Montana Territory, 1867

  Almost Fall

  Two horses follow the steel beast as it thunders across the plains.

  It’s a ghastly thing. Pistons on pistons. Screeching whistles. Black smoke in the air. Blue peaks soar in the distance, the moon just starting to grasp above them, but at this moment, the riders focus only on the rocks and cliffs ahead.

  BLAM! Red fires a shot, powder flooding his lungs. The train doesn’t move, doesn’t react, but they can hear the voices inside. The prayers. The scurrying.

  "Remember, lux cars ONLY!" He shouts as Ginger Root surges past. "An' no one harmed!"

  "Thanks!" Harriet turns in her saddle to scowl out him. "Couldn't figure that out!"

  She sticks roughspun in her mouth, yanking the reins. As Ginger Root nears the engines, the tracks, she slowly sets herself, feet on the saddle. Tracks churning, metal heating, wind in her air. It’s the most dangerous part, and yet she greets it. Smiles at it. Feel alive.

  A leap, then a whinny. Ginger Root runs back, confused by her sudden lack of a rider. Harriet rolls too many times on the car connector, but uses her gun like a hook on the door. Just barely keeps from tumbling back to the grass. Rocking with the train.

  As she stands, watching fields and 'gram lines whizz by, people in the car scream. Shout about 'Black Banners' a good dozen times. She sighs in relief. Two hard parts done.

  "YA KNOW WHO I AM, GENTS!" She shouts as the door opens. "Ya know why I'm here!" She clicks the hammer of Pa's rifle. All theatrics from this point forward.

  To her surprise, someone rises. Suit and top hat and pocket watch. He strolls carefully up to her, scowling down.

  "Sorry, pardner," she interjects. "This ain't yer station."

  "We don't bow to bandits." His words drip with venom. "We're upstanding men."

  The faces the other passengers make might refute this. She tries to hide the twitch in her eye, the bend in her bow. "Bandit, huh?"

  The Springfield slams into his gut. The man cries, kneeling down, and she repeats the gesture to the back of his neck. Knocking him cold.

  "Welcome ta fuckin' Montana."

  Just as Red makes his ascent, Harriet unfurls her roughspun sack, gets to work. "Right folks! Y’all know the drill. Jewels, gems, cash. Jes’ cash. Don’t want yer fuckin’ wallets.”

  She’s halfway through the car when a terrified woman holds out a silver locket. Harriet snatches it, studies it. There's a small photograph inside. A man in a Union blue uniform, with a rifle just like hers. She pauses, for several moments, before shoving it back in the woman’s hands. "Watch."

  It's to the man by her side. He lifts a trembling wrist, and she rips the silver off it. Harriet uses the chance to snatch the watch off her wrist.

  Suddenly, gunfire. Breaking glass. Harriet ducks on instinct. It’s in another car. “ROWE!”

  “Go, go!” Red barks, and she runs. The air turns windy and still and windy again as she races down the tracks. When she nears the boiler, another shot flies, ricocheting off the iron. She cowers behind it, rifle ready, listening to a girl’s sobs.

  “Stop stop stop.” There’s a gun to her cheek. Metal wet with her tears. “Dad, Dad! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!”

  “Quiet!” A suited man pulls her closer to his chest, so that the barrel indents on her He’s looking at Rowe. At Menowin. “Drop your weapons.”

  "She's your fucking daughter!" Menowin snarls.

  The Black Prince lifts his arms in defence. “Please. Lieutenant-Governor, we’re both Christian men. There’s no-”

  "Drop the guns, or the girl dies!"

  The Black Prince drops his. Menowin does not. As the man shifts to him, he snarls. "Only scumbags-”

  “WHO’S THE SCUM?!” The man shouts. The girl squeaks. “The men who’ve TERRORIZED these people, or the ones trying to save them?”

  "JES' DO WHAT HE WANTS!" The girl shouts.

  “What have you given people?” Menowin hisses.

  “LAWS! ROADS! A sense of FUCKING ORDER!” The man’s face is bright red. “Without us, how many would starve? How many'd die from illness, from frost, from Injuns!? From men like you!”

  “Quit it!” Harriet springs out, rifle on her shoulder.

  A shot. The man fired by accident, but everyone screams.

  "Stop!" Rowe's shouting now. "We can make an arrangement, but move your daughter-"

  “She's the only reason I'm still here,” the man laughs to himself, shaking his head. “You people think it's easy. That we only hurt because we can. But this world walks on a tightrope, a knife’s edge. An' if y'all pull the trigger on Thompson, you'll watch what happens when a place finally slips-"

  BLAM!

  His head had moved from the girl's, just an extra few inches. But it’s clean enough for Menowin. The girl stands still as the body slides off her, pooling blood by her shoes, her hair littered with red mush and brain. She whimpers. Trembles. More seeps down off the walls.

  "P... P-Pa?"

  Menowin doesn't lower his weapon. But Rowe starts walking slowly. His hand. She notices quick. Looks like a frightened deer. "Hey..."

  Harriet watches her throat clench. Tears flooding her eyes.

  “... it’s okay…we won't hurt you… we just want you to be…”

  Just before he grabs her, she's gone. Sprinting further down the train car.

  "... safe."

  She leaves a forlorn face in her wake, and a hand stretching out long after. Harriet rushes to it, pulls it down, whispers into it's fabric. "Ya did alright, ya did alright, ya did alright."

  Rowe finds no comfort in the words.

  Menowin curses, reloading his gun. "You dropped your weapon. Don't drop your fucking weapon."

  “I-I couldn’t let him-”

  “I know. He did too. Why else would he bring little shit? Use her like shield?"

  "That doesn't justify-"

  "Rowe." Menowin's voice sharpens. "They find a chink, they'll bring the whole fucking world on it. You know that, right?"

  Harriet still clings to him, barely containing rage. But the Black Prince slowly nods.

  "Get smart. Before they do." Menowin exhales. "Now..."

  Hissing. A screech of the brakes. Harriet's thrown face-first into metal grating. “GAH!”

  While she rattles along, Menowin grips a support bar. “The train’s stopping. Why's it stopping?"

  “No one I ordered,” Rowe replies. “The emergency brakes? Or..."

  His ears perk up. Outside, hoots, hollers. The pounding of hooves. Everyone’s face lights up at the same time. “MOVE!”

  Harriet and the Black Prince take the door. Shoulder to metal, guns in hand. Menowin approaches the handle carefully, waiting for a moment of quiet. When he opens, they spring, barrels raised, but there's no surge of gunfire as the riders swarm and dismount around them. They don't look like soldiers, either. But something about them immediately steals the courage Menowin's face. "No."

  He steps back. Eyes dimmed. But one of the riders smile, slinging a shotgun on their shoulder. "Poisoned One? Should have guessed. Normal folk would stop a train before they rob it."

  He hisses. "Erika."

  Harriet watches with widened eyes. It's a woman's voice, sure, but thickly accented, German. She’s tall and blonde with a rigid neck, features are hidden by a beige greatcoat. Heavy boots. Goggles with red-tinted glass.

  Gawen Rowe is much less disarmed. "You're acquainted, I see. But who are these men?"

  "Yours, my Black Prince."

  Harriet looks back at him in confusion, but he barely seems surprised. "Why?"

  "Because the Old World calls." Erika pulls up her goggles, revealing blue eyes. "Your war has restarted."

  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  Smash!

  Beer froths, mugs unite, and the hall explodes into raucous laughter.

  Harriet knew bits of German - many of her neighbours came from there, after all. But this German is harsh and guttural and much too fast. The men who speak it, crowded around long benches, are big and bushy and drink like camels. She sits at the edge, gun caught by her knees, trying to stay small.

  They all have Nocturni eyes.

  It’s a better made cabin than most. Dark, stoic wood united by real mortar. Mint and pelts and cloves of garlic hanging delicately overhead. Gun racks line the walls, just behind cots. The place, for what it is, smells fresh. Clean. And that smell strengthens when a bowl is set at her tablespot, rich and buttery and steaming with warmth.

  “Lass es dir schmecken.” Erika Mittenwalde smiles above her. "My mother's recipe. Never enough chances to cook it."

  It smells good. Very good. But Harriet is so nervous, she doesn't even see the spoon being offered to her.

  Erika sets herself between Red and the girl, Menowin and Rowe facing her from the other side. The Texan sniffs. "Quite a flavour, this place."

  "I wanted to bring my kamaraden a small slice of home."

  Menowin lifts his brow. "And nothing poison?"

  Erika looks up. Harriet pales, even though she was thinking the same. "That was never our style, Veneficii."

  She keeps calling him that, and it keeps making him scowl, but Harriet has no idea what it means. "Ex. My Keeper, if you must know, died in your last charade. By hunters." He smirks at the last bit. "Not by you."

  "And instead of using your powers to free others, you immediately tuck tail?" Her face scrunches as his darkens. "For a gyp, I'm not-"

  Singing metal. The festivities stop. Menowin's taken Harriet's fork and slammed it straight into the table. It still wobbles when he leans over it, pointing at Erika.

  "I know Rowe," he says. "He doesn't know you."

  The Black Prince watches silently, but tilts his head.

  "So I'd be careful. Respect. Because right now, you're just some jumped-up outlaw who wants to blow half his country to bits."

  Erika takes a moment to swallow. "Keine Sorge. Not a word more."

  "Much better." Menowin pats the woman on her cheek, and Harriet's stunned that his arm isn't ripped off in the process. As he settles back down, his eyes turn to the soup. "Well, go on. Tell her the cooking's good!"

  Harriet carefully brings the bowl to her lips. They laugh when her eyes spark, and her cheeks glow.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Good enough." Erika's grinning. Turns to the men. "Sie ist eine Hübsche, oder? Didn’t expect the great Gawen Rowe to cart bloodbags…”

  “Bloodbags?”

  Erika makes a face. “Come on. Young thing like that? Ich verstehe den Drang, as well as any man. And her smell…”

  The woman takes a long inhale. Harriet looks like a gopher.

  “... Must be good blood for the rations she uses. And I suppose you all just... pass her around…?”

  "Ms. Mittenwalde," Red interjects. "She's my daughter."

  Erika immediately deflates, and Harriet does too. Looks at Red in complete confusion before he stifles her with a look.

  “E-Entschuldigung," Erika stammers. "I-I never meant… these months on the road…”

  "How 'bout we jes' keep the fangs off her, yeah?"

  “Natürlich. Me and my men, we'll hold our Wilds." Erika makes an odd gesture. Fists raised together, palms facing her nose, before she violently thrusts them apart. "You have my word."

  "The Sign?" For the first time, the gesture makes Rowe active. "You are Unbound."

  “We all are." Erika leans off the bench, pointing to each man in. “MacCowan, from Glasgow.”

  He tilts his hat at them.

  “Laszlo, from Buda, Giacomo, from Rome. Moreau was in Paris both times... Fra and Emiliano were Lombard and Genovese, but…” She suddenly shouts. “Aber ich sch?tze, du bist jetzt Italiener, ja?!”

  That gets a chorus of laughter. Erika joins for a moment, fangs seeping through her grin.

  “Brandenburger, myself. Though I wasn’t Lighted until after the riots. Someone took pity on the peasant girl trampled by hussar’s hooves.”

  “Yer all forty-eighters,” Red realises.

  “They call us that now,” Erika smirks at him. “But the junkers are in for a waking if they thought we'd all stay in the States forever. '48 will be forgotten when their blood flows in London." She looks into Rowe's eyes. "As you once made it."

  Rowe blinks at that. "Me?"

  "You would fake modesty?" Erika shakes her head. "They still tell stories of your Revolt. Of you, and Montgomery, routing the monarch, uniting the Celtmen. They say you fought Verus, first son of the Sunwalker, and put his head on a spike."

  "N-no." He interjects. "I..."

  His face is wreathed in emotion. Less pride, more pain. Harriet can only watch in awe. "R-Revolt? What's that?"

  "You don’t know?” Erika turns to Rowe. "No. You haven't told her."

  "There was no need to." He frowns. "It failed."

  "For five years, half your country was free from bondage," Erika retorts. "That's as great a success as we've ever had. And that's the success we're striving to build from. That Aubrey Keaton-"

  "Keaton?" Menowin lights up. "You still follow Keaton?"

  Erika squints. "As any true Unbound would."

  "Gods." He laughs. "I mean... sure, sure. In fashion, I suppose. Why would you wanna start winning wars?"

  It's a typical Menowin barb. Harsh, out-of-nowhere, and delivered with that vicious little smirk. After the hundredth-odd time, Harriet's gotten used to it. But Erika's only heard him once.

  When her eyes begin to glow red, the air feels like it's thinning.

  "You would dare-"

  "I would. Is he a king?"

  "No man has freed more Kepts. No man has killed more Courtmen. He has a fought a hundred batltes, in a dozen wars!"

  "Given that he hasn't won, not a very impressive record-"

  "Because he stayed, while you ran." Her teeth are grit. "He remembers my voice, MacCowan's voice, Moreau's voice, the voice of every man and woman who fought and died and bled with him! He cares."

  "If only caring could bring about a Revolt."

  "Menowin-" Rowe tries to cut him off.

  "You didn't see it, Gawen. A total farce!"

  "We were betrayed!" Erika's voice is low. "By bourgeois and klassenverr?ter and dung-heaping scabs! We promised the world to them. A new world. A free world. But they sold us for bits of silver!"

  "They didn't follow money, Prussian, they followed good sense. The scabs weren't the ones cutting you to pieces."

  "You're spouting Court lies-"

  "I never needed lies. I could just look at the corpses they hung from the walls."

  "You little-"

  "Enough." The Black Prince grabs his arm. "I don't know why you think it's relevant-"

  "They want us to join them, Rowe! Of course it's fucking relevant!"

  Silence. Even the other Unbound grow still. Rowe releases his grip, sitting back, eyeing Erika for answer. "You... you're not..."

  Her eyes tell all.

  "Join them?" Harriet blinks. "In... in England?"

  Suddenly, it's harder to see. Faces and soup-bowls, replaced with puffs of white.

  "He was hesitant to share power, I'll speak true," Erika starts, her tone more careful. "Aubrey Keaton is many things, but he is not a Christian. He is not a farmer. And we need both to-"

  "NO!" Harriet cuts her off. "Ya can't! This... we'd be leavin' our homes."

  "They left their homes, too," Erika points. "I left mine. Because I understand the power the British wield. What they will do to anyone who dares try to stop it!"

  "But we're fightin' here. We're winnin' here." Harriet turns to Rowe, desperate. "We've got towns, an' allies. They'll die without us!"

  "I know, Fireside, I know." Rowe raises his hand. "But please, allow Ms. Mittenwalde to speak-"

  "NO!"

  "I'm trying to save thirty million, girl." Erika scowls. "You're saving, what? A thousand score?"

  "You'll save no one." Menowin scoffs. "Two Revolts, in twenty years? Have you even recovered?"

  "The circumstances have changed-"

  "But not you." He points. "And that's the problem. Sunwalker dies, and you shits suddenly think floodgates have opened! Ignoring magi, ignoring state, the Reeves, the fucking Viking who leads them!"

  "Caedmon is-"

  "Caedmon's the wealthiest man on in the world. He's been murdering since before you Germans knew Christ. He's a fucking lunatic, and nothing makes him smile more, grin ear-to-fucking-ear, then chance to rape even more fucking-"

  "He's gone." She spits out. "Overthrown."

  Menowin is left silent. "Wh-what?"

  "The Shadow-Walkers." Erika says it like the words could bleed. "He wanted to destroy them, and they destroyed first. Used his Kept to do it. Joan Byron. Though she calls herself the New Sun?"

  "A woman?" Menowin blinks a few times. "N-No. They would not.. it... the weakness it would show-"

  "Not would. Is."

  "The Magisters would have-

  "There are no Magisters. It was a coup! They're dead!"

  "How!?"

  "You already know."

  Harriet's silent. Watching him. The shake of his hand. The dimming of his eyes. The way his skin pales.

  "Those 'hunters' killed half the Council. But they never touched a single Unbound." Erika leans forward, baring fangs. "The Court is exposed, Poisoned One. You left too early to learn. But do you think I would travel five-thousand miles to tell you all nothing?"

  Menowin sits back down, his gaze distant, his face vacant. It makes Harriet's worry double. He never responds to Erika. Just... stares at the wall.

  After a while, she returns her focus. "They have never been so weak. They have never been so naked. And the government they leech from sheds its facade a little bit more each day. If we present a united force, they will crumble like sand!"

  "What about MY FUCKIN' PEOPLE!?"

  It startles everyone. Harriet's slammed the table, her breaths heavy, her fists white. She huffs into Erika's face, the vampire still silent. Can feel the Black Prince's eyes, his worry, his disappointment, grinding her into stone.

  "I've seen them robbed. I've seen them killed. I've seen shit that I can't make go away!" Her teeth are grit. Her eyes flit briefly back to Rowe. Hoping. "An'... an' ya want us ta LEAVE 'EM! Ta fuckin' vultures an' wolves!?"

  "You've seen?"

  Harriet gulps. Erika slowly rises from her seat, but the figure that stands is taller than she remembers. Stronger. Bigger. Her skin seems to glow with bright light. The goggles are still off, but the red tint returns to her eyes.

  "M?dchen. This is light. This is easy."

  Harriet shrivels, the words pounding in her skull, forcing her to jitters. Rowe immediately reaches out. "Mittenwalde!"

  "I've seen children cut into ribbons! I've seen maidens taken in broad daylight! I have seen the crippled, the old, the sick, left to starve, robbed by the cops, THEIR CORPSES PILED BY THE THOUSANDS IN THE STREETS! You have seen NOTHING!"

  Harriet's bolt stiff, terrified. Bright flashes join Erika's words, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Erika, STO-"

  "NO!" She slides from the table. "NOTHING! Even now, the terror grows! Villages burned, nations starved, in all the fucking world! I did not CHOOSE this war! It is a war they started, a war you left, A WAR WE ARE LOSING!"

  She stops for a moment, catching her breath. Her eyes set on Rowe, blazing.

  "We will shoot them. We will behead them. We will hang them from the streetlamps and wait the hours watching them squirm and die! We will throw them in the cogs they would use to crush in the millions, the billions. Because that is what they deserve. It is a fraction of what they deserve. And you will join us."

  Her words send the same reverberations, but the Black Prince stands tall, unbent.

  "You will finish what you were created to end."

  Menowin's regained himself. Leaning over the table, squinting at his hands, still blood-stained.

  Erika calms. Her eyes returning to something human. Her skin looking once again a pallid, corpse-like grey.

  "I came to this country because I thought the men who fled here weren't cowards." She exhales. "Do not prove me wrong."

  Harriet turns to Rowe, her face pleading. He keeps his posture, barely registering, staring the woman in the beige greatcoat down.

  Opens his mouth.

  Starts to speak.

  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  "That's it!?" Menowin's hair rustles in the summer wind, his voice dripping with venom. "We're staying!?"

  Harriet stops. She'd been giving Ginger Root water, just before she'd get saddled. Red's loading the wagon, Rowe's re-fixing the axle. Erika's lodge, smoke billowing from it's chimney, can still be seen.

  "Erika revealed herself." Rowe doesn't stand up, doesn't turn from his work. "And with it, her master. At best, they've forgotten that I'm a man of God. To think that I'd gleefully join them in bloodbath, a slaughter."

  "And would that be fucking wrong!?"

  "Drop it, Menowin." Harriet looks up. "His mind's made up. We've got our war."

  "Your war." He points, bells jingling with the motion. "His war, your fucking Yankee little play war. What about my struggle!?"

  Red speaks up. "Nothin's stoppin' ya from joinin'-"

  "You CUNT!"

  The words snap Red back. Menowin's breathing strangely. Runs a rough hand through his hair.

  Harriet can't take it. "Since when did ya give two shits about England!?"

  "FUCK OFF!"

  "Menowin, I understand your rage, better than most." The Black Prince speaks softly. "But she wants to kill an entire class of people-"

  "Only before they would kill us first-"

  "That's not how it works-"

  "IT IS! It always fucking HAS! And you would see it, you fucking slime, if you would lift your nose that from that book! Hear beyond your fucking prayers and..."

  Rowe finally turns. Looks at him with eyes gone dark.

  "... you're still thinking about her. Aren't you?" Menowin tilts his head, and laughs. A mirthless laugh. "The girl on train. The one who ran. You're... heheheheh... you f-feel fucking bad about killing her father!"

  "Silence."

  "He was a monster-"

  "We can't decide that!" Rowe clenches his fist, presses his heart. "It is not our justice. It is not our court-"

  "There is no other court, you karbaro! He isn't real! They made it up, to keep you crippled like this! The only justice they'll get is the fucking bullet we give them!"

  "This isn't about justice, Menowin! To you, it's just vengeance."

  "OF COURSE IT'S FUCKING VENGEANCE!" His eyes surge, and his voice grows. "Do you have any idea what they DID TO ME!? MY CLAN!? MY F-"

  Harriet perks up. Menowin has lost his voice. His breathing slow. His lips trembling. It makes something inside her melt.

  Eventually, he finds himself. Quiet. "... my family?"

  He lowers his head, fist squeezed, aether crackling across his skin. Rowe is steadfast, but Harriet trudges forward. Slowly, like warding off a bear.

  "M-Menowin..." She takes slow, careful steps. "We... we've all lost people-"

  Spark. His skin ignites, the force knocking her to the ground. Red instantly springs to her, while the Poisoned One bolts away. Losing them in the trees. "HARRIET!"

  He only just grabs her arm before she's bolting up, pulling against him. "No, NO! WAIT!"

  "Lettim go," Red hisses, trying to force her back. "He won't want-"

  But she twists herself out of his grip, sprinting after Menowin, huffing and panting. Her boots cracks twigs, her pants stain in the mud. Deeper and deeper into the forest, until she reaches a cliff, sees him leaning on birch, watching the drop.

  "Yer not alone!" She shouts, a hand on her chest. "We can be yer family. Y-you..." Tears start to form. "You are my-"

  He turns.

  It's enough to make her heart leap. There's no smirk, no frown, only eyes. Glowing, scowling, and smouldering with a hundred emotions. Furies and terrors and aches. Emotions she knows, but could never name.

  She looks at the ground, red hair spilling out. "Please. Don't leave."

  The Black Banners departed from Erika’s cabin thirty-two minutes later.

  Three hours after that, Menowin caught up with them.

  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

  Crickets chirp, and the moon shines. They sit on the trundling wagon together. A rifle by her side, his hands on the reins. They’ve been watching the oxen for a few hours now, those wooden wheels bouncing along a path cut by hundreds of wagons before them.

  Not much has been said. It’s nice enough to be close to him. Nice enough to have her arm pressed to that cold skin, the fabric of his vest. To turn and look up and see his face, always sharp, always depthful, always as bracing as a hot steam bath.

  A part of her is terrified to break that silence. But with the Black Prince, she’s terrified of doing anything.

  “R-Rowe?”

  “Mmm?”

  “Erika called me a bloodbag at the cabin.” Harriet shifts a little, sets the rifle on her lapp. “Is that… if Red hadn’t said that…”

  “... In England, the practice is... common.” His voice turns cold. “Nocturni hunt by pattern. Stalk and lair and plan. Everything for certainties. But when they travel, certainties are less certain. So it becomes useful to bring...” He sounds only more discomforted as he goes. “... someone with a good taste."

  “Taste?” She squints. “It don't all taste like chicken?"

  “Heh.” He manages a chuckle. “You would imagine. But it’s not the blood we drink, it’s something deeper, something our fangs bring out. And that… thing… has many tastes." He turns to look at her. "A hearty meal, yes, sometimes. But it can also taste like a lazy sunset. An excited breath. A spilled bowl of soup, a newborn’s first smile. We eat experience, Harriet. And the more shocked or angry or joyous the mortal… the stronger that blood will taste.”

  “Whoa.” She blinks, looks back at the road, watching the oxen with new curiosity. “So… in a way… the blood knows how I’m feelin’?”

  “The littlest things.”

  “An’ it would jes'..." The gears spin in her mind. "Tell ya?”

  “In it's way.” Another chuckle. “Deciphering it would require years of experience, but… I-I suppose I’m old enough to…”

  The Black Prince stops, his eyes on the pale arm presented to him. It’s small, littered in freckles, bare with the sleeve rolled back. It bounces with the wagon. A blue vein coursing beneath the skin.

  “Try it.” She says.

  “E-Excuse me?"

  This comfort, this warmth... if she could....

  Harriet places her other arm below the first, steadying it. "Bite."

  He laughs again. More anxious this time. Filling her with dread.. “It would feel… improprietous to-”

  She extends her arm even further.

  "Cah'mon." She swallows, her cheeks glowing. "I... I think ya'll like the taste."

  He considers her in silence. “Then close your eyes. This could hurt."

  She follows without question. Shutting her eyes. Biting her lip. She feels his grip on her arm, and then... it's needly. Like the leechings she received as a girl, from a fever whose name she's forgotten. Then, a shift. Her breath becomes harried, mind flooded with sensations of huckleberry, honeycomb. “Ah!”

  It’s over as quickly as it started. The Black Prince rolls her sleeve back down himself. Harriet opens her eyes. He, in turn, stares at her arm. Silent, frowning. Feeling different points of the flesh with his hands.

  “So?” She leans into him, her eyes wide. “Wassit good?”

  “I… I don’t know. It's very strong, but...” He blinks, considering. “... I've never had the taste."

  She beams at that. Little tremors in her heart. But Rowe just watches her. Searching for something that he can’t seem to find.

  “Harriet… you know I care for you, yes? You know I respect you, and…”

  “Of course.” She leans closer to him. “Ya saved me. Saved me from..."

  She wraps her arms around his chest, and rests her cheek along his shoulder.

  "... from the world."

  Her smile if twice as bright, but the Black Prince stays silent. His eyes fan out, to the road, the colony, the task that lays before them. Harriet presses herself closer, warm flesh on cold. As ever, he never reciprocates her touch.

  But he doesn’t push it away.