All around us, the landscape was changing. Snow was melting, heaps of it by the sides of the road that had been cleared for construction toppling and folding into itself. The wind continued to whip around us, and the air that carried that air to us made me aware of how stale it was, with something mixed into it, like an oppressive haze of baby powder or shampoos.

“We get hired, we do the job, we do it well. Rinse, repeat,” Lord of Loss intoned the words, his voice low in the way only brutes could manage. “We keep up the rules of the game, we don’t make enemies we don’t have to.”

Others in that mob were looking ready to throw themselves at us. Nursery in particular looked ready to draw blood.

To stall, I decided to try something. “I’ll make you another deal. Talk with us. Let’s make sure we’re on the same page. If you still think that this is okay when we’re done, then we pick up where we left off. In—”

“No,” Lord of Loss said.

“In exchange,” I said. “We pay you for your time. We pass you money hand over fist to buy your time. Nursery gets more control over her area, we get nothing except your consideration.”

“Not your money to give away,” Aroa said, under her breath.

“I’m guessing it’s not yours either,” Lord of Loss said, talking past me to address Aroa. He chuckled as much as anything as he uttered, “No.”

“Did you hear what happened to the Navigators?” I asked Lord of Loss. To Nursery, I said, “Are you aware they’re putting kids in the line of fire?”

“If we talk, it’s going to be after we’ve captured you,” Lord of Loss said.

He shifted position, which prompted me to look back. Past the ground floor of the house, past kitchen, living room, and back stairwell, I could see the rear door, and I could see his bodily mass planted down there. Whatever form he wore, it was extended enough that he could cover two exits at once, and his oversized head was mobile, free to move where he needed it.

Foil, quiet up until this point, started shooting the crossbow, launching her augmented bolts. I’d known her as Flechette, back in the days when I’d thought my boyfriend, Eric, and Uncle Neil dying at the hands of an unstoppable giant lizard was the worst life was going to get. Back then, she’d had something elegant. Now she had something big.

The skewers were about as long my arm was from elbow to fingertip, tapered at both sides. They punched through Lord of Loss’s digits, where a hand or clawed foot had just touched ground to give him leverage.

He didn’t react to the pain. He did try to lift his hand up, only to jerk to a halt.