ItCP10

## Chapter 10

**Chapter 10** of **Into the Crooked Place** is another following **Wesley**.

## **Full Version**

“YOU HAVE UTTERLY LOST your mind,” Tavia said.

Wesley stood outside her house with a breath of hesitance and eyed her splintered door, which was basically a slab of black wood bolted crookedly at all the wrong places.

It was safe to say that Tavia didn’t exactly live in the nicest part of the city.

There were holes in Creije, big enough for people to fall in, and though they masqueraded as streets, the smell of magic gave them away to anyone who knew better.

Wesley knew better, so it was not at all out of place for him to say that Tavia lived in a hole.

There was a house inside the hole of course, but it was a hole nonetheless. Grouped in a small cluster of mediocre conversions by the casinos and bars that could never rival the addictive violence of the Crook. It was the dreary half of the city, across the bridge, with sandwiched shop fronts and lantern lights that carried a strange orange wash.

The busker dormitories were flush and showy, Wesley had seen to that. They had high arches and dark-beamed ceilings, while Tavia’s place was less … well, it was just *less*. But she’d moved out of the dormitories as soon as Wesley took charge, probably because she couldn’t stand owing him anything.

“You know, I think we should discuss your salary,” Wesley said.

Tavia gave him a blank stare. “What’s there to discuss? Raise it.”

“Nice try. Are you going to invite me in?”

Tavia threw open the door the rest of the way, with enough force that Wesley had to reach out to stop it from slamming back in his face.

It wasn’t exactly an invitation, but he followed her inside.

“You could at least get a doormat,” he said.

“You’re worried about dragging dirt into my place?”

“It’s for when I leave,” Wesley said. “Who knows what I’ll drag out.”

He meant for it to diffuse the tension, but Tavia just looked like she wanted to kill him.

More so than usual.

“Just hurry up and tell me what that thing at the amity precinct was about,” she said. “Did you get hit in the head or something?”

Wesley unbuttoned his suit jacket and took a seat. “Is Saxony okay?” he asked. “Did you stay with her for long after I left?”

Tavia frowned. “Nice job pretending you care, but just get on with it.”

Wesley would never stop being surprised by how simply she said things, carving out the complexity of problems she didn’t like and getting right to the dirty roots. Removing the mess that came with living life, in favor of the simplicity she got from watching over it in judgment.

“You know, there’s such a thing as tact,” Wesley said. “Learn it, would you?”

When Tavia only stared at him, he sighed.

“I was serious about what I said to Krause. The other Doyens have shares and interests in the black magic trade of their realms, but Schulze is too clean to play ball, so Ashwood wants a fresh slate. Next month, when the shadow moon rolls around, he’s going to use its power to amplify the magic of the Crafters he’s found.”

Tavia looked unconvinced. “Ashwood will never be able to pull that off. He’d need—”

She stopped, growing pale.

“An army,” Wesley said. “Soldiers willing to die for the cause. Like you said, the magic gets inside their heads.”

“And the sickness?” Tavia asked. “How can he build an army if they might die?”

Wesley knew she was not thinking about Saxony then, but about her mother.

*Already gone. The dead do not matter. He will make you the world.*

Wesley shifted.

He pressed his thumb against his cuff links.

Not now. He wouldn’t let her in now.

“The elixir is stronger than any magic we’ve dealt in,” Wesley said. “But I think most people can bear it. Besides, half an army is better than none at all.”

“So Saxony was lucky to have survived?”

That wasn’t the word Wesley would have chosen.

“I’ve already spoken to the other underbosses,” he said. “I needed to see if Ashwood had given the elixir to them as well, so I could know how far it might spread. It seems it’s just my city for now.”

“And that’s what you’re worried about,” Tavia said. “*Your* city. What happens to the rest of the realm doesn’t bother you.”

It wasn’t a question.

*You don’t know what I’d do to win*, Wesley had said once, before the girl in his mind became a ghost.

He’d meant it then, but these days Wesley wasn’t so sure.

It was true that the idea of any one person dying didn’t play on his conscience, but this was different. This was home.

“I don’t think you know what bothers me anymore,” Wesley said.

“I don’t think I know anything about you anymore,” Tavia shot back.

That was fair, but it didn’t make the words sting any less. Wesley may have been terrible, but he was almost positive that he was not as terrible as Tavia thought.

“You were right to want to take Ashwood down,” Tavia said. “We can’t let him infect half the city with magic sickness and use those who survive as his little warrior puppets.”

*Poor little orphan*. His ghost laughed quietly. *Ready to die for her answers.*

Wesley clenched his fists, stood, buttoned his jacket.

“You’re not coming with me,” he said to Tavia. “I was giving you an explanation, not a job offer.”

“Wait a minute.”

Tavia propelled herself up so that her chin was level with Wesley’s chest. He cleared his throat and made to move past her, but Tavia sidestepped him.

“I won’t stand around doing nothing while people die.”

“This is Creije,” Wesley said. “People die all the time.”

*Mostly by your hand.*

Tavia sneered. “You know as well as I do what it’s like to lose family to the magic sickness, and if I can help stop someone else from going through that, then I will.”

Wesley sighed and ran a finger over the scar on his wrist. Just a small part of such a large souvenir, from a childhood he was glad to have forgotten.

Unlike Tavia, he wasn’t sad to have lost his family.

Wesley had lived in Creije his whole life, but it was years before he saw the wonders of his city. For so long, he was hidden from its magic and cut off from its beauty, until he escaped and became a busker. He was born in Creije and then born again when he saw it for the first time as a child of magic.

New life, new freedoms, new adventure.

Wesley didn’t regret who he was now. He wasn’t plagued with doubt like Tavia.

When he was a child, he never felt loved or safe. Wesley’s father warned him of the dangers in the realms enough times that feeling safe became a dangerous thing. His lessons were still branded into Wesley’s mind, on his skin, and running into the Kingpin’s clutches was a way for him to prove that he belonged somewhere, even if it wasn’t in his own family.

Now there wasn’t even a family to go back and brag to. Like Tavia said, magic sickness took everything from everyone, even people like Wesley.

Though sometimes Wesley thought it was possible that his family had survived the magic sickness and he’d passed them on the streets a dozen times over, and they hadn’t recognized him and he hadn’t bothered looking down to see them.

Maybe they were just glad he left.

Maybe they were ashamed he’d ever been there in the first place.

Either way, Wesley couldn’t share in Tavia’s pain.

“You’ll get yourself killed,” he said.

“This is Creije,” Tavia echoed. “People die all the time.”

Wesley took a step back.

She was ridiculous. He had a plan—strategies and endless hypotheticals for how he might go about taking Ashwood down—but though Wesley was prepared for war and all the consequences it brought, one thing he hadn’t prepared for was Tavia being part of the battle. She’d only get herself killed trying to be righteous and *good*. But if Wesley left her to her own devices, she’d probably get killed that way too.

There was no winning.

With a sigh, he said, “If I let you come, then you do exactly as I say. No running off to play the hero by yourself. And Ashwood is mine to kill.”

*Careful*, the ghost warned. *Rabid dogs get put down.*

Wesley loosened his tie, suddenly feeling like it was suffocating him.

“Don’t we also need an army of our own before we get carried away?” Tavia asked.

“I have some buskers in mind,” Wesley said. “But we need more than people for hire. We need fighters with loyalty, integrity, and just the right amount of bloodthirsty drive.”

Any hint of a grin vanished from Tavia’s face as she took in the implications of Wesley’s words.

A fighter, but not a busker.

A killer, but not a traitor.

Tavia grimaced. “Tell me you’re not serious.”

“Aren’t I always?”

She ran a hand through her hair and let out a heavy sigh. “I don’t see that conversation going well,” she said. “Karam is a little rough around the edges.”

Wesley only shrugged. “Loyalty goes a long way.”

“Who says she’s loyal to you?”

“I wasn’t just talking about me.”

Tavia studied him. “Well then,” she said, no more hesitant than usual. “It looks like we’ve got ourselves a plan.”

And just like that, they were a team again.