Dean released the breath he’d been holding and forced the white-knuckled fingers of one hand to let go of the steering wheel long enough to switch off the engine. “You need to warn me when you’re after doing something like that,” he said, still staring straight ahead as though he intended to keep the truck from ending up at the New Accounts desk by visual aids alone. “Sideways is not a good way.”
“Sorry.”
He turned to face her then. “Really?”
“No.”
“Austin!”
“Just giving him the benefit of my experience. You’ve never been sorry when you do that sort of thing to me.”
“When have I ever…?”
“Plevna. December 12th, 1997.”
“How was I supposed to know claws don’t provide traction? It was an honest mistake.”
“Uh-huh.”
Yanking her toque down over her ears, Claire got out of the truck. “He scored the winning goal,” she pointed out to Dean as she closed the door.
“How did you hold the stick?” Dean wondered, pulling on his gloves.
Austin’s head swiveled slowly around. “I. Didn’t.”
“Oh.” His hindbrain decided it might be safer to back away, making no sudden moves. He caught up to Claire by the corner of the bank.
“Someone set this fire,” she said, looking up at the damage. “And that opened the hole.” Hugging her own elbows, she shook her head. “There’s a lot of nasty coming through for the size. This might take some time to seal up; can you keep me from being disturbed?”
“You got it, Boss.”
“You haven’t called me that for a while.”
Their eyes locked.
“You haven’t told me what to do for a while.”
“Maybe I should start.”
“Maybe you should.”
A muffled “Get a room!” from inside the truck redirected their attention to the matter at hand.
“Excuse me, Miss!” Mr. Tannison, the bank manager, hurried toward his damaged building from his temporary office across the street, upstairs over the storefront shared by Martin Eisner, the taxidermist, and Dr. Chow, the dentist. “You can’t stay there. Bricks could fall.” He forgot about the ice until his front boot surrendered traction and he began to slide. Before he could steady himself on the truck parked in front of the bank, a large hand caught his arm and set him back on his feet.
“It’s okay, sir. She’s perfectly safe.”
“She is?” Something about the young man made him feel like a fool for asking. He considered himself a good judge of character—well, he had to be in his position, didn’t he?—and by voice, expression, and bearing, this stranger said, “I will have my withdrawal slip filled out properly before I approach the teller, I would never stand too close at the ATM machine, and your pens are sacred to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh.” The blue eyes behind the glasses made him think of contributions to retirement savings plans done monthly rather than left until the last minute. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No, sir, St. John’s. Newfoundland.”
“Small world. One of my tellers is from St. John’s. Rose Mooran.”
“Does she have a brother named Conrad, then? I played Peewee hockey with a Conrad Mooran.”
“No, not her brother, that would be her husband.”
“Husband? Lord t’undering Jesus.”
They spent a while longer discussing hockey and the relative size of the world, then Mr. Tannison patted a muscular arm, flashed a relieved smile, and hurried back across the street.
The clutch of eight-year-olds were a little harder to impress.
When Dean limped back to the truck, Claire was standing by the passenger door looking a little stunned.
“Is it closed?”
She nodded.
“What’s wrong?”
When she held up her hand, her fingertips were dusted with black glitter.
“Char?”
“Demon residue.”
“Once you’re in the city, where are you planning on going, dear?”
Byleth stared out past the Porters’ heads at the Toronto skyline, thrusting up into a gray sky like a not particularly attractive pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. “As far away from you as possible,” she muttered.
To her surprise, Harry Porter lifted an admonishing finger toward her reflection in the rearview mirror. “That is quite enough of that, young lady. There is no call for you to be so rude. You will apologize to Mrs. Porter this instant.”
“As if.”
“Fine.” At the first break in traffic, he moved into the right-hand lane and began slowing down.
“Harry…”
“No, Eva. She apologizes, or she walks the rest of the way.”
Demons understood bluffing. Byleth folded her arms and waited.
When the car finally rolled to a stop, Harry put it into park and turned around. “Last chance,” he said. “Apologize, or this is as far as we go together.”
She tucked her chin into her collar and glowered.
“If that’s the way you want it.” He unbuckled his seat belt, got out, and opened her door.
When she stared up into his face through the blast of frigid air, she realized he wasn’t bluffing. “You actually want me to walk. We’re still miles away!”
“We’re still kilometers away,” Harry corrected. “And I want you to apologize. It’s your choice whether or not you walk.”
It was cold outside. It was warm inside the car.
“Get back in the car and drive.”
He merely stood there. She might as well have tried to command a rock.
“I’ll hitchhike, then, and get picked up by a mass murderer, and then how will you feel when they find a broken bleeding body by the side of the road.” It wouldn’t be her broken, bleeding body, but he didn’t need to know that.
Harry shook his head. “Not even mass murderers would stop for you. Not at these speeds. You’ll be walking all the way.”
“I don’t want to walk!”
“Then apologize.”
The car rocked as four transports passed, belching diesel fumes. She contemplated kicking Harry into traffic, but Eva would likely fall apart and be totally useless and although she knew how to bring plagues and pestilence, she didn’t know how to drive.
“Make up your mind, Byleth.”
“Fine.” Anything to get her into the city where she could ditch these losers. “I’m s…” Her very nature fought with the word. “I’m sorr…” She had to form each letter independently, forcing it out past reluctant lips. “I’m sorry. Okay?”
“Eva?”
“Apology accepted, dear.”
“Now was that so hard?” Harry asked, smiling at her reflection as he slid back behind the wheel.
“Yeah, it was.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll get easier with time.”
She was afraid of that.
“Excuse me.” Braced against the movement of the escalator, Samuel reached forward and tapped the heavyset matron on one virgin-wool covered shoulder. “The sign says that if you stand on the right, then people in a hurry can walk up the left.”
“There’s no space on the right,” she pointed out sharply.
“Then you should have waited.”
“And maybe you should mind your own business.”
“You shouldn’t let the fear of being on your own keep you in a bad relationship. Your husband is controlling and manipulative, and just because he doesn’t love you anymore, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t love yourself…”
The sound of her palm connecting with his cheek disappeared into the ambient noise. In the fine tradition of mall crawlers everywhere, those standing too close to have missed the exchange either stared fixedly at nothing or isolated themselves from the incident behind a loud and pointless conversation with their nearest companion. As they reached the second level and the heavyset woman bustled off to the left, Diana smoothed the tiny hole closed, grabbed Samuel’s arm, and yanked him off to the right.