The next morning began at the crack of dawn with the squealing of floorboards. Weiss sat up too fast, anticipating some kind of attack, but it was only old Cas shuffling into the kitchen and plonking a dented kettle on the stove. She extricated herself from her teammates with some difficulty. Blake was already awake, blinking blearily around the unfamiliar apartment, but the moment she realized there wasn't any danger she burrowed into Yang's shoulder and went right back to sleep.

"It's still dark," Weiss whispered, glancing out the window into a flint-grey sky. It was cold, too, despite the heater that rattled away in one corner.

Cas squinted at her. His eyes were still gummed halfway shut with sleep, and instead of responding he just yawned pointedly. She took the hint and watched him light the stove with a match in silence. He picked a mug out of his cabinets, fetched tea bag and sugar, every motion flowing smoothly along grooves worn by decades of habit.

He held up a second mug and grunted a question.

"No, thank you," said Weiss, not wanting to impose any more than they already had.

Shrugging, he kept puttering about in the kitchen, occasionally pausing to rub his eyes and grumble under his breath. Weiss bore the quiet as long as she could before she disturbed it. "We can leave with you," she said. "I'll wake them up. Then we'll find a hotel where we can actually get a room."

"Stick to the crater," he suggested. "Or have your friends check in and sneak through the window."

"Right." She drummed a finger on the counter. Cas vanished into his bedroom, and the kettle started to whistle. Weiss snatched it off the heat before it could wake everyone else. He nodded at her as he walked back in, and poured his tea.

"We—well. I've been thinking." Weiss gripped the counter. "I'd like to speak to Robyn again, if I can. About... how to deal with my father."

Cas cracked an egg into a pan. For a long moment the kitchenette was silent except for the soft hiss of it cooking. "She'll be at the mines today."

Her chest tightened. "What? Why?"

"Organizing a protest for the curfew tomorrow night." He broke the yolk, scooped the egg onto a plate, and started to eat with mechanical efficiency. "Standing out in the street after dark."

"Oh." She glanced at his face, and couldn't for the life of her guess what he was thinking. "Are you going to go?"

Cas shrugged. "Might. Don't know how much good it'll do."

For a while the kitchen was quiet again, except for the rush of water from the tap. He scrubbed the plate clean and then handed it to Weiss. "If you're going to stand there, you can dry while I wash."

So she picked up a dishtowel and did her clumsy best, painfully conscious all the while that she'd never done this before in her life. It went slower than it should have, but Cas didn't comment, just kept on scrubbing the pan he'd used with his sleeves rolled to his elbows. Through the slight churning in the pit of her stomach, she managed to ask, "Can we come with you?"

Cas grinned at her, showing off slightly pointed teeth. "Wanting to get a good look at where the family came from, eh?"

Weiss couldn't honestly say that she was. "I think I need to," she said instead. "And I need to talk to Robyn, too."

The old man chuckled and waved a hand at the sleeping pile in the living room. "Well, if they can be out the door in fifteen minutes, I'll let you all tag along."

It was an unequivocal disaster. There was barely enough time for all four of them to use Cas' single bathroom. They brushed their teeth in the kitchen sink, jostling elbows all the while, then sprinted to meet the old man as he strolled down the rickety stairwell.

He led them several blocks down foggy streets, taking a long and wending path to avoid the broken heaters scattered throughout the lower city, the first watery light of dawn and the dull ember orange of the streetlamps mixing uncomfortably where they reflected off the wet pavement. Then he took a seat in what looked like a sheltered bus stop. It was crowded already, but nearly silent despite that. No one spoke. No one moved, except for one younger woman who got up to make room for Cas on the bench. Exhaustion draped over the entire group like a thick blanket, heavy and muffling.

Time passed. People started to shiver. "What are we waiting for?" Yang whispered to Cas.

"Truck," he replied shortly. "Have to get here a bit early or it'll leave without you."

By the time the truck rattled down the slush-covered street, the assembled crowd had started to wake up. A few cracked jokes to one another. They climbed into the back in twos and threes, with a middle-aged boar faunus reaching down to help Cas up. He took the hand with ill grace, grumbling under his breath for several minutes afterwards, until someone finally got curious enough to ask, "What's with the kids?"

"It's bring your granddaughter to work day," said someone else. "Didn't you hear?"

Cas aimed a swat into the press of people, to muffled laughter. "They're here to catch Robyn when she comes to bother us over lunch."

A young human next to him perked up. "Does that mean...?"

"Heat'll be turned up at the entrance," said Cas. "But she can't go past sorting, so figure it'll be the same once we get deeper 'n that."

Several of the younger occupants of the truck wilted, and it occurred to Weiss that she'd forgotten to ask a very important question. "Will we be allowed inside?"

Cas snorted. "Might as well try and sunbathe in the tundra. Takes a Hunting license from Atlas Academy to get past the doors, and even that won't let you into the tunnels. Hope you brought a book."

Weiss hadn't, but doubted she could have concentrated anyway. Her heart couldn't seem to slow down. The noise of the crowd soon faded to a few muted conversations, and the rustling of blankets as some of the workers nearest the back picked them out of a crate and passed them around. One was offered to Weiss, but she turned it down. She already felt bad enough noticing how crowded it was with four extra passengers who didn't belong here.

Was it wrong to even think that way? She'd spent most of her life in terror of her family's mines, of becoming one more weary body trapped in the dark. It left a sick unease in the pit of her stomach to be among them now. A lingering fear, as if this fate was something contagious she might catch? Or perhaps just guilt at sitting face to face with the ones living it.

Light spread across the eastern horizon, catching the vast sea of snow and making it shine blinding white. Cas tied a bandana around his eyes and settled in against the edge of the truck bed. It wasn't a terribly long drive by the standards of someone who'd just been on an airship from Vale a couple of days ago, but the sun was all the way up over the tundra by the time their destination was in view. She tried to focus on the rough, austere beauty of it—clouds stained in pink and gold, distant fir trees carpeting steep hills, the bare bones of Solitas rising out of the dark and the early morning fog. Instead she had to take her breaths one at a time, grimacing through the tightness in her chest.

They still weren't quite in view of the mine yet when Cas nodded to the four of them and said, "Best hop off, now. Don't want the guards asking us any questions."

Weiss nodded. "Thank you again."

He tipped the brim of his fur-lined cap. They watched him and the truck disappear into the distance, and started the slow trudge along the last stretch of road to the mine. Yang yawned hugely and squinted into the glare. "I'm starting to feel like there were easier ways to meet up with Robyn."

"Probably," Weiss admitted with a wince. "I wasn't really thinking."

"It's okay," said Ruby, wrapping her cape tighter around her shoulders. "This is the kind of stuff we'll be doing if we want to help out here, right?"

Blake frowned. "Maybe. I can't help but think they won't be any more eager to let Robyn go into the actual mines. My parents used to be able to get permission, back when it looked really suspicious to block the White Fang, but now you have to break in or steal someone's employee badge."

Sometimes when Blake talked about the White Fang, she grew distant—this time, though, it looked like she was teetering on the edge of a smile. "Speaking from experience, oh dashing rogue?" Yang asked, waggling her eyebrows.

Blake smirked. "I might have leaked a few embarrassing internal reports."

Weiss couldn't quite help picturing it—Blake swinging through a window in the dead of night, slipping past security guards and stealing documents to release to the public. It might have been a pleasant image, except that her head wasn't on straight today and she caught herself imagining being there in order to see it. Trapped in the dark.

Then imaginary Blake winked at her, and it wasn't such a bad thought after all. "I wouldn't hate getting to see that."

"Anyway," Ruby said pointedly. "Should we, you know... walk around a little? Just to scope it out while we're waiting for Robyn?"

Weiss' heart leaped into her throat. She swallowed it. Nodded. "I doubt they'll let me inside, even if they happen to be the only people on Remnant who actually think I'm going to inherit anything. But we could... look around. A little."

It would be fine. No one would lock the doors behind her. That would be stupid, and also a fire hazard.

She told herself that again as they trudged up a steep and rocky slope, breath misting in the air with the effort of the climb. And again, when they came near the gate and she watched two distant figures turn their heads to watch them approach. It didn't stop her heart from hammering. So she held her head high and hid it behind a glare.

"Excuse me," she said, stepping up to a window that was a little too tall for her—clearly designed to be at eye level with the drivers of those trucks. "I'd like to take a look at this facility."

Whatever they'd been expecting her to say, it wasn't that. The one on the left, a middle-aged woman with curly red hair, leaned towards the window of their little booth and said, "You can't go any further without clearance."

"Clearance," Weiss said, arching her scarred eyebrow in a wordless, do you know who I am? "I didn't think I'd need special permission to learn more about my family's company. Especially considering how crucial it is to know these things once I inherit it."

The other guard barked out a laugh. His coworker elbowed him hastily in the side—but Weiss had already narrowed her eyes at him. "Is something funny?"

"I. Uh. You're not—"

"Not a patient woman," Weiss snapped. "If you don't have the authority to let me inside then go fetch someone who does."

The two of them looked at each other. "Uh, okay?" said the second guard, clearly still scrambling to recover from his faux pas. "I'll get... someone." And without another word, he ducked out of the booth and escaped further into the compound.

Weiss glanced around to find Ruby and Yang openly gaping at her, while Blake had much better success hiding a slight smirk. She snuck them a wink before turning back towards the mine and waiting for the guard to return.

The man summoned to deal with her was still hastily zipping up his coat as he strode outside with two new guards, squinting at them like he was sizing up the latest in a long series of problems. He glanced discretely at the watch on his wrist, grimaced, and held out a hand for Weiss to shake. "Miss Schnee. I'm the foreman here, Charles Dun. This is... a surprise."

"It was a spur of the moment idea," she said, barreling straight past the implied what the hell are you doing here? "Since my father upheld my position in the family, I've decided to be more proactive learning about the company before it's time for me to lead it."

Dun blinked a few times, clearly thrown. "Ah, upheld?"

"I'm sure you saw the interview." Weiss smiled at him, and found it wasn't even difficult. It was fun, making his ambush at the Vytal Festival work for her for a change.

"Well, his personal feelings—" Dun said, shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot. "That is—legally speaking—"

Weiss waved a hand dismissively. "I might not be a biological descendant of his, but I am a Schnee. That should be more than enough to deal with the red tape. If he wants to pass it to me, then that's what will happen." She stretched out her wings and went for the kill. "Unless there's some other reason I wouldn't be eligible?"

Dun rubbed his temple. "No, no, of course not. Unfortunately I'm extremely busy with another visitor today, one that actually informed us ahead of time."

"I would be more than willing to look around the grounds with one of your employees," Weiss said cheerfully. "I can come back another day to take a more in-depth look at the mine with you."

She could see the calculation on his face—how long the argument would take, how loud it would get, and what would happen if Robyn arrived while he was still trapped in this conversation. Eventually he let out a put-upon sigh and said, "As long as you stay outside. I'm afraid you'll need more documentation to see the inside of the mine. Safety concerns, you understand."

"Of course."

"Carmine, would you give Miss Schnee and her friends a tour of the grounds?" Dun's smile looked downright painful. "And make sure their visit is... engaging." One of the guards, apparently Carmine, saluted and walked over to them. With the four of them handled as far as he was concerned, Dun said his goodbyes as quickly as was polite and rushed back towards the mine.

It wasn't exactly the trip through the bowels of the mine that she'd been aiming for, but... Weiss didn't like the idea of going past those heavy reinforced doors anyway. So she followed Carmine around, doing her best to look interested in the awkward and unrehearsed tour, until Blake spotted something off in the distance and elbowed Ruby.

That was enough prompting for her to start asking about the machinery deeper in the mine—something Carmine clearly didn't know enough about to keep up with her. While she was distracted, Blake darted away. Maybe it would have been better to let her handle the sneaking, but the idea of losing track of her here made Weiss' skin crawl, so she followed. Within seconds they'd moved around a corner behind a loading bay.

This area was almost empty. Just snow and ice and rocky terrain, sloping steeply upward into the mountains. Empty crates ready to be packed with Dust. And one doe-eared woman walking with a pronounced limp, glancing furtively around as she went. The moment she spotted them she tensed up.

"It's okay," said Blake. "We're not with management or anything."

If anything, that only made it worse. Her ears pinned back and she started shuffling away as fast as she could go. Which... wasn't very.

"Can we help?" Weiss asked, wincing in sympathy with every shaky step the woman took.

"No."

Blake frowned. "That injury looks serious."

"It's old," she said shortly.

Weiss looked down and felt a stab of sympathy for her teammates, all those months ago when she'd insisted on joining a mission with an infected cut. "You're bleeding!"

"Where are you going?" Blake asked, panic making her voice sharper than she'd probably meant it to be. "Isn't there a doctor on site? Mantle's the other direction, and it'll be faster to call an airship or something—"

The woman whirled to face them fully, eyes narrowed. "If you want to help," she snapped, "keep your mouths shut about this so I still have a job tomorrow. I can go to Pietro tonight."

Weiss' stomach lurched. "We won't say anything," she promised, hating every word. But she remembered what it was like to be backed into a corner by an injury. Even Blake didn't argue. "Can we at least help you get someplace warm?"

"No," she said—still defensive, but most of the hostility had faded. "Anyone with a brain will know you on sight, and it's only a quarter mile. I'd rather not risk it."

Watching her walk away was the worst part of being in Mantle so far. They couldn't bring themselves to go back to their reluctant tour guide yet—instead they just stood there, watching the distant figure disappear into the snow, wondering if they'd made a mistake.

"They cull the Grimm out here all the time," said Weiss. "It... makes sense. That it would feel less risky to go alone."

"I know." Blake sounded miserable.

"This can't be how mines handle injuries... can it?"

She was dreading a yes, but the way Blake shook her head didn't make her feel any better. "Not usually. They don't have to report injuries that are minor enough to be taken care of at an on-site infirmary—which means they'll do just about anything to treat people here, even if they should go to the hospital. But the infirmary wouldn't be down in the mine, so Robyn probably has access to it."

"So they want her out of the way until Robyn's gone," Weiss finished dully.

"Yeah. I'm guessing that's why the foreman let us in, too. If he's not there with Robyn then she might get a miner alone long enough to find out about it. He can't deal with you and run interference at the same time."

"And we can't tell her," finished Weiss, "because if we do he might figure out that she ran into us."

"It's not exactly a secret that they aren't following safety regulations like they should. I'd be surprised if Robyn didn't already know. She just can't do anything without more proof, or a council seat."

Weiss took a deep, steadying breath. "I hate it here," she muttered.

"You're not alone."

Their unwilling tour guide was frantic by the time they caught up and slipped back in between the sisters. "Where were you?" she demanded.

"I wanted to get a look through one of the windows," Weiss said innocently, though she knew full-well that there wouldn't be anything but offices in there. Carmine seemed to relax a little at that. Enough, at least, that she moved on with the tour. By this point they'd already walked once around the main compound and she was clearly struggling to think of new things to talk about. Luckily she was spared having to ramble any more about the recent paint job to get rid of graffiti on a few of the transport trucks when a new vehicle pulled up at the front.

It wasn't like the one that had driven them here. This car was much smaller, though it too was flecked with rust and grime. Just about the only nice-looking part of it was the hawk emblem emblazoned on the hood. Weiss might not have realized it belonged to a candidate for the council if it weren't for that, and the handful of news vans that had followed it in.

"How interesting," she said, which might have been laying it on a little thick—Carmine gave her a side-long look, but let the four of them wander closer to where the Happy Huntresses were clambering out of the car. By the time they were in earshot, there were already several cameras aimed at Robyn.

"I'm not going to beat around the bush here," she said. "I'm headed in there to talk to people about the protest happening tomorrow night, because they're the ones who are having to face the most challenges because of this curfew. With work hours in the mine the way they are, people are struggling to find time for basic necessities like buying groceries once they get back to Mantle."

She folded her arms across her chest. "General Ironwood says we need the curfew to recapture Taurus and arrest members of the White Fang. It's been months, and there's been little to no progress on either front. It's placing an undue burden on people who haven't done anything wrong, and on top of that it isn't working. We've had enough."

The moment she was finished, hands went up from the assembled reporters. Robyn held hers out and smiled. "I'll be happy to answer more questions once I'm finished. You all have heat in those vans, right?"

There were a few chuckles, and a thumbs-up from a cameraman. Robyn gave them a last wave and headed toward the doors. It was much too late to speak to her before she went inside—but before Weiss could back away and try to head somewhere else to wait for her to leave, one of the reporters spotted her.

"Oh, no," she muttered.

"We could run," Yang suggested, which was sweet. And probably ridiculous.

The reporter made a beeline for them.

Probably.

In the end she settled for moving behind some machinery, so that at least it wasn't the entire swarm of them bearing down on her. Instead there was just one wild-eyed woman brandishing a microphone like a sword, and a cameraman panting along behind her looking a little worse for the wear.

"Weiss Schnee," she said, triumphant. "I'm Vanessa Violet, I was hoping I could ask you a few questions while Miss Hill is inside?" Weiss could see the moment her team closed ranks around her, because Violet's hopeful expression took on a tinge of apprehension.

"Miss Schnee is very busy at the moment," said Carmine, their erstwhile tour guide. She wasn't nearly as good at hiding panic.

Violet didn't leave—instead, she turned to Weiss and stood there as if waiting for her verdict. It startled her so much that her wings fluffed out. "What sorts of questions?" she asked, wary now of any type of interview she hadn't gotten to prepare for.

"Just about why you're here, and what you think of Robyn Hill. It's such a surprise to see someone from Jacques Schnee's campaign at an event like this!"

Weiss probably couldn't have avoided pulling a disgusted face even if she'd tried, so she didn't try very hard. "I'm sorry? I don't believe I've ever implied I'm a part of my father's campaign."

"Miss Schnee—" Carmine started to say.

"Can speak for herself," said Yang, and moved between them to block her. Carmine glanced from Weiss, to Violet, then hurried off towards the main building.

Some of Violet's intense enthusiasm returned. "When you say you aren't a part of his campaign, can you clarify what you mean? He's always been very quick to claim you as a supporter, but I've never heard you confirm that."

"That's because I'm not," Weiss said, a bit sharply. "I think he'd be awful for Atlas."

"Does that mean that you're here to support Robyn Hill?"

Weiss glanced towards the others to steady herself, then nodded. "I am."

"Have you spoken to your father about this?"

Her fists clenched. "That depends on what you mean. Did I ask his permission? No. But I've made it very clear where I stand."

"It seemed like you were struggling to express yourself during the interview where he announced his candidacy," said Violet, and Weiss' eyes narrowed. "I was hoping to get some clarification on what it was like growing up with Mr. Schnee."

She almost turned on her heel and stormed away—but then she realized in a flash that Violet was asking exactly the question she'd wanted to answer during that interview. And this time, he wasn't here to spin it.

Weiss paused for a moment. Taking her time to think, until she took a deep breath and said, "To answer that, I think I need to talk about why I didn't want to come here today."

Eyebrows went up. Even her team looked startled, and Ruby reached out to give her hand a squeeze. "Ever since I can remember, I was supposed to be grateful that I wasn't here." She gestured at the building behind her, hand trembling only slightly. "My father didn't have to keep me when I was born. If he hadn't, I probably would have ended up in a place just like this. That's what I thought generosity was."

"A lot of people seem to think you aren't grateful," said Violet. "What would you say to them?" Again, the question made her bristle—but it gave her the opening she needed, and that was enough.

"I was. For a long time. It wasn't hard, he reminded me every time I misbehaved. Whenever I let on that I could see things humans couldn't, he always told me that I wasn't trying hard enough, that I didn't appreciate how kind he'd been to let me live in his house. And when—" She stopped. Warm hands rested on her shoulders as Yang and Blake leaned in on either side. Weiss took a deep, steadying breath. "When he convinced my mother it was time to cut off my wings, and I was too scared to let it happen, he told me how lucky I was that I wasn't living in Mantle's gutters. He told me that was what would happen if anyone ever found out. It was always very clear to me that his generosity could run out at any time."

It took a moment for a stunned Violet to recover enough to keep going. She looked at Weiss' wings, clearly visible on either side of her. "I can tell by looking at you that they didn't go through with it," she said. "Did he or your mother have a change of heart?"

"No," Weiss said, and smiled. "My sister ran in with a saber and threatened to tell the world about me if they didn't stop."

Violet gaped at her.

"It was all very dramatic. I was angry with her for a long time, because I was so afraid. Every day that I still had these wings was a day when I might make the mistake that finally pushed him too far. Then I wouldn't be a Schnee anymore. I'd be alone in a city I'd never seen, that I'd been taught to be terrified of since I was a child."

She straightened herself, letting her wings mantle around her. "Then I came to Beacon, and I made friends who helped me start asking questions. Questions like why Jacques Gelé has any right to strip me of my mother's name."

"Well," said Violet. She cleared her throat. "I think that gives a new and alarming window into the personal life of Jacques—ah, your father, and a much better understanding of why you wouldn't want to support his candidacy."

Weiss shook her head. "That's why he made a terrible father. It's not why I think he'd make a worse councilor." She swallowed hard. "I'm starting to realize that I... I wasn't just afraid of my family's mines. Working here is dangerous, but I went to Beacon to learn how to fight Grimm, which isn't any safer. It wasn't just that I didn't want to work here. I didn't want to be someone who worked here. Because... growing up, being like one of them, like a faunus, meant I'd failed. I'm still trying to unlearn that."

Blake's hand tensed, squeezing her shoulder a bit too hard. It helped, a little, to ground her. So did the hint of red in Yang's eyes, and the way Ruby's fingers twitched like she was wishing for her scythe.

"Jacques Gelé spent my whole life using the mines he runs as a threat, and comparing me to the people who work here as an insult. That tells me he doesn't respect this place. He doesn't respect the workers. And I don't think anyone should have that much power over people they don't respect."

Violet glanced at her cameraman, who nodded. "That should be all, unless there was anything more you wanted to add?"

"No," said Weiss. And then, "Thank you," surprising herself with how much she meant it.

In the end, they didn't manage to talk to Robyn at all. She was surrounded by the press from the moment she stepped outside, and Weiss had no desire to test her luck with them again. Instead they found Joanna standing off to one side and asked her how they could help with the protest coming up.

It helped settle her lingering nerves, to spend some time firmly grounded in the logistics of where they should show up and when and what they should bring. By the time they were heading back to Mantle, on the ride foreman Dun had so generously provided to get them out of the mine as fast as possible, she found she was actually glad she'd come.

Looking back at the high cinderblock walls and chain link fences that surrounded the compound, Weiss saw a building. An ugly one, where many people were struggling—but it had lost some of its grip on her. She could come back here. She could change it, if she could only figure out how.