“You call me pathetic, I call you the same thing,” Seir said, and his voice was a growl. “Difference between us is that in a matter of hours, you’re going to be on your knees, sniveling and begging for us to stop hurting the girl. Could be that you’re there, could be that you’re on the phone. I won’t even ask, and you’ll still be begging to take back any insult you said about me. That’s how that is. And the other way around? There is nothing you can say or do that will change my mind about how shit you are.”

His words were followed up by some shuffling movements and chuckles from the four or five Fallen and assorted others that were keeping him company.

Rain started forward. Tristan’s hand was still at his shoulder, and it might have been what stopped him from doing something regrettable. Tristan became Byron, and Byron leaned in to say something to Rain.

“Can I shoot him?” Lookout asked.

“No,” I said.

“Can I?” Damsel asked.

I thought about it for a second. “No.”

“What’s going on here, now?”

Another person joining the conversation, with a retinue at their backs. Coalbelcher. He’d found clothes, and now wore a heavy jacket with a hood, zipped up all the way, a ball cap and jeans. I had no idea how he’d found anything that fit him, but he’d managed. A bit of black drool extended from the corner of his mouth to his chin. He was of a similar frame to Seir, but a little more put together, now.

“Family,” Seir said it like it was an epithet. “A boy not respecting his betters.”

I saw Coalbelcher’s eyes. He was crude in dress, in speaking style, and in apparent intent, but there was calculation going on there, as he assessed the situation here. He hadn’t earned his position as top man on the guy’s side of the prison by pure luck.

“Tell you what, Tim,” Coalbelcher said. “Let me talk to ’em. Consider it a stipulation.”

“Stipulation?” Rain asked.

“We still don’t know what’s happening next,” Coalbelcher said. “But they need to shore up numbers, and then there’s me and my people, all without a place to go.”

“You’re joining them,” I said.

“Maybe. Depends. If our empress there is giving us each a territory of our own, doesn’t make sense to. But if she’s grouping us together, could be we join in. Work with.”

“Bad idea,” Rain said.

“We can hold our own,” Coalbelcher said. “But I won’t be lowest of the low. I go in as an equal, and I bring six powered boys from the prison and one powered son with me, in exchange.”