Scaley's Arc

Chapter 4 of 9

Scaley finds Guidry at the fishing dock, mending nets with his back to the water. She tells him the plan straight — the cultists are coming, and she needs him out in the open where they'll see him. He sets the net down slowly, his hands still. "You want me to stand there and wait," he says. She nods. "With backup. You draw them in, I close the circle." He looks past her toward the deep marsh, then back at her face. "When?" She pulls out her ledger and flips to the marked page. "Two days. Maybe less if Willow's timeline shifts." Guidry picks up the net again, working the knots without looking at them. "Alright," he says. "But if this goes wrong, you're the one who explains it to my ma." Scaley sets the trap at the bone yard's edge, where the cypress trees lean over dark water. She props an old skiff against the bank with Guidry's coat draped over the seat, visible from three angles. The coat moves slightly in the wind, enough to look like someone waiting. She positions herself behind a stand of twisted roots with a clear sightline, a splintered plank from a collapsed platform beside her in case she needs leverage to block an escape route. The setup is simple — they spot the coat, move in to investigate, and she has them surrounded with rope snares already strung between the trees. But when she checks her pocket watch, she realizes she still has four hours until the cultists are supposed to arrive. Four hours to sit still and wait. Two hours in, she sees the robes. Three figures move through the bone yard faster than expected, their mud-stained ceremonial garments catching on the bleached markers as they pass. They're early. Scaley's grip tightens on the plank. Her snares aren't fully set on the north side, and Guidry isn't here yet — he's still back at the village, thinking he has time. The lead cultist points toward the skiff, and the other two spread out to flank it. If she waits for them to reach the coat, they'll see it's empty and scatter before she can close the gap. If she moves now, she loses the advantage of surprise but keeps them contained. Scaley steps out from the roots and swings the plank across the nearest cultist's path, slamming it into the water between him and the skiff. The splash stops all three of them. "You're hunting the wrong cousin," she says, and kicks the southern snare loose. The rope snaps up and catches the lead cultist's ankle, jerking him off balance into the mud. The other two bolt opposite directions, but she's already moving. She tackles the second one into the shallows, pinning his arm behind his back while the third disappears into the tree line. Two out of three. She hauls the first one upright and checks his robes for markings — symbols she recognizes from the dead cultists' belongings. Her ledger will need an update. The trap wasn't perfect, but it worked. And now she knows Willow's timeline was wrong, which means someone else is feeding the cultists information. That's a new problem. But it's one she can track.