Rain thrashed against the glass panes like a thousand small, angry hands.

Maeve held her ground in the aisles of the greenhouse, boots planted in a bed of soil. The entire place smelled of peat, fertilizer, and extreme guilt; she'd learned to distinguish it after two years being down here. The lanterns strung from the copper hooks overhead were swaying quite violently, too, but she didn't think she had anything to do with them.

The only thing she had anything to do with was the gardener in the neat vest she had pinned by the throat, her umbrella locking him in a chokehold.

"Miss!" One of the gardeners surrounding her said, voice bright with panic. "Please, just let Dermot go! He's an innocent man!"

Three other gardeners nodded so hard their hats bobbled. A fourth was sitting on his ass, cradling a nose that she'd broken. Two more groaned among the aisles of carnivorous lilies, each discovering that elbows bent the wrong way when you swing hedge shears at an Exorcist.

"Innocent?" she said, growling at all of them. "You all tried to cut me and prune my wrists with shears and… and those…"

"Lily tongs. We have to pluck their petals very carefully or else they'll get their toxin on us, so we have specialized tongs for the job."

"Lily tongs! Don't talk to me about innocence!"

Dermot made a wet noise that might've been an objection or a prayer. She kept her umbrella steady.

"Here is me being perfectly clear one more time!" she snapped, holding her ground as two of the standing gardeners tried pressing in on her with their oversized shears. "I'm tired of playing nice all the time! I ordered the specimen! I made the deposit! I got the receipt! Now honor the agreement and give me what I want!"

A gardener in a leaf-patterned gas mask stepped forwards with lifted hands, palms out. "We don't want trouble," he said, "but you have to understand, there's been an… an adjustment."

"What adjustment?"

"A new client came in," someone else blurted. "He offered ten times your price for what you'd ordered. Ten! Do you understand how much money that is?"

"Ten's a lovely number," Maeve allowed. "So round and so friendly. I don't care."

"We've got families," the gas-mask gardener said. "Boys with hollows in their cheeks. Old mothers with bad lungs. We can't just refuse a purse like that—"

She set her shoulder, pushed the umbrella a hair deeper against Dermot's throat, and raised her voice just enough to wring the greenhouse of its lies.

"I've spent an entire year trying to find a seller who isn't a fraud," she said. "I finally found one, and I am not letting go. That's the Bharnish way, isn't it? When something's in your hands, you hold onto it until your bones crack. If any of you have people in need of tending to, send them over to the clinic, but don't you dare rob from me."

Their faces lost color like paper left in rain. Something about hearing their own philosophy out loud must've offended them more than the bruise on Dermot's windpipe.

"I want a name," she demanded. "Who bought it from me?"

"Six Ghosts," someone said.

She blinked once. "What?"

"That's his name—"

"That's a nickname. What's his actual name?"

"We don't know it," the gas-mask gardener said quickly. "He was careful when he made contact with us. He just handed us our coin and fucked right off."

"What does he look like, then?"

A shuffle. A cough. Four men looked at their boots as if descriptions could be found in the scuffs.

"We were told not to—" began a man in a seed-stained apron, so Maeve, very softly, thumbed a button along the umbrella's handle.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

Gears inside the shaft woke with a cat's purr, and then they spun, turning the umbrella into a drill.

"Saintess save him—stop!" someone yelped. "Stop, stop, stop!"

"Tall!" cried the gas-mask man, his words tumbling over themselves. "He was tall—taller than any of us—"

"—and thin," offered another, "no, not thin, just… stretched—"

"Six arms," said a third, then flinched when the others snarled at him for having the tact of a brick. "He had six arms!"

"Six arms," Maeve repeated, and cut them a look that said she had enough without inviting more. She recognized gossip dressed as detail when she heard it, but this wasn't gossip. Having six arms meant something in this part of the city, and six arms narrowed the pool to a single pond she'd already waded in.

She thumbed the button again. The drill's whine died as politely as it'd woken. Then she removed the umbrella from Dermot's throat, wiped a tiny crescent of blood from the tip with a handkerchief, and pressed the handkerchief into Dermot's vest.

"Thank you," she said briskly. "You've been very helpful."

She gave Dermot a push. He stumbled backward into his fellows, who caught him with a flurry of anxious hands, so while they checked him up and down for any injuries, she turned to the front door and made quickly towards it.

"Hey!" someone barked behind her, indignant finally finding its feet. "You don't get to hurt Dermot and walk out!"

Three of the gardeners immediately lunged in, swinging shears and hardwood and iron.

She didn't bother looking back as half the greenhouse's trees suddenly convulsed, taking on a metallic sheen before the branches slithered in to whack the gardeners out of the air.

More metallic fronds slapped torsos back. A row of bromeliads launched like cannonballs and bopped a man in the face. As she reached the front door, a hedge row of thorny roots exploded from the ground beneath her, barricading the way out with braided stems and locked leaves.

She sighed as she stepped away from the greenhouse, finally relieved to be out of that place.

It's not calming and soothing to be in, unlike his underground herb garden.

Rain hissed along the alley roof-tiles. She left the greenhouse without looking back, carrying her umbrella like a cane, but the gardeners still howled through the barricade of metallic vines, their indignation scraping against the glass panes like trapped birds.

She walked only three steps into the alley when something slid down beside her. A small shadow dropped from the greenhouse roof, cloak fluttering, wooden mask grinning blankly at the world.

Liorin landed with his usual lack of ceremony, feet splashing into a puddle. He straightened, shaking water from his shoulders, and fell into step beside her.

"Did do a—" His voice cracked before smoothing into better Bharnish. "Did I do a good job?"

She gave him a sidelong glance. The boy hadn't grown much taller in the year and a half since the Repossessors' fall, but he spoke better Bharnish now. Words instead of nods. Language in place of silence. She let her grin stand. "Yep. Good job."

His mask dipped in what might've been pride.

Behind them, the gardeners still shouted through the barricade of vines. One voice in particular rose above the rest, dripping with false bravado:

"If your husband were here," the man sneered, "he'd have offered more coin instead of storming in like a brute! But you? You're just the clinic's face, aren't you? No control over the purse strings! Nothing but a hard-headed lady swinging a toy umbrella!"

Maeve paused, twisting her shoulders and barking over them.

"He's a spend-happy lunatic who burns coin faster than incense! Why should I pay more when you already agreed to a price? A deal's a deal, assholes!"

The gardeners tried shouting back, voices crashing against hers, but none of their words had teeth. She matched every insult for a while, but eventually, even shouting tired her. She flicked rain from her umbrella and turned sharply back into the alley.

"Not worth it," she muttered, more to herself than to them.

Liorin kept pace at her side. His small legs moved quickly, but he never stumbled.

"Have the others in the clinic caught on?" she asked.

The boy shook his head so vigorously his mask almost clattered off.

"Good," she said firmly. "If Cara knew, she'd hit me square on the head. And if she knew you were helping—" She poked his mask. "She'd hit you too."

Liorin brightened suddenly, mask tilting with excitement. "I like being hit by Cara. She's kind to me."

"I don't think that means what you think it means." She sighed. "She's kind to both of us, yes, but this mission must be completely confidential."

He tilted his mask. "Con… fiden… tial?"

"It means secret."

The boy thought about it, then nodded gravely. "Like… con-tro-ver-sial?"

"... Close enough. The gardeners gave me a description of the man who bought my specimen for me. They said he was tall, thin, stretched like tallow, and he had six arms. Sounds like anyone you know?"

His small hand rose, index finger tucked beneath his chin. He tilted his head a few more times, stayed still for three heartbeats, and then let out a soft, certain: "Ah."

"So it does ring a bell. Do you know where he is now?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Follow!"

Then he took off, sprinting down the alley with surprising speed for someone his size.

Maeve groaned, tightening her grip on her umbrella as she broke into a run after him. "Saintess above, why do you always start without warning?"

But just as she rounded a corner after the boy, her ankle chain gave a sharp, irritating tug.

She nearly stumbled. Snarled under her breath. Yanked back against the chain hard enough to make her knee protest.

And what the hell are you doing on the other side, Plagueplain Doctor?

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