His jaw works. “No—” he starts, and then he stops himself, and something honest and pained crosses his face. He tries again. “Yes. Yes, I do.” He holds my eyes. “But not now. Not with all of this hanging over you. You came here running for your life, Hallie, not looking for a mate. There will be time for this later.”
“Oh,” I say.
And then Roxy, gods bless her, picks up her cup again and says, “Well. That went better than when Cannibal told me about how he had scented me.”
And just like that, laughter rolls down the length of the table. They all start reminiscing, sharing stories of how they each found out about the scent. I listen intently, enjoying all the lively stories, happy to keep my mind off what I’ve just learned.
Eventually, breakfast winds down into motion. The crew has to leave for the mine and the compound shifts into the choreography of a workday. Brothers pull on gear. Equipment gets clipped onto belts and helmets tucked under arms. The faint glow of personal crystals in eight different pockets.
The brides ready for their own work. Naomi tells me that she works in an art studio next to the mine. No surprise—Jana is the head chef for the Timbur employee cafeteria. Roxy is apparently some sort of scientist for Minecorp? Interesting. And Ines is a famous journalist.
Soon, they are all lined up, ready to leave at the same time.
Children are kissed and hugged goodbye.
Chief sweeps a look over all of them, gives one short nod. “Let’s go.”
They file out in a loose wall of muscle and purpose, the women gathering at the tail of the line. The door closes behind them, and the noise level in the compound drops by about ninety percent all at once. What’s left is Maxon, who is staying behind to watch me, and Lila, with four children of varying sizes, one of whom is a baby. Thankfully she doesn’t expect me to help her with the children, considering I have zero skills in this area. I think children are darling, and one day I’ve always hoped to be a mother, but taking care of other people’s children isn’t something anyone wants me doing right now.
Lila waves goodbye and guides the small horde toward the big sunny room at the far end of the house, where the toy boxes are, trailing sippy cups.
“You’re stuck with me today,” Maxon confirms, a little wry, rubbing the back of his neck. “And you have a task to complete.” He hands me a tablet. “Scar wants you to write down your story, to the best of your ability, so he will have a way to reference what you’ve said. He said this will help him and Ines greatly in starting their investigation.”
I smile, happy to have a job, and get to work.
Two hourslater I’m finally done.
I stand and stretch, cracking my knuckles. It felt good to get it all down, laying down very carefully all the intel I’d gathered over the three years of working for those assholes at House Vaszneth.
I get up and wander around, low key looking for Maxon. I can hear the noise of the children from the front rooms so Ipeek inside, to see if he’s there. Nope. So I keep looking. The compound is bigger inside than it looked from that rainy porch. I move through it slowly, the way I move through everything, cataloguing what I see.
I’m so busy thinking through the layout of this huge family compound which seems to fit all these families and yet still allow for everyone to have their own private space—I almost miss it.
I stop and stare at a low table in a quiet corner of the front room, half-tucked behind a chair, the kind of spot where you put a thing you love but don’t want to explain. I only stop because something about the game board seems familiar.
Squares. Light and dark, alternating, in a grid.
I walk over and crouch down in front of the low table, and I look, in awe, because Iknowthis. The carved pieces aren’t made from the same materials or have the same shapes, they’re instead made from some stone-like Timbur material, shaped into little figures I don’t recognize, but theboardis right. Eight by eight. Light and dark. The geometry of it is burned into me from a thousand rainy afternoons playing this once upon a time with my grandfather.
“This is chess,” I breathe.
“Karrec,” Maxon says behind me.
“Oh,” I gasp, quickly standing up. “You surprised me, I didn’t see you there. I finished that write up Scar asked for.” I hand him the tablet and then gesture at the gameboard. “Is this yours?”
“Yes, it’s called Karrec. It’s an old miners’ game. None of my brothers play this game because they aren’t interested and they tease me for keeping a set. But it’s still very popular on Timbur. I belong to a large gaming club. Do you…know it?”
“Yes…maybe. You’re calling it Kerrac, but it looks very much like a game we play on New Earth called Chess.”
“Chess? That’s an interesting name. How does your version of the game work?”
“Well, we call this one the king.” I touch the tallest piece. “And this is the queen, she moves anywhere, any direction, as far as she wants. She’s the most powerful piece on the board.” My finger drifts. “These are bishops and these are knights, they move in an L, they’re the only ones that can jump. Pawns are all across the front, the little ones, the ones everybody spends without thinking. And these, in the corners.” I pick one up. A square little figure, blunt and solid, a miner with a pick. “You might call it something else, but on New Earth we call this a rook.”
I look up at him.
He chuckles, realizing it’s his crew name. “You know how to play Karrec. Those are basically the same rules but we have different names for the pieces.”
“Well, I know how to playchess. I’ve played it my whole life. I am thinking it might be almost the same game, Maxon. Different pieces, same bones.”
