“Thankfully, no,” Quill replied. “But every man here lost a job and a family to this depression, same as you. Suffered through the same winter. Saw too many bodies lying in the Court of Honor, stiff with frost. All while the robber barons sat by their roaring fires and drank to their continued prosperity.”
“There,” Derek said softly, pointing ahead of him. He’d moved towards Wherrit while Neva edged in the opposite direction.
She doubled back to see what her brother had spied through the Wooded Island’s wild growth: Mabel kneeling amidst an unruly crop of roses, her clothing and skin torn by thorns. Quill standing defiant, a knife in his hand. Kam and five of his tattered companions in combative poses.
“And that gives you leave to become a robber yourself?” asked Wherrit. “A snatcher of women? A purveyor of high rhetoric and inglorious deeds?”
“It gives me leave to recognize when things need to change, and that the moment of change is now.” Quill jabbed his blade at the Hobo King. “God knows why, but the refugees in the White City still look to ‘Your Royal Poorness’ for leadership. Give it to them: order them to join the strikers. Give this city, this nation, the rebirth it needs—a second Great Fire. Help set capitalism ablaze, for the betterment of the common man.”
Wherrit stared at him, shrugged, and laughed.
“Don’t think I won’t cut her,” snarled Quill, moving the knife to Mabel’s throat.
Neva took a step forward. Derek grabbed her wrist.
She shot him an angry look, but he was busy considering distances. “Ten yards,” he muttered without looking at her, finger-sketching calculations in the air. “I can probably arc a current ten yards—if you give me the necklace.”
She thought of how exhausted he’d seemed after using it a few hours ago. “Are you sure?”
He shook his head yet reached his hand out anyway.
“All right.” She passed him the necklace, touching only its cord and not the shells themselves. “I’ll distract them.”
“Go in at an angle so that my line of sight stays clear. And get Quill to break contact with Mabel. If they’re touching, and I hit him ...”
“Right.” She drew in a deep breath, stood straight, and strode into the open.
“Your actions are as small as your talk is large,” Wherrit was saying to Quill.
“And once you’ve spilled Mabel’s blood,” Neva interrupted, as all eyes turned to her. “A mother’s blood, mind you—will you use your mighty blade to turn back the troops who’ve taken the robber barons’ side? Will your three inches of steel be sufficient to overcome the capitalists’ guns, trains, and manpower? Because that’s all we’ll have. Knives and stones against guns, against trained soldiers. It’s not the way.”
“Neva?” asked Quill, momentarily taken aback ... and ashamed?
“Let her go. This isn’t you.” She took another step closer. “I remember how you used to teach Augie and Derek and me about the Magna Carta, and the Declaration of Independence, and the early days of the French Revolution—you were inspiring. And you never would have hurt anyone.”
He grimaced. “Times change.”
Kam snorted. “What’s your plan, then, Chocolate Hips? Continue living like rats? So that we’re prepared to die like them?”
“I find and distribute what food I can,” Wherrit interjected. “Clothing, blankets—little things, it’s true, but large to those who receive them. Sometimes, the best course of action is to simply endure.”
“But it’s not!” shouted Quill, his passion flooding back. “Not anymore! Not when the newspapers are demonizing anyone siding with the Pullman strikers! Not when women and children go hungry because there’s no work to be had for their men! Not when—”
“Your case would be stronger if a mother didn’t cower at your feet.”
Quill glowered, but the grandstanding ended there: with a cry of “Aunt Mabel!”, Dob burst from the bushes on the other side of the garden and slammed into Neva’s former teacher, sending him staggering backward as a streak of lightning took Kam in the chest.
“Holy fuck!” one of his tattered brethren exclaimed, the only reaction anyone managed before Neva was in their midst, whipping between the two largest men and reaching for Mabel with one hand and Dob with the other.
But like a second lightning bolt, pain flared in Neva’s stomach, its immediacy leaving her breathless and off-kilter—she stumbled just as Mabel lunged toward Dob and Quill threw him off.
“Get hold of her,” Quill spat, grabbing Mabel’s arm while motioning for the other men to do the same to Neva.
They were too surprised to comply. “Kam?” one of them asked their fallen comrade, who’d landed on his back several paces from where he’d stood when the lighting struck.
“What was that?” another wondered, gazing up at the clear sky.
Neva suppressed the urge to run her hands over her midsection—there was no tangible injury there. No gunshot, no knife wound, not even a bruise. The problem was inside her, and there was nothing she could do about it right now. So she pushed through her agony and made another lunge for Mabel.
But Quill yanked Dob’s aunt away and returned the knife to her throat.
“Back!” he yelled as Wherrit charged in, Hal and Thaddeus at his side. “Back!” Quill screamed again, tightening his grip on Mabel’s neck and forcing the Hobo King and his Ignobles to draw up short.
“Be a man,” Wherrit panted warningly. “Not a monster.”
“Better still,” Brin—Brin!—called from the far side of the garden. “Don’t be an eijit.” The Irishwoman, her auburn hair burnished by starlight, stood where the Hobo King and his companions had a few moments earlier.
“Where are all these bloody women and children coming from?” asked the dirtiest of
