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“Why did you want to meet?” Hawthorne crossed his arms. “What could you possibly have to say to me?”
“A lot of things,” she sipped her coffee, and placed the delicate espresso cup back onto its saucer. “Trust me though, I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t absolutely necessary.”
“What’s so necessary that you had to break your self-imposed exile?” His voice cracked but he drank tea that she knew must have burned his tongue at that temperature to cover it up.
“President Wintersea is,” she said in clipped tones. “Don’t get emotional, it’s ridiculous, you’ll draw us attention.”
“I thought you’d come here on the Gossamer Line,” he said.
“As you said, my exile is self-imposed. I didn’t murder hundreds of people. I’m not a criminal.”
“You just work with them.”
“Do you think the Wundrous Society is so innocent?”
“We do good work.”
“And plenty of bad. I do good work.”
“And plenty of bad,” he mimicked back at her, all of thirteen for ten seconds.
“Really? Do you know what I do?”
“You work with Squall. For him. And for the Wintersea Party.”
“You never had any ability to apply a single modicum of nuance, I forgot.” She had tried her best to, at least. It had always been harder than she liked to forget Nevermoor, and everyone she had known there for those seven years. She’d now been in the Republic, with Squall, for almost as long as she’d been in Nevermoor. She’d missed the cobbled streets, and ancient buildings, and the way the place just hissed with wunder, danced and sang with it, but at least she could come back. She just chose not to. It was easier that way.
Officially she wasn’t exiled from the Wundrous Society. Unofficially, she didn’t think that she would be exactly welcome back there after all her time at Squall Industries. She might as well be the enemy now. She’d worked with him long enough.
“Anyway,” her drink was empty. Disappointing. She wasn’t sure if she was willing to get up to get another one and risk being recognised, and she doubted Hawthorne would get her another. “I don’t work for the Wintersea Party. That is rather the point of why I’m here.”
“Really?” His forearm had a noticeable patch of discoloured skin on it. A graft, maybe? “Okay, I’ll bite. What does President Wintersea have that’s so scary that you would be willing to come here when you didn’t even bother to break up with your girlfriend in person.”
She flinched, “Interpersonal relationships are a lot less serious than a,” she lowered her voice, although they had already been essentially whispering. “ potential invasion .”
He turned puce, then white, and she wondered if she would have to call an ambulance on his behalf. “What the fuck do you mean by invasion?”
“I’ll tell you more if you come with me,” she eyed the tables clustered around the cafe, full of people. A good place to go unnoticed in the crowd, but it wasn’t great if one wanted to be able to perform a demonstration.
“My flat isn’t anywhere near here.”
“Good thing mine is then, isn’t it?”
It was dusty and unheated but she had made sure the soundproofing was reinforced when she had bought the place. It was under an alias and a shell company or two, she didn’t want any busybody from the society coming by with opinions about what property she should own, and it was only a place to sleep in, or have a private meeting, apparently.
Or get away from Mildmay and Squall when they were having one of their moments, and she couldn’t stand being near that. It could get sickening, and she was still stuck pretending she didn’t know.
Officially, she had her own place in Great Wolfacre. Actually, with all the wealth she had accumulated in her time with Squall Industries, as one of two people who could supply wunder to the Republic, she had been able to afford more than that, so she had a house in both the Silklands, and in Prosper, but most of her time was spent in Yvalstad, and since Squall had a mansion there, she didn’t exactly feel like getting her own place. Unfortunately this left her with a collection of roommates, including but not limited to: a litany of shadow dogs, horsemen and horses, a half-dead Mildmay, and obviously Squall himself.
She still came to Nevermoor less than she wanted to though. It was full of regret for her.
She hadn’t betrayed anyone. She was doing her duty, and doing what she had promised she would do when she had become Squall’s apprentice. He had wanted an heir, and a dedicated student, and though she had once been far behind with her studies as a wundersmith, she considered herself more than caught up now.
But she had left. Left behind everyone she knew, her friends, her unit, her girlfriend. Hawthorne was right when he’d said breaking up with her via letter wasn’t exactly the best way to go about that, but wundersmiths had no friends, they only had themselves and that was the best way to be.
Cadence had sent letter upon letter in response in years, but she had never opened them, until they became less and less frequent and then dropped off entirely about two years ago.
She showed Hawthorne the schematics of the weapon that President Wintersea had asked her and Squall to build.
“I need to… bring in another person. It’s better if I can corroborate this before I bring it to anyone else.”
“I’ll see you here tomorrow. Don’t choose an idiot.”
Hawthorne did not choose an idiot. He chose one of the most painful people she could have seen again. Cadence.
“You’re back?” She looked like she was trying not to look hopeful but Morrigan had been able to see through her masks when they were eleven and she hadn’t become that much better at it, at least not to her.
“For now. For this.” She glared at Hawthorne, “Did you fill her in or-?”
“He summarised but I want to hear it from you too.”
Morrigan blinked hard, and spilled everything out for her to see.
“How was it?” Squall hardly looked like the Butcher of Nevermoor when he was wearing an apron, and frying an egg. She was fairly sure that the apron had once said “kiss the chef” but he must have… ruined it away or something.
“It’s over,” she sipped the coffee and tried not to gag. The beans had been ground far too finely or something.
“Well done,” Mildmay sipped his tea. She had been asked to call him Henry ever since coming here, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. “I know you were worried about it.”
“Worried about the invasion of Nevermoor by President Wintersea? Me? Of course not,” she gave up on the coffee and dumped it into the sink, rinsing the cup. “Also, stop changing the grind size, whichever one of you are doing that.”
“I don’t drink coffee ,” Mildmay looked offended. “And I wasn’t talking about that - we’re all worried about that - ” Specifically Mildmay was worried about how it would affect his investors, but whatever kept him onside, she supposed. “I meant seeing your unitmates again.” He waggled his eyebrows and she knew he had heard about Cadence.
“Can I set him on fire?” she asked the room in general.
“No,” Squall passed her the plate with the single fried egg, unsalted, unspiced. She ate it with her hands. “I can’t believe how uncivilised you are. I’ve met your brothers, I’ve never once seen them eat with their hands.”
“Fucking tragic, isn’t it?”
“Language.” He sighed. “Miss Crow,” he usually called her Morrigan these days, but sometimes he still slipped into the old trappings of formalities. “They are not your friends any more. Nor will they ever be again, most likely. But they can be allies, and most people can be motivated by positive feelings towards someone, even if you have nothing to bring to the table.”
“I do have something to bring to the table, I’m helping them not get invaded,” she washed the plates, enjoying how the hot water warmed her hands.
“It’s ‘be invaded’, and yes.” He shrugged, “It’s a sweetener then. Be nice, and stay close and you’ll get what you want. What we all want.”
“This is your advice?” She scoffed, “I will go back and talk to them if I must, but only if I must absolutely. I don’t need them to like me anymore. I need them to listen to me.”
Squall tightened his jaw, but there was an element of pride in his eyes. It made her feel slightly ill, “Then I have taught you well, Miss Crow.”
“Perhaps.”