Mittens's Arc

Chapter 6 of 6

Word reached Mittens at the mossy table behind the old castle. Her surrogate was exposed. The woman sat alone in the lower rings with no guard, no lock, nothing between her and Whiskers's people. If they reached her first, the heir died in the womb, and every marked soul Mittens held would slide across to Whiskers. Meowza with them. Mittens stood so fast the wisteria shook. She had a mother, a father, a witness. She did not have time. She needed a body between the vessel and the hunters, tonight, and no infernal would take her paper. So she made a call outside the courts. Xanthia Vipress arrived within the hour, golden coils dragging over the wet flowers, green hair loose. She was a smuggler Mittens had used before being cut out, a snake who moved cargo through hostile ground for coin and never asked what was inside. She flicked her tongue at the castle wall. "You want me to babysit a pregnant stranger while a claim war burns around her," she said, smiling with both fangs. "Fun." "I want you to move her," Mittens said. "Out of the lower rings, into a room only you know. Keep her breathing until the child comes." Xanthia named a price twice what the job was worth. Mittens paid it. She had nothing left to bargain, so she gave up the coin and the last of her pride in one breath. Xanthia counted the money against her scales, unhurried, while Mittens listened for footsteps that were not there yet. "Done," Xanthia said. "But I move alone. You slow me down." She was already gone through the wisteria before Mittens could argue. Mittens waited at the table through the dark hours. Wet petals dropped on the wood. She did not sit. She counted the sector clock and thought of Whiskers's people fanning through the low streets, checking doors, showing coin for a name. Xanthia had a head start of maybe twenty minutes. Twenty minutes decided everything now. Before the clock turned, a folded note came up from the rings by a runner. Mittens opened it under the flowers. Three words in Xanthia's slanted hand. "Have her. Safe." Mittens read it twice. The snake had reached the woman first and pulled her out before the hunters closed. The vessel was hidden now, guarded, breathing. The heir would live long enough to be born. Whiskers had lost his last clean shot at killing it early. She folded the note small. One problem was dead and a colder one stood up in its place. Xanthia knew where the vessel was, and Mittens did not. Her entire claim, her revenge, Meowza's whole soul, all of it now sat behind a smile Mittens could not open, held by a smuggler who answered to coin and nothing else.