‘He’s just some hophead smuggler, Falco—’ the older Rook says.
‘You keep talking without permission.’ She turns her piercing gaze on Silas. ‘So you’re the one sold them out. Should’ve known. Say the word, Doc, and he’s grub meat.’
Silas meets my gaze, half-defiant, half-pleading. Slowly, I shake my head.
‘He saved our lives. Guess it makes us even.’
‘If you say so.’ She hefts the gun. ‘Alright. I had sworn to kill every last one of you, for Boots, but since Moloney’s gone, I might, maybe, be willing to entertain an offer for your worthless lives. What’s it to be? Death or a deal?’
Amir’s jaw clenches. He’s furious, but at least seems smart enough to realise the truth of his situation.
‘A deal,’ he grunts.
‘A deal what?’
‘A deal, please.’
Falco laughs at him. ‘Doc, take their guns. And then I suggest we all get cosy. We’ve got a lot to discuss.’
* * *
The seven of us sit around the single table in what serves as the trade post’s saloon. Pegeen leans in the corner, a revolver propped on their boot, pointed at Amir. Gilli looks in warily from time to time from the curtained doorway that leads to her bedroom, where the General rests. She is obviously resentful that the same Rooks who smashed up her store are now sitting, watching Falco and Pegeen and I eat dried snake meat and airtight pears, drinking ersatz coffee laced with cactus syrup. More than once, I see the youngest Rook stare longingly at the food and lick his dry lips.
‘I want sixty per cent,’ Falco says, delicately scooping a watery slice of pear from her plate. ‘Of any take. Your territory will be from Wilson’s Ridge to Naz Peak. If I catch you working outside it, you will be shot. If you go after any of my G’hals, or informants, or associates, you will be shot. If I hear you have been undercutting me’ – she wipes her fingers on a rag – ‘you get the picture.’
‘Alright.’ Amir’s lips twitch. ‘Ma’am.’
‘You’re heading back to the Rookery?’
He jerks his head. ‘Got to bury the ones the Seekers didn’t snatch, before they start to stink too bad.’
‘Well, when you’re done there, come and see me in Landfall and we’ll discuss the matter of your recruiting.’ She smiles. ‘You understand all that?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Good.’ She sits back. ‘You may go.’
The Rooks stand and shuffle towards the door, the youngest glancing nervously at Pegeen’s revolver.
‘What do you say?’ Peg’s voice stops them.
‘Thank you,’ they each mutter, before shoving their way outside.
Falco turns back to the table where Silas sits awkwardly, fiddling with the pipe that she had refused to let him smoke.
‘I, ah, think I should go check on the Charis?’ he says hopefully.
Falco nods in permission and he hurries out, not without a lingering glance at me. She laughs when she sees that.
‘You sure pick them, Doc.’ She takes a slurp of her coffee. Without the Rooks the small room seems cosier, with the stove sending out an orange fug of warmth and my belly full, the sugar of preserved fruit tingling in my blood. And yet there is talk to be had, painful though it is.
‘What happened back at the Pit?’ I ask them both softly.
Falco shakes her head. ‘We got out. Don’t ask me how. It wasn’t pretty. Would have headed for Landfall, but some pit fiends laid chase, pushed us clear in the wrong direction. Fifty klicks before they gave up.’ She sighs, setting down the mug. ‘Had to use the fuel out of Peg’s mare to get us even halfway here. Pushed the wagon hard as I could, for Boots’s sake, but…’
She trails off, staring down at the peeling tabletop. Peg holsters the revolver to put an arm around Falco’s neck, leaning their head against hers.
‘I am sorry,’ I say. ‘If I had been there…’
Falco sniffs hard. ‘No use wishing on it now.’
We sit in silence for a time, listening to the wind lap at the edge of the door.
‘I’ll go check on Gabi,’ Peg says quietly, leaving a kiss on the side of Falco’s face.
I fill our mugs from the pot on the stove and stare down into that weak, sweet brew that tastes like the ghost of coffee, waiting for Falco to ask about Moloney, and the Edge and how the General and I are alive.
But to my surprise, she doesn’t. Instead, she leans forwards with a grunt and takes a battered tin from her pack.
It’s some kind of cream, I see, smelling strongly of artificial violets. She scoops some out and works it across her strong, scarred knuckles, pushing up her sleeves to rub it into the ashy skin of her elbows. ‘Damn moon,’ she mutters. ‘Makes everything dryer than a drunk’s eyeball.’ She holds out the tin. ‘You should use some too, before you turn into Gilli.’
I laugh at that, the first proper laugh I remember for a long time, and scoop some up, smoothing it over my hands, flaking and cracked by the desert winds as they are.
‘Listen, Doc,’ Falco says. ‘We’ve been here for three days, waiting on someone to rob. While we were waiting we helped Gilli get the place straightened up. Peg even fixed the wire. We read the news.’ She works cream into a spot on her wrist. ‘Afraid Moloney’s boys were less than discreet about your capture.’
So, she knows about me, about the past. I meet her gaze.
‘What,’ she says, ‘think I never suspected you were a Lifer? Scar like that?’ She sighs. ‘So far, the news is only out on the tangle, not the proper wire. But once folk hear Moloney’s dead, you’re going to have every scalper in this quadrant down on this place, looking for those hundred thousand credits.’
‘And you?’ Falco has a price – she has never denied that – I just don’t know what it is.
‘Don’t know what you did to get put away for that long. But if it was done during the war, you’re not special. We all did
