Though her two ‘friends’ were with her, Damsel was talking with Imp.

“Aut viam inveniam aut faciam,” Imp said.

“Sounds like an incantation.”

“It’s Latin, you’ve got to know some Latin if you’re going to be a proper villain.”

“What she’s neglecting to mention,” Juliette feigned a cultured accent, “is that us children had to point that out to her.”

“Hush, or you’re grounded. I’ll take away your… you don’t have video games. You don’t watch TV…”

“Can’t here anyway,” Roman muttered.

“You don’t read books… what do I take away from you? What do you even do in your spare time?”

“Nothing,” Roman said. “She acts cranky, gets bored, then makes fun of others. Being a pain in my ass.”

“Tormenting others,” Juliette said. “The idiot isn’t wrong. I pull the wings off of flies, see if the mercenaries have any captives that need torturing and pull out their teeth…”

“What.” Finale said. She looked around. “What?”

“She’s joking,” I said. “It’s fine.”

“Why would you even say that?”

The fire roared up a bit, finally taking hold. Kenzie, Chicken Little, Candy and Darlene cheered for Rain. Chastity gave him a little golf-clap, polite and small.

“What does it mean?” Damsel asked. “Repeat it?”

“Aut viam inveniam aut faciam,” Imp said, with no fluidity, each syllable punctuated with a nod.

“Aut viam, inveniam aut faciam,” Damsel said.

“Hey, that was actually good!”

“Of course it was,” Damsel said, looking too pleased with herself. Maybe it was only because I knew how Ashleys worked that I saw it.

“Holy fuck, it took me forever to learn these things.”

“This is the point you’ll tell me it’s something obscene. You’re the prankster type, I can tell.”

I saw Caryatid move to cover Finale’s ears.

“No, no, nothing obscene, um…”

“Need a hint?” Chastity asked.

“No!”

“You don’t get villain cred for Latin if you forget the meaning,” Tattletale cut in.

“Stop talking! I’m trying to remember and you’re distracting me. I get some villain cred. Right, Damsel? You’re a villain and you said it sounded like an incantation.”

“It did. It counts for cred.”

“So there. It means something like ‘We’re gonna find a way or we’re going to force one’.”

“Make one,” Chastity said.

“I like it,” Damsel said.

“Of course you like it,” Trophy Wife said, leaning forward. She’d set her rack down on the ground behind her. A little macabre. “It’s very you.”

I walked around the group, watching, being careful. I saw Cassie with Yips and Rachel with three more dogs walking without leashes. Yips raised his right leg to pee, then picked up his other right paw off the ground because it was in snow or something. He fell over, still peeing, making Rachel jump back and making one of the other dogs bounce around playfully.

Cassie just laughed.