She wasn’t telling him everything—of that, Athelas was very well aware. She was keeping something back from him, and he didn’t know if it was something important enough to ascertain before agreeing to anything. The problem was that he had no time to do the ascertaining: if Harrow really had been taken by the organ trade, he had days to live at most. Moreover, while there was every chance that he would be able to return Harrow alive, there was no saying that he would be able to return the boy to Camellia in the same mental state that he had left her. Organ harvesters—and behindkind, suggested his mind, before he could prevent it—were not the kindest to the humans they stole, as much from ignorance as actual malice. And Harrow was already significantly more delicate than most children.

  “You said that you have a need of subtlety,” he said, refilling his teacup and leaning back at his leisure. There were at least a few things more that he could check before he agreed to too much. “Why is that? The enforcers squash one contract shopfront out of hundreds, it dies out and springs up somewhere else a few months later; that’s the usual chain of events.”

  “Peregrine apparently doesn’t like that being the usual chain of events,” YeoWoo said, shrugging once more. “He seems to have an idea about making sure all the proof is there and available so that the enforcers can enforce with prejudice.”

  Athelas gave vent to a short, humourless laugh. “A pleasant idea indeed! Utterly impractical, but pleasant.”

  “It can’t be less impractical than trying to take down the Behind world order, king and all,” pointed out YeoWoo, sending an uncomfortable but not entirely unpleasant shock through Athelas.

  “I was…highly motivated,” he said, after a pause. He had known that she knew far too much about him, but the reminder of just how much YeoWoo knew was unsettling. He took a moment to help himself to another slice of cake, breathing in the warm scent of orange and lemon, before he added, “And I had a great deal of help.”

  “It looks as though Peregrine is highly motivated, too,” said YeoWoo. There was a faint grimace to her lips when she added, “And he’s making sure that he has help. I’ve got an idea that he’s trying to set a precedent that might have a trickle-down effect.”

  “How unsurprisingly dull-witted of him,” Athelas said. “No doubt he’ll expect the warmth of his own righteousness to uphold him after he’s shut down a mere dozen of the shops, and when the paid assassins get into his house or find him out in the streets.”

  YeoWoo gave a sultry sort of smile that felt like it had far more teeth than actually showed. “He’ll probably just count on his teeth and claws. He’s been alive for a lot longer than I have, and he knows his way around Seoul better, too.”

  “There’s something to be said for power, I suppose,” murmured Athelas. “I would not choose to use it so if I had it—and there is very little use in pointing out that I used what I had in a similar way, my dear. My motives were entirely selfish and rooted purely in revenge.”

  To his surprise, YeoWoo only shrugged. “Revenge is something I understand,” she said. “It’s a pity that you can’t turn your brain to more than the negotiations with my contract; with your style and my teeth, we could do quite a decent job, I think. But if that’s all I can get, I’ll take it.”

  “It is all you can get,” he said coldly.

  “We’ll see,” said YeoWoo cryptically.

  Athelas didn’t like the way she was looking at him—as if she was seeing something that should have been hidden in the dark corners of his mind but had somehow come out on his face.

  “I’m not inclined to be tricked into more than that, my dear,” he said; then he added, “Do not imagine that I will ever assist you with your investigation itself. I’ve no intention of becoming mired in any attempts to rescue contracts for a brief respite before they are again taken into slavery. If your time is worth so little, mine is not.”

  “I’m not going to be helping you with your little quest to gatecrash the human girl’s wedding, either,” YeoWoo said, with a faint, contemptuous sniff. “I’m only helping as far as the license plate goes—and if you need help to get Harrow back. And I’m only doing that for Camellia.”

  “Then we have a bargain,” said Athelas.

  FISH IN A BOWL

  Leaves scudded down the street, dancing riotously in the air, and caught in the spiderwebs between the trees along the path, the first significant fall of yellow and red to the late summer season. Green—and sometimes yellow, or orange—spiders sat in the centre of those webs, jewel-like, bobbing on the current of the air and catching only leaves.

  YeoWoo, her eyes narrowed against the wind and her skin tingling with the feel and smell of the changing season, knew that she was smiling. Athelas was no doubt aware of it too, but since he would probably ascribe the smile to her pleasure at having him there to do what she wanted him to do, she wasn’t particularly inclined to temper her emotions.

  The truth was that YeoWoo felt most alive during the changes of the year—those brief few weeks in between seasons when nothing was quite one thing or the other, an almost Between sensation that she didn’t have to refuse to herself.

  And as the DDP mushroomed up against the sky, curved, sleek and plump in steel blue, she felt that the building itself existed in some kind of Between—but this Between was a man-made and manufactured one that formed art from architecture. Whether it was that feeling of permissible Between, or the feeling that she had managed to get the better of Athelas, YeoWoo strode into the contract café that morning feeling delightfully smug.

  Athelas strolled alongside her, somehow managing to keep up with her despite his apparently leisurely stride, and affected cool boredom where YeoWoo took on her previous demeanour of cold contempt. She was aware that behindkind looked away when her eyes chanced on them; a long time ago that would have cut her to the quick while at the same time pricking her with guilt. Here and now, she was entirely pleased for it to be so.

  None of the behindkind much liked looking at Athelas, either—perhaps he was well enough known even around Seoul for his reputation to have preceded him, but YeoWoo thought that the discomfort of those behindkind around them was because of the distinct air of menace that Athelas exuded today particularly.

  There was no reason to suggest that Athelas was uneasy, but YeoWoo had the feeling that he was, despite that; the more distinct air of menace was only part of the feeling. Athelas was always sharp and ready to fight, but she fancied that the sharpness she saw today was more overt and less velvet-lined than she had come to expect from him, despite the expressionlessness of his face. There was a tautness to him that suggested nerves stretched to breaking point, and almost a wildness to his shifting grey eyes.

  Even the very faint stretch of his index finger in the Between-laced air of the contract café area had something of a sharp look to it. Athelas was ready to release and use his knives, with the merest hairsbreadth between “use” and “don’t use”. And while YeoWoo found the atmosphere in the café pleasantly neutral, Athelas seemed to smell something unpleasant, though he did little more than faintly wrinkle his nose to show it.

  It wasn’t until there was absolute silence at her side that YeoWoo glanced sharply across and saw that Athelas had gone completely still, his grey eyes fixed on something across the room. At first, she didn’t see what it was that had drawn so much of his attention: it appeared as though he was staring at one of the giant pillars that had been wreathed with flowers and encircled by delicate wood-worked benches, both protrusions taking up a great deal of attention and space.

  Then YeoWoo saw that the space beyond the pillar was filled by a very large, cold-eyed fae who she had reason to know from the week previous; white haired, pale skinned, and clad in leather, Lord Sero looked as though he owned the café, and didn’t much care about it. The gaze that rested on Athelas, however, worried YeoWoo. It suggested to her an anger that had been buried but still burned—with ice instead of fire. She knew that look, and when Lord Sero’s attention briefly turned to her, she could see the difference in it, though there was a certain measure of challenge and question.

  Those ice blue eyes flicked over her face only briefly before they returned to Athelas. YeoWoo thought she heard the Steward exhale faintly beside her, but the exhale turned into words.

  “I beg of you, my dear,” he murmured, “to resist whatever folly you are at present contemplating.”

  YeoWoo didn’t deign to respond to that, nor did she design to obey any such request. She had no intention of allowing anyone—Lord Sero or anyone else—to shoulder their way into her work and disturb it, and an open disagreement now should keep anyone from assuming that old friends—who were, moreover, enforcers!—were taking an interest in each other or the café. She would not allow the den mother to think that she was on good terms with an enforcer of Lord Sero’s stature. YeoWoo allowed the ready snarl to show on her lips and turned in Lord Sero’s direction.

  She was too late: Lord Sero rose deliberately from his seat, crossed the room at a slow, unhurried pace, and passed so close by them to exit the café that YeoWoo felt the soft tug of displaced air. His eyes flicked over the two of them once again, indifferent and almost unrecognising. It was a magnificent show of lack of interest.

  One would think, YeoWoo thought, her eyes narrow, that he had been sitting there for no other purpose than to make such a show.

  “If your friends make trouble for me here, I’ll take it from your hide,” she hissed at Athelas.

  “I believe you’ll have to wait in line,” said Athelas, with a swift glance over his shoulder—and then one toward the receptionist, as if his eyes had been dragged there.

  It didn’t surprise YeoWoo when the den mother emerged from the steely curtain behind the receptionist—who was still, it appeared, wrestling with his computer today. She heard the very slight scuff of Athelas’ feet shifting to a minimally different position, and although she didn’t look at him directly, she saw him in the soft reflection of the steel curtain, his right arm and shoulder just slightly forward; just slightly turned to the side.

  “Good morning,” said the den mother. Her eyes wandered over Athelas with an appraising sort of look that YeoWoo took as predatory and more than slightly appreciative. “A gumiho with fae! You have interesting companions, YeoWoo-ssi.”

  Athelas didn’t look at her immediately, and YeoWoo felt that there again was that indefinable something that made her think Athelas was coiled as tight as a spring and ready to leap out at the first sign of trouble. If Lord Sero had shaken him, the den mother had returned him to the tightly wound state he had been in when he entered the contract café. There was certainly nothing panicked in his face, and his eyes were slow and thoughtful as they roamed the room and came back to rest on the den mother, whose lips curved at the glance. There was simply a tension.

  “We’re collaborating for now,” YeoWoo said carelessly. What a good thing that Lord Sero had made himself scarce just in time. “Fae have their uses. I suppose you already have a room set up with everything we might need?”

  “Of course. Follow me; the halls in the back can be rather confusing for those visiting for the first time, so it would be best if you stayed close and didn’t wander.”

  “I don’t get lost,” YeoWoo informed her, unwilling to say anything that might constitute agreement. The den mother might not be fae, but YeoWoo refused to agree to be bound by anyone else’s terms in such matters—she didn’t want to, and to do so would be to lose the face her reputation had earned her.

  “Of course,” said the den mother, with an affectation of carelessness. “This way.”

  She took them deep into the winding, bulbous passages that pulsed different colours in succession, much like the outside of the building at night. At times, it felt as though they might have been walking on the outside of the DDP, the walls dipping and bending and contracting around them as they went. At length, when YeoWoo estimated that they had been walking for a good kilometre, the den mother slowed and then stopped outside a curving, not quite still door, the surface of which rolled upward in bulges nearly too slow to be seen, like a steely lava lamp.

  The den mother opened that door, which swam rather than swung open, and gestured for them to enter. To Athelas, she said, “You should visit my office when you’re finished. It might be interesting to have some conversation. I don’t bite—unless requested, of course.”

  “I think not,” Athelas said coolly. “I don’t mix work and pleasure.”

  YeoWoo was prepared to aver that this was a lie—Athelas didn’t do anything for purely personal reasons, nor did he appear to do anything for purely business purposes. He did them for a mix of reasons that ultimately led to his own ends best being served, whatever classification those ends fell into.

  The den mother seemed amused rather than offended; she wore what YeoWoo would have said to be a genuine smile, though there was a cruel edge to it. Passing through the door behind Athelas, YeoWoo wondered what the den mother had seen in Athelas that she hadn’t.

  Marazul was already in the room when they entered, deeply engaged with his computer, but his eyes immediately went from the screen to her face. There was a stronger-than-previously golden tinge to his skin that made YeoWoo think that he might have recently come from some sort of water. The door closed behind her as she drew nearer to the table, so YeoWoo felt free to say to the merman, “They let you have a pool?” as she leaned against the table.

  Marazul looked surprised and perhaps faintly flustered, and Athelas, sitting down opposite him, looked amused.

  “I get perks,” the merman said, picking up his coffee as if to have something to do with his hands. “What I do is very useful.”

  “So I have always thought,” Athelas said gently.

  Marazul’s eyes widened as his head jerked back; his eyes went straight to Athelas, and he dropped his coffee. Perhaps it might have been more accurate to say that he pushed himself backwards violently, dropping coffee and anything else that he had been holding in order to do so, his hands springing from the tabletop he had pushed away from and to his wheels as if ready to wheel his chair away for his life.

  There was a ringing silence that settled into a gently dripping one. Into that silence, Athelas said pleasantly, “What a delightful surprise to see you again.”

  As YeoWoo watched, bright with interest, the merman managed to swallow, but had to attempt speech twice before he was able to say, his voice rather more strained than she had yet heard it, “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

  “That expectation was mutual,” Athelas said. “Alas. It might have spared me some nuisance had I known.”

  YeoWoo had the warmly gratifying feeling of knowing that not only had her excess of caution borne fruit where it came to Athelas and Marazul, but that it had done so in a way that must be most galling to Athelas. She had secured Athelas’ help before telling him anything of Marazul with the idea that Athelas would probably make use of Marazul’s skills himself and bypass the middleman, and that idea had been far more correct than she knew.

  She wasn’t childish enough to remind Athelas of his agreement, nor rude enough to suggest to him that it would be best if he kept to it; she was content to know that Athelas was irritated at this turn of events.

  “This is very convenient,” she said. “If you already know each other, I won’t waste time with introductions.”

  Marazul managed to tear his eyes away from Athelas for long enough to seek YeoWoo’s gaze again, rather convulsively. “I thought—why are you working with him?”

  “I’m not working with him,” YeoWoo said. “He’s working for me.”

  “You seem to be under some misapprehension,” Athelas said to Marazul, very gently. “I am no longer the person you once knew.”

  YeoWoo’s eyebrows twitched up in silent disbelief. Marazul must have seen that, because he swallowed again as he looked back toward Athelas.

  “Oh. Yes?”

  “Certainly. In fact, I am, once again—occasionally—working with the enforcers. There is an agreement in place.”

  YeoWoo could see the merman’s face working as he held back what was probably a remark on the fact that no matter what agreements Athelas had in place with the current enforcers, it couldn’t possibly do away with the weight of actual misdeeds that Athelas had committed. The amount of bloodshed and betrayal that had come about at his hands was something to be remembered and feared, whether or not he was now in good standing with the authorities.

  “Athelas will be preparing our agreement,” she said to Marazul. “You’ll be dealing with him as much as—or more than—with me, particularly in the early stages. He’s the one you’ll need to provide with your proof of use to satisfy me that you’re worth contracting, too.”

  “Do—do I have to?”

  “Yes,” YeoWoo said, without mincing matters. “I’m not going to spend my time working out contracts; Athelas does that for me.”

  Marazul looked as though he would have liked to have said something else. YeoWoo wondered for a moment if that something was perhaps a question concerning the likelihood of Athelas doing things for himself rather than others—a kind of warning. But there was no reason for Marazul to be warning a potential contractor about anything; he had managed to keep his primary contractors in the dark on several key points, and there would be no reason for him to do any differently with her. As much as any relationship with the fae was bound by rules and avoidance of breaking those rules by the veriest knife’s edge of meaning, a contract relationship was based on how much a contract could get away with between and around the rules enforced by the contractor.

  “Miss YeoWoo is, I believe, quite well versed in getting what she wants,” said Athelas gently. “And with that in mind, I would be remiss in not bringing up proof of use as our first order of business. It should cause you no trouble at all to fulfil the particular proof I require—it is merely a matter of finding the current whereabouts of a certain car whose license plate I have obtained.”