“You understand how the legal system works,” the younger one says, her tone softening into something meant to sound reasonable that lands closer to condescending. “It’s never quite fair to the child.”
“Still,” Sidney says. “All the same. I’d prefer to wait until someone she’s actually comfortable with comes to pick her up.” He glances down at Penny, who has not moved a single inch from behind his leg, has not looked at the women, has not loosened her grip by a single degree. He looks back at the women. “And that’s clearly not you.”
The older woman’s eyes narrow. There’s a calculation happening behind them, a weighing of options, and Sidney can feel the shift in the air the way he’s learned to feel it over years of tending bar to people who could kill him with a thought. The energy in the room tightens. A few of the regulars have gone quiet, not obviously, not dramatically, but in the way that peoplewho are themselves quietly dangerous go quiet when they sense a situation developing.
Willow’s is a bad place to pick a fight. It’s full of beings who came here specifically because it’s neutral ground, because the people who work here treat them with respect and don’t make them feel like anything other than friends hanging out. The patrons protect the space because the space protects them, and violating that agreement has consequences that are social and communal and, in some cases, administered by a full-blooded banshee who is currently standing behind the bar with her hand on her hip and her eyes going silver at the edges, looking at these two women the way a wolf looks at something that has wandered into its territory and does not yet realize its mistake.
Sidney knows the Hargrove Coven by reputation. He’s heard the name. He’s served members of it, possibly, though the Coven doesn’t exactly wear name badges. But these two are low-level. He can tell by the borrowed authority, the rehearsed scripts, the way they defer to each other in small glances. They’re not the ones making decisions. They’re the ones who were sent, and the people who sent them are not here, and Xela would literally rip these two apart and everyone in the room knows it.
The women seem to reach the same conclusion at roughly the same time. The older one’s jaw works. The younger one’s hand tightens on her arm. They exchange a look, a conversation in a glance, and the older one concedes with a nod that is more retreat than agreement.
“Very well,” she says. “We’ll leave the child in your care for now.”
She gives Penny one last look, appraising, lingering, and it makes Sidney’s skin crawl in a way he can’t articulate and doesn’t want to examine. Then the two of them turn and leave, the door shutting behind them with a finality that isn’t final at all.
They don’t mention they’ll return. They don’t say anything ominous. Sidney isn’t stupid enough to think this is over.
Xela goes back to breaking down the bar but she does it facing the door, which tells Sidney everything he needs to know about how seriously she’s taking the situation. He relocates Penny to a booth closer to the bar, shuffling slightly because she’s still attached to his leg and unwilling to be detached, and gets her settled with a fresh chocolate milk and her paper and markers. She goes back to drawing. The circle-spider-dog now has a companion, a yellow shape with a disproportionate smile, and Sidney doesn’t ask what it is. The night drags on. The last patrons filter out in ones and twos. Gerald raises his empty glass in what might be a toast and might be an obituary and leaves a crumpled bill on the bar. The fae disappear without paying, which is standard. The vampires depart together, which answers the date-or-murder question in favor of date, unless they’re the type to combine the two.
His phone buzzes. August.
“Hey. Vale’s going to look into it, but he’s got to go through the Order to investigate the murder. It’ll take some time.” There’s the sound of August rubbing his face, tired and unhappy about it. “Is there anyone she can stay with tonight? Until we can find the father?”
“That’s the problem.”
“What about Xela?”
Sidney looks across the bar at Xela, who is currently holding a pint glass up to the light and inspecting it for spots with an expression of intense dissatisfaction. He imagines Xela trying to put a child to bed. He imagines the child trying to survive the experience. He imagines Xela standing over a small bed holding a pillow, not to use as a weapon but because she has genuinely no idea what it’s for, and the child looking up at her with the expression of someone who has accepted their fate.
“No,” he says. “Let’s not submit the poor kid to that. I’ll take her home. It’s fine. That way if you find her father, you’ll know where to find her.”
“Sidney—”
“It’s fine, August.”
“Be careful.”
“Always am.”
He hangs up before August can argue with him about that, because it’s a lie they’ve both stopped correcting.
Closing out takes longer than usual because Sidney keeps one eye on the booth and one eye on the door and neither eye on the register, and Xela has to correct his count twice before he gets it right. She doesn’t say anything about it. She just fixes the numbers and hands him his jacket.
“Call me if anything happens,” she says.
“I’ll be fine.”
“It’s not a request, Sidney.”
He bundles Penny up in his jacket because she doesn’t have a coat and the night air has teeth, wrapping it around her and rolling the sleeves until her hands emerge from the cuffs, and they step out into the Old City. The streets are mostly empty, lamps casting pools of amber on the cobblestones, and Penny’s hand finds his and holds on with a grip that is surprisingly firm for someone with fingers the size of a doll’s.
They walk. She’s quiet for the first block, her dark eyes tracking every streetlight they pass under, every shadow at the edges of the road, every sound that echoes off the old brick buildings. She is a child who has been scared today and who is still scared and who is holding the hand of a stranger because the stranger is the best option available, and Sidney feels the weight of that in his grip. He talks to fill the silence, because the silence is too heavy for a five-year-old to carry.
He tells her about the leaky keg Xela has been fighting for three weeks. He tells her about Gerald who sits on the same stool every night and orders the same drink and has never once said thank you. He tells her about the time a troll tried to arm-wrestle a fae prince and they’d had to replace the entire bar top. She doesn’t laugh, but she listens, and the listening is enough.
Then, out of nowhere, as children do: “Do you like sunflowers? I like sunflowers.”
“Yeah? Sunflowers are good. They’re big.”
