I motioned again and fed a single shell into the weapon while leading them over to the edge. “Okay, so first thing’s first. If you look and see this indicator looks like this, the weapon is on safe and cannot be fired. To change that, press here. If you have not fired the weapon and do not have a shell in the chamber, you pull back the knob here. Now the weapon is loaded. When ready to fire, you shoulder the weapon like this, put your target in the sights, and pull the trigger here. Millwall, if you would?”

  The giant cautiously accepted the weapon from me as if I was handing him a live snake.

  “No need to worry, it’s on safe. I placed a pair of melons that were going bad on the ground. Pick one, shoulder the weapon, and turn off the safety.”

  Millwall deliberately complied and didn’t take his cheek off the stock when he asked, “And now I just pull the trigger?”

  “Yes.”

  Before I even finished the word, the stiff report from the weapon drowned out my voice.

  Millwall’s eyebrows were up and his eyes wide almost as much as his smile when he pivoted his head to look at me. “This— this is amazing. I thought you said it had kick? Our small prototypes were far worse.”

  Accepting the weapon back, I snorted. “Millwall, not everybody is your size, you know?”

  “Fair. Tomas is going to like this one, I think.”

  Tomas did, in fact, not enjoy his experience.

  “Ow, godsdamnit, I’ve been kicked by ponies lighter than that,” he muttered.

  “I did warn you to keep it against your shoulder,” I noted.

  Tomas mimicked me back in annoyance but shrugged at the end. “You know, I guess it wasn’t that bad. Not really. It just surprised me. Totally minced that melon, too. Yeah, I guess that was actually fun now that I think of it.”

  I eyed Millwall and let him know he was right before moving on to the next part of the demonstration by fetching the box of Remington shells next to the soft case. “Okay, so the tube holds seven shells, and you can have one in the chamber at the same time. So that’s seven or eight people you can give real bad days to. Worth noting, you can hit targets farther than your melons were, but it loses effectiveness. I’ll get into why when we get back. Now, you can reload this by hand in a lot of different ways, some faster than others. Please note, if you cup the shells just right, like this, you can load multiples at the same time.”

  I gave Tomas the weapon to practice with because I intended for him to carry it. After a bit, I pointed out, “You don’t have to rush now, just get comfortable with it, Tomas. The important thing is to get the muscle memory down first. Speed comes from that. Just like playing the lute, I’d imagine.”

  Tomas eyed me and opened his mouth to obviously argue but paused before saying anything. “You know, you have a point. When I first started I couldn’t shift my fingering worth a damn.”

  Millwall was still grinning when he elbowed me. “So, you have more of these?”

  “In a variety of sizes, yeah, but just the one shotgun.”

  “Do they all shoot pellets? I saw the pattern when the melon came apart.”

  I hadn’t expected either of them to notice. “No, actually. Those pellets, the shot, are something you only see in shotguns, hence the name.”

  “Oh.”

  “You know, there are bigger shotguns in my world.”

  He perked up. “Really?”

  “Oh yeah, you don’t see them around, though. They’re too big for most people. So, twelve gauge tells you how many lead pellets they make out of a pound of lead.”

  “Oh, so twelve pellets?”

  I nodded. “You can— could still find ten gauge on the market when I checked last.”

  That seemed to mollify the smith until Tomas handed the shotgun over a short while later.

  “So, do you think I can keep practicing later?” the bard asked.

  I nodded. “The more practice you get, the happier I’ll be. Just don’t accidentally put holes in something. I wasn’t kidding about not being able to make more.”

  Tomas nodded furiously. “Oh, don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure whatever I pull the trigger on deserves it first.”

  “That reminds me.” I raised my voice a bit to make sure Millwall caught was I was saying. “I forgot to mention it, but once you have a shell in the chamber, that thing will fire literally as fast as you can pull the trigger. Do not get trigger happy with it if shit’s going sideways because you’ll run dry faster than you think and then you’ve fucked yourself.”

  Both nodded.

  Millwall paused a few seconds later. “Do you think I could help you clean this later? I’d really like to see the internals. I can’t imagine how someone built such a thing and it doesn’t just explode in your hands like the small prototypes did.”

  I chuckled, translated for Tomas, and replied, “Sure. If it wasn’t going to take us a week to get there, I wouldn’t clean it at all.”

  Millwall squinted at me. “Honest? Ours fouled so badly you really wanted to clean them after every firing.”

  “Yep. Different sort of powder in this one, I’d bet.”

  “Guess that makes sense. I wish I could talk with the designers.”

  I laughed. “You know, Millwall, I think you and my sister will get along really well. She says the same kind of stuff.”

  The smith seemed to consider this a moment and then smiled. “Sounds like a maker after my own heart. Don’t worry, we’ll bring her back in one piece, Sam.”

  Tomas accepted the shotgun back and nodded. “Yeah. With something like this coming with us, anyone who thinks they’re going to get in the way is going to regret that decision.”

  “That’s the idea,” I noted with a grin.

  “So when do we spar?” Millwall asked.

  “Rowan had a point. No training today, or at least nothing strenuous. Rest up because the trip will be hard enough without us being tired first. Now, Rowan’s letting me pick stuff out of the armory for the trip. Did she say anything to you two?”

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  Tomas looked up, grinned, and jammed a pair of shells into the shotgun in an almost picturesque war movie moment. “I already have my own gear. I just didn’t have most of it with me when I took that walk-about. Wasn’t planned, you see.”

  Millwall grinned. “I was a bit worried about equipment when I offered to help all those days back. I asked Rowan when she took me to see their smiths. Naturally, they didn’t have anything in my size, but with some help I fixed up something that should work for now.”

  “Good. Well, I’ll see you guys at the ramps at dawn. Stay safe.”

  Both acknowledged the comment with a nod.

  I stopped in the Harvester’s office on the way out. “You sure there isn’t anything I can help you with?”

  Rowan looked over in my direction for a lingering moment before going back to what looked like a map on the desk in front of her. “Quite sure. Go relax, Sam.”

  Nervous energy turned ‘relax’ into a wandering walk around the village, eventually back to the villa where I returned to my room and spent the rest of my day compulsively cleaning my guns.

  Even though I hadn’t strained anything in any meaningful way, I decided to not skip the evening bath and was happy Rowan had shown me how to get everything up and running during our second trip up there.

  Like I had many previous days, I sank into the hot water up to my chin and just let everything melt away. Thoughts came and went on their own. The third time I’d done this alone, Quinn had walked in after a bit. I’d assumed Rowan had showed up late, so I wasn’t expecting Quinn to ask if I minded if she joined me. I also didn’t expect to have to help her into the tub, for which she apologized profusely.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I didn’t used to be this way. Maybe my daughter has a point. I’m not sure how to say this, but would it be possible to do this more often? Eidhneán would worry less if she knew I had someone here with me in case one of my episodes happen.”

  The question had been so earnestly made, but the implications still tugged at my heart a little. Quinn would’ve been in the peak of her life if her spell hadn’t gone awry hadn’t stolen all the years in the middle of it all. And there she was, probably not much older than me, equivalently speaking, and having to ask for a bathing partner so she didn’t drown if she had a seizure in the tub. Fuck, life sucks sometimes.

  Dimly, part of me wondered if I hadn’t hitched myself to a sinking ship, but I dismissed it back to the darkness of my subconscious with a simple admonition. You don’t have to be on the winning side to be on the right side.

  The door opened behind me. I didn’t bother opening my eyes, but it dimly occurred to me maybe I should, given everything that happened today.

  I looked up to find Rowan ditching the last of her small clothes.

  “You know, I thought about it, and Aine wasn’t exactly wrong earlier.”

  ***

  We set out the next morning while morning fog still densely clung to everything. I didn’t need the previous night’s disclosure from Rowan to know she wasn’t coming with us. No commander takes the field when doing so undermines the defense of their base of operations, and as questionable as her personnel decisions up until this point might’ve been, when it came to the field considerations, she refused to shirk her duty.

  What I didn’t expect were the two shadows in front of us, showing us to the nearest skyway, the tree-top level paths that the Harvesters had spent decades building and maintaining.

  I quickly learned these paths weren’t without their own dangers, as I’m pretty sure even the general idea of how they were implemented would send an OSHA inspector into cardiac arrest, but they certainly had their benefits. The walk wasn’t nearly as brisk as if we were crossing open ground but compared to what I expected with the broken crater floor and the dense underbrush underneath us, we were comparatively sprinting along at a great pace.

  As the sun descended that first night, Cailleach called us to a halt. Apparently, even though the Syr could see at night, the paths were still too dangerous to traverse unless it was absolutely necessary. When Tomas asked about torches, Aine impressed me with an answer almost directly out of Army doctrine. Light discipline was necessary to prevent any enemy from learning about the hidden paths for as long as possible, which meant no torches and no campfires. Instead, everyone picked a different segment of the path and tied themselves off to the path or nearest sturdy branch.

  I was mostly asleep, comfortable in the Carhart hoodie I’d had since I was a teen and the blanket I’d had over me in the truck, when movement caught my attention. It took me a second, but shape and size meant it could be only one of two people.

  “Aine,” I whispered.

  The shape froze and then came closer before whispering back, “Yes?”

  “You okay? After all those warnings, I wouldn’t expect you to be wandering about.”

  “I— I’m okay. I can’t sleep. Too cold.”

  Against my better judgement, I lifted the corner of my blanket. “Feel free. No obligation.”

  The shadow remained absolutely still for several heartbeats. “Are you sure?”

  “I wouldn’t offer if I didn’t think it’d help.”

  She ended up half wrapped around me, head on my chest, and shivering like a leaf in a stiff wind. After a few minutes, the shivers subsided and she whispered, “How can you be so warm?”

  Somehow I’d avoided making noise when one of her hands had slipped under the back of my hoodie earlier, so I was being completely honest when I replied with, “How can you be so cold? Like, I used to joke that most of my ex-girlfriends could give me frostbite, but I was actually worried there for a second.”

  “Side effect of what the House put us through, I think. Pain feels like cold to me most of the time and I just get cold for no reason now. It got worse after— after the night we decided to come to the Glade.”

  I mulled over what that might mean a few moments before asking, “Is your sister the same way?”

  “I don’t know why, but no. And if you’re wondering why I didn’t do this with her, she hates me waking her up when I’m like this. I thought I could just tough it out this one time.”

  I started to nod off again when she suddenly squeezed me in a fierce hug. “Thanks, Sam.”

  “For what?”

  “For this. For not wanting something else in exchange.”

  My heart nearly froze in place. “What did they do to you, Aine?”

  I felt her shake her head minutely. “The House of Silence demands an oath of the same from its adherents. What came before never was, and what comes after will never be.”

  With my stomach weighed down by those words, I couldn’t help but hug her back. Sleep finally took me sometime later.

  When I awoke, the blanket had been neatly wrapped back around me, though I still faintly smelled Aine on it when I folded it. She greeted me with a smile a short time later and asked me to start waking everyone up.

  The pattern from our first day away repeated again over the course of the second, except instead of being nearly asleep when Aine came to visit, I was worrying over the fate of those Tomas had rescued and wondering what lay in store at the end of this trip.

  “Still awake this time,” Aine whispered as she slid under the offered blanket. “Something on your mind, Sam?”

  “Quite a bit actually. Partly, I was wondering what’s going to happen with the people Tomas saved. Rowan and Tomas haven’t mentioned anything about them since then.”

  She sank into me and sighed contently. “They won’t, either. Well, Rowan won’t talk about it to you. Not yet. Tomas doesn’t know.”

  “Doesn’t know what?”

  “Every one of the children is like him, a half-elf. They were breeding new slaves, not capturing them.”

  My stomach churned as I involuntarily shuddered. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard something fucked up about the local populace while deployed, but it was the first time for this particular flavor of evil.

  When I didn’t speak, she slid upward, bringing her mouth to my ear. “Don’t worry. They’ll send me. They always do. Cailleach gets the hard tasks. I get the ones that deserve it.”

  My skin prickled when she settled down, lips against my neck, and quickly began a faint, quiet snore. Sleep didn’t come nearly as easy as it did the night before.

  We arrived at the end of the skyway shortly after noon on the third day. Under Cailleach’s direction, the three of us stayed put on the terminus while the twins scouted the area below us and then around Fiddler’s Green proper. We had four days until Jenna’s arrival.

  At least an hour or two later, Tomas came to sit next to me while I followed the twins with my binoculars. “So, which one, you think?”

  “Which one what?”

  “Which one would you bed, given the chance?” I drew in a slow breath and before I could say anything, he added, “They’re both beautiful. I mean, they’re twins so it makes sense.”

  “I’d be very, very careful around either of them,” I quietly noted while watching Aine disappear through a window in what looked to be the back of a storehouse.

  “Oh?”

  “Look, I know me and Rowan gave you some serious shit earlier—”

  “She already apologized, Sam.”

  “Tomas, listen to me when I say this. They’re not like other girls.”

  “Well yeah. That’s what I like about them.”

  I sighed. “Tomas, I don’t mean that like they’re more virtuous or innocent. At the bare minimum, they’re Harvesters. They kill people for a living. Neither of them are some jaded barmaid or innocent waif. They’ve done things, and if you fuck up hard enough, you might find out what those things are.”

  “Oh.”

  I let Tomas stew on that for a second, but I also knew if I didn’t give him an answer, he’d probably keep needling me until I did. “Besides which, Cailleach has my vote.”

  I felt Tomas’s smile, almost like a bright lamp popping on. “Really? She’s a bit quiet for my tastes. Though, on reconsideration, that too has its merits. Well, sorry for bothering you. It’s not like I can talk to Millwall, you know? I’ll fuck off now.”