Grey

Joe’s concise with whoever he’s got on the other end of the phone, just laying out the main facts with none of the details. He listens for a moment, then looks over to us.

“Cassie’s with Geordie,” he says, “and they’ve got something that I need to check out. Can you hold the fort here?”

He steps away into the between before either Jack or I can respond.

Mother Crone gets up from her chair, heading for where Joe disappeared. I don’t know if she’s planning to follow or what, but Jack grabs her arm as she passes by him.

“I didn’t hear an invitation,” he says.

“It’s just—”

“And according to Tatiana, we’re free to come and go as we like—or did I get that wrong?”

“No,” she says. “But I’m concerned about Geordie.”

“Then maybe you should have been helping him instead of running to the queen to see what you’re supposed to do. Do you have to check in with her to see if it’s okay to blow your nose?”

“You don’t—”

“Yeah, I know. You like me as much as you don’t like Joe. Feeling’s mutual, darling. But right now, you need to keep being a good little fairy and sit down and wait with us like Tatiana told you.”

Her face is dark with anger, but she shakes her arm free of Jack’s grip and returns to her chair. Her two little treekin glare at us from where they’re sitting, but Jack only grins at them and comes back to me.

I turn so that I’m facing away from them.

“You’re being a little harsh,” I say, soft, so only he can hear.

Jack motions me out of the chair with a nod of his head. When I get up, he walks me to the far side of the room.

“Fm just playing the card Joe would want me to,” he says, pitching his own voice so low that I have to lean in to hear him. “Until we know where everybody stands on this, we need to act a little hard-core. Don’t forget—they outnumber us something like a hundred to one in this place.”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” I tell him.