“They wanted answers, and they were asking questions, making sure we were all on the same page. We have thirty-ish people—”

“Thirty-seven.”

“And six or seven groups or cliques inside this. We might have more depending on who we recruit.”

She nodded.

“About the only thing most of us can agree on is we want justice. I know you’ve talked about how bloody and horrible it was when you were dropped off near Karelia Lake.”

Before Wieldmaiden from the Guild had rescued her and taken her to the Asylum.

“Yeah,” she said, feeling diminished, aware of the darkness, the cold, and how close those mangled bodies were to her, as if Egg could take two steps forward, taking her those two steps back, and place her right in the midst of that bloody scene where she carried around part of a mangled body for hours before convincing her body to let her go.

That carnage and death followed her always.

“I know how angry you really are,” Egg said.

“Yeah,” she said. “I was. But I’ve calmed down. I’ve realized that I don’t like the blood or violence. It gets to me.”

Thanks to Weld, in part, for helping me get my head around it all.

“Not everyone has calmed down. Some are angrier now than they used to be. Some of those people are wondering… did you end up talking to Weld? You were with us and you were saying we should back down, not bother him while he was stressed, and you’d find a time to bring it up.”

The idea of talking to him about that and breaking his heart shook her. She wasn’t even sure how she would. She wasn’t sure how she wouldn’t, or how things would go if she didn’t.

“I had… a conversation with him.”

“Do we need to worry?”

“I—I’m not the person to do this, I think. I paint, I—draw. I try to be moral support, and an extra set of eyes to watch over him if we’re in a situation he needs it.”

“Do we need to worry?” Egg asked, and his tone was fiercer, more dangerous.

What did that even mean? Would he hurt Weld?

What happened if she said yes? They’d hurt Weld? Pressure him? Depose him as leader?

What happened if she said no? They would go on doing what they were doing, and maybe there was a chance she and Weld would convince them there was a better way, like Weld had convinced her?

“No,” she said. “But don’t pressure him. And if he says anything on the subject, try to hear him out? Be fair to him? You outnumber him—”

“We outnumber him.”

“You do. So be fair to him.”

“I’ll tell the others to play nice,” Egg said. “Do you want me to put you down?”

“Please,” she said, not one hundred percent sure what Egg meant with the first part. She didn’t want division among the only family she knew, and she definitely didn’t want to be the cause of it.