"Bit excessive for some jokes?"
"You took bets on my death."
"Fair odds, considering." He tries to shrug. Can't. The shadows are too tight. "You've gone soft."
"Have I?"
My hand descends toward his index finger, calculating the break angle, when suddenly I'm holding fabric samples. Two squares of cloth where my fist should be. Cream and off-white. There's a note: "Which one for the morning room?"
My hand stops an inch from his finger. We both stare.
"The cream one," I tell the shadow. What else do I do? It disappears with the samples, leaving me frozen mid-torture, hand raised in what now seems absurdly theatrical.
"Did you—"
I complete the motion. His finger snaps.
"We're going to have a conversation about respect." Another finger. Middle. Ring. My exhausted brain struggles to track. "And territory. And what happens when you call me names."
By the fourth finger, he's sobbing. By the sixth, begging. I'm contemplating the seventh when another shadow appears—something about spoon placement.
"Right side of the plate," I tell it while Felix bleeds on his expensive rug. "No, the other right."
The shadow leaves. Felix has moved to confused whimpering.
"Bring him," I tell Grimm. "We're going home."
His eyes widen. "Home?"
"Did you think we still lived in that warehouse? We've upgraded."
The shadow roads feel longer with a bleeding prisoner. Felix whimpers the entire way, ruining the usual aesthetic. We materialize at the front entrance because dragging him through the gardens seems excessive.
"You live here?"
"Since yesterday." I drag him inside, blood dripping on floors Olivia mopped this afternoon. "Joss, gather the others."
"Which others?"
"Brass Hands, River Guild. Anyone who needs reminding."
"Here? To our—"
"Yes, here."
"I could gather them at a neutral location," Joss suggests. "Keep the estate clean."
She keeps trying to separate.
"Here."
Forty minutes to drag guild leaders from their beds. They arrive terrified, confused. We're bringing enemies to our new house on day two.
The formal parlor looks exactly like Olivia got her hands on it. Doilies covering surfaces that have never seen fabric this delicate. Felix's blood dripping on carpet creates a specific kind of wrong.
"Felix called me the Kitchen King." I let that hang. "Took bets. Skimmed protection money."
"We didn't—" the River Guild representative starts.
