning the crank on the - the contraption - forcefully enough would lift them into the air. She and Diccan had arrived just before Berran and Tris, the two young Warlords she'd left to Mairin's dubious mercy and who'd apparently responded by creating...this. Whatever it was.

It had started life as a barrel, but now rested on its side on four rickety legs - well, three legs and a rake, attached to the frame with twine, Craft and possibly a bit of prayer. The frame was rather clever, actually, allowing the barrel to roll when you turned the crank; she just didn't know what had possessed the two boys to build it.

"What possessed you to build this?"

"We were trying to help Lady Mairin-"

"-and get out of turning the compost pile-" Berran muttered mutinously. Tris kicked him in the shin without looking.

"Trying to help her with the compost, m'Lady," Tris compromised. "When you start paying attention, it's obvious there's a lot that needs doing, and we thought maybe we could build something that would do the same job with not as many hands needed to do it. See, if you turn the handle-"

He demonstrated, not without a nervous moment or two when the contraption teetered dangerously. "-you can do pretty quickly what took me and Berran a couple of hours yesterday."

He went on at some length, talking faster as self-consciousness faded. Wilhelmina concentrated on keeping a straight face as the tang of laughter in Diccan's psychic scent grew stronger, but eventually Tris ran down, and Berran tugged him away, claiming lessons and probably just looking for escape. Wilhelmina muffled her giggles in Diccan's shoulder.

"You realize they're likely going to sneak out of whatever lessons they do have to look for more parts? The Darkness only knows what they're going to do to that thing later."

"I'm trying not to think about it."

He nodded sagely. "Probably best. I'm sure they won't do anything too disastrous for - oh, another day or so at least."

"Maybe we'll get lucky and Mairin will handle the next...contraption."

"Really? And what did those poor boys do to you, that you'd wish Mairin's temper on them when she finds all the tools out of place?"

Wisely, she kept silent on that question. "Maybe we should look into finding a carpenter to apprentice them to, after they make the Offering. We've been working so hard on teaching them law and Protocol that we haven't given much thought to what comes after."

He tucked an arm around her waist as they started out of the garden shed. "You can't solve everyone's problems at once, m'Lady. Fitting them for Court gives them a good start, regardless of whether or not they end up in service somewhere."

"Mm. There are more courts than just the ones Queens form, though." She'd seen it at the Keep, subtly interlocking circles of power focused on one witch or another. Jaenelle might have been at the center, but there were smaller, subtler webs of service throughout the Dark Court. Surreal and her wolf, Marian and her family, Mrs. Beale and - well, everybody. "They don't have to be in a formal Court to be happy."

He chuckled. "Considering which, has it occurred to you that some of these boyos might grow up and decide you're the witch they'd rather be in service to?"

"...oh, Mother Night."

By the time she'd dissuaded an appallingly young (and appallingly determined) little Warlord from pulling Jhaliir's ears, arbitrated a squabble over toss-ball, and coaxed an eight-year-old Black Widow out of the garden, Wilhelmina had forgotten completely about the morning's conversation with Diccan. By the time she'd helped Mairin squeeze meals for the next ten days out of a seven-day budget, chased a handful of giggling little witches out of the stables, and nodded appreciatively over the frog a five-year-old Prince insisted on showing her, she'd forgotten about pretty much everything except supper and bed. But when she caught a whiff of Shad's psychic scent - clearer now that he wasn't trying to hide from her - she dropped what she was doing and went to find him, gingerly scooping up the frog to restore it to the garden on her way by. It was a long walk from the garden to the alley that bordered the side of her lands, and she needed every bit of it to stop looking harried and start looking trustworthy.

"Why are you doing this?" Shad eyed her suspiciously over the latest basket. He'd started coming to meet her more-or-less reliably, as long as he was at a safe distance from the borders of the Angelline estate. It wasn't trust, but she no longer worried that he'd panic and bolt.

Because I can't stand watching a Warlord Prince eat his heart out with fear. "Because we've got a bit to spare, and you could use it."

He pinned her with a narrow-eyed look. It might even have worked, if he'd been considerably older and past his Offering. As it was, she gave him a bland, polite stare until he stopped trying to intimidate her. "I meant what I said. We're short on room for sleeping-" he snorted, and she raised a quelling eyebrow at him- "but Mairin and I can usually gather the makings for a spare meal or two."

"Mairin? Is she the red-headed witch who comes with you sometimes?"

She nodded. Mairin had come along a few times before Shad first showed himself, trying to make sure the "bait" was arranged to her satisfaction.

Shad grinned abruptly, a flash that lit his thin face for an instant. "She yelled at me when I was trying to figure you out. I was, um, out of sight and she marched to the middle of the alley with her basket and said you were both working too hard to put up with this and I had no call to make it harder just because I was feeling stubborn."

"Oh, she did?" Wilhelmina tried unsuccessfully to muffle a laugh.

"And then she stomped back to your - your-"

"House."

"That's not just a house. Too big, and too many people, and you're trying to do something. Houses are just for sleeping or hiding."

"School, then. At least, we try to be."

"Hm." He pondered that. "'S good enough. The important thing is that the littles who go in there don't disappear like some."

Wilhelmina went very, very still. "People have been disappearing?"

"Some always do, here and there. Looking for better pickings somewhere else, girls going to Red Moon houses so they can get meals and a roof over their heads..." He trailed off with a shrug. "Sometimes it's just what happens, sometimes it's bad. I was afraid you were like that hospital with all the uncles. 'S why I was trying to look you over without you noticing."

A knot of cold clenched in her belly. "Briarwood was destroyed before you were born."

"So? Kids still tell stories. Some of them even tell the truth. And I have to look out for - for people I worry about." He inclined his head in a not-quite-bow. "I don't know what you are, but you're not like Briarwood. Lady."

And with that, he was gone.

Author's Note: I live! More or less. This is a short chapter, but the plot is starting to show up. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go back to trying to beat my outline into submission...