Felicity rubbed her thumb over the line through her name and came away with ink on her skin. "Who decided I was staying home?" she asked. Frost and Luna were asleep behind the bedroom door. It was easier to keep her voice low for their sake than it was for either of the men at the table.
"They hired a set number of guards," Voss said. "They asked for fighters to guard the wagons. I can tell them our healer comes with us or they can pull the damn things inland themselves."
Victor laid his finger on the route. "You spent yesterday on your feet in the dead zone. I'd like you to have a day here, Fel. What I don't like is somebody writing that down before we got to ask you."
She had been looking forward to a day with hot water and a floor that stood still. She was a little sore after the springs, a very pleasant state of affairs while sitting on a cushion and one she'd sooner die than explain to the driver of a supply wagon. "I'll stay with Rose. If there's trouble, she can put a thorn through a man's pants faster than either of you can get them off him."
They walked the upper causeway to the wagon yard in the morning. The cubs loved the run of glass where fish swam overhead, although Felicity suspected the real pleasure lay in pointing straight up and making two enormous men look at a fish's ass. The guards at the foot of the causeway were considerably more interested in the view at ground level. One took a step into her path. Victor's wing caught him across the chest before his hand got anywhere near her. The next man saw Voss watching and found an excellent reason to stay by his post.
Pia was on the terrace above them with the butt of her trident set against the stone. She could see the whole stretch of causeway from there, right down to their own front door. Felicity took Victor's hand and kept walking. Calder's interest she understood well enough. Pia's habit of counting people the way Felicity counted canned food was getting on her nerves.
Victor wanted the cubs with him. For two children who'd spent the better part of a week in a cupboard, getting to leave the city and come home again meant something worth showing them. Felicity looked inside the covered wagon before she agreed. A solid chest had been bolted across the middle to serve as a bench. From that seat the cubs could see out, and anybody wanting to reach them would have to get through Victor, Voss and the men on the tailboard.
She tightened Luna's travel straps and showed Frost how to free his buckle if he needed to get down in a hurry. "I'll bring you something shiny," Luna promised. Frost tested the buckle himself, then took a second to hug her when he thought nobody was looking.
"Come home and let me hear all about it," she said, holding him a moment longer. "That'll do me just fine."
Her husbands kissed her goodbye in turn. Voss had checked both the house latch and the side exit. Rose would be there the whole time, and two city guards patrolled the hall past the fish tank. On the way home she saw those two guards again. One waved to her. The other watched until her door clicked shut.
Out on the road that afternoon, Victor found himself deeply sorry he'd ever told Luna there were interesting things to see from the wagon. He would happily have given back every last one of the dead that came pouring out of the ruined shops. Their bone plates scraped against the metal shutters as they dragged a trader off the leading cart. Victor opened a fold in the packed line, reached the trader before he disappeared inside and hauled him clear.
Voss drew the end wagons up alongside the middle one to protect the passengers. Three dead slipped between the wheels. Frost threw a shield across the opening between their bench and the canvas flap, and Luna flattened the three against the pavement with enough force to shake dust off the roof. When Victor got a look inside, the two cubs were gripping each other's sleeves. He sat with them until they let go. At the next stop he put a soft blanket into his space for Felicity and found Luna a scrap of cloth to wrap around the crooked metal charm she'd picked up for her mother. He made time to eat with the children. Whatever the traders thought of the delay, he intended to take Felicity two well-fed cubs who could tell her about the pretty things they'd found as well as the ugly ones.
Back in Tidehaven, it was getting dark. Felicity was mending a loose ear on Frost's stuffed mouse when the footsteps she'd heard outside their door all day went away. Rose's vines began to lift along her forearm. A little panel at the seam lit up. Inside the wall, the bolt she'd wished she could reach slid back without a knock.
The man who came in first wore the same uniform as the guards in the hall. Behind him a second man put his hand on the panel and held it there so the door wouldn't sound the alarm. Rose's vines took the first man's feet out from under him. Felicity shoved a chair into the closing door, trying to keep a way out, but a third man was already coming through the side exit. He caught Rose behind the ear with the handle of his weapon.
Felicity got her hands up. She'd held three little beasts still in the park. She'd never tried it on a living man, and as his arm locked across her chest, the gold slipped out of her reach. His partner put a cloth over her mouth. She got one good look at Pia's crest on the hand that pushed his away from the collar of her dress.
"Keep your hands where I can see them. Pia wants the fox delivered whole," the officer said. Felicity tried to hold her breath. They dragged her out through the side passage, past the door marked EAST SERVICE. Before the cloth finally put her under, she heard the bolt slide neatly back into place behind them.