“I need to update up one of my arms,” Snag said, his voice low. He glanced at Rain and turned his back, leaning against the table as he leaned closer to the recluse, lowering his voice further. “I made a replacement, I want to make the other match it.”

“Today?” the recluse asked, picking up one of the tarnished coins.

“Hmm. I’m not sure I’ll have time.”

“It’s fine either way, for me. You?” The recluse turned toward the muzzled woman for that last bit.

The muzzled woman nodded.

Snag slid a piece of glass across the table, to the recluse’s side. His fingertips stopped at the boundary, and the recluse reached over to slide the glass the rest of the way.

“I guess I get to be pretty strong today,” the recluse said.

“You won’t need your workshop,” Snag said. “And we could use a better sense of tech, for reasons we discussed on the phone. Give me your share tomorrow, too, and I won’t need it for a while.”

“I don’t mind,” the recluse said. He passed the coins over to the others. Two for Snag. One for the muzzled woman.

Rain looked down at his rectangles of metal. They hadn’t asked, and he hadn’t offered. He had, once, trying to curry favor. He’d given them his tokens and he’d never received a thing in return.

He kept the three rectangles of metal in his section of the table.

Rain took a seat in the creaky wooden chair and he waited for dawn, listening and hearing nothing of consequence while the three people talked, or, well, two of them talked and the muzzled woman listened.

He’d tried to reason. He’d tried to talk. He’d tried being angry. There was no use. The only option left was to wait until dawn, and try to listen, to act dumb, and drop comments here and there that could mislead.

He looked over to his left at the dark fifth of the room. No details, no debris, no light. No tokens on the table.

He gripped the three pieces of metal in his hands until the edges cut into his fingers and blood oozed out between them.

⊙

“Rain. Wake up.”

Rain’s eyes opened. No dreams, not really. Only someone else’s recollections and then the room. He felt more tired than he had when his head had hit the pillow. He had a headache and every part of him felt heavy.

“School,” his aunt said, from the bedroom door, her face peering through the crack.

He sat up.

“Go downstairs to eat before you shower, if you’re going to shower. The girls are making breakfast.”

“I will,” he said, before adding an automatic, “thank you auntie.”

She left the door open as she left. Rain was annoyed, but held his tongue.