I was returned to my cell with a minimum of ceremony. I returned to my meditation. Odds were, I would have some opportunity to escape before too long. If I didn't, I could accept that outcome as well. The choices I had made, while far from perfect, had saved lives, and I could die in peace knowing that. I decided to try a different tack in my meditation. Instead of clearing my mind and allowing it to drift, I focused my attention outwards, toward the world around me. I found that as I sat in a meditative pose, my mind could refract the relative silence in my ears into distinct layers of subtle noises. I heard the footsteps of people in the streets around the guardhouse. I listened the comings and goings of the guards, their spears scraping the stone floors. I heard a mouse skitter across the floor, and settle near my cell.

Without opening my eyes, I addressed my visitor. “What do you want?” I asked the mouse.

For a while there was no reply, but the mouse didn't move. I waited.

“You are a very interesting fellow, Raymond.” the mouse spoke in the same musical cadence I remembered from that night in the church. “What a shame that you will soon be dead. I can think of plenty of positions where a man like you would be useful.”

I didn't respond. I was accustomed to the flattery of the Seelie. I wouldn't fall for his patter.

“I heard that speech you gave during your trial. Such fire, such defiance! You really told that Harker creature off. I can see that you look at human society in the same way that I do. All their talk of justice and honor, and they don't even know what those words mean. I would respect them so much more if they just owned up to being the power-obsessed savages they really are. They can't, though. Not even in their own hearts can they admit what their true motives are. It makes it awfully hard to take them seriously, doesn't it?”

Once again, the Fae was talking as though it could read my mind, which it probably could to a degree.

“Here you are, a man of courage and integrity, trapped and condemned by such unworthy adversaries. How unjust the world can be. How sad...”

Wait for it...

“Nobody listened to you, of course. Public speaking just isn't where you shine. Of course, there are ways around that little weakness, as I'm sure you know. You see Raymond, you were right. This little society that your kind has built here is falling apart at the seams. My people have had to step in try to hold it all together, but the humans are just too weak. What this town needs now is a real hero, someone with the strength and common sense to make the hard choices that must be made now. Think of what a man like you could do with the support we have cast on an unworthy vessel like Harker. You wouldn't have to do anything really bad, I assure you. Oh, the svartalfir would have to go, of course, but you know as well as I do that there's nothing very good about that lot. They are cold, vicious, deceitful creatures. If you ruled this town, you could save everyone else in Dogberry Lane. We Seelie would still need our annual tithe, but there's no need for it to be anyone in particular. You could give us whoever you chose, all the liars, the cowards, the cruel, the greedy. This town could be a model of justice that would serve as a beacon to the rest of the world in these dark times. What do say, Raymond?”

“Scurry off, you worthless little parasite.” I replied.

“Ah, I expected as much. Perhaps you will feel differently when the chopping block is a little nearer at hand. Don't say I never did you any favors, Raymond.” I listened as the mouse left the jail.

The Fae's visit left me too angry to meditate any more. What was I doing here? There were so many ways I could have avoided this. Maybe there was an element of suicide hiding in all my inaction. The raid, and all the pointless, stupid death that had come with it, had left me feeling hollow. That had been the Seelie too, moving human lives around like chess pieces. And thanks to the Unseelie, I was another piece on the board, ready to be surrounded and captured.

The night passed, with sleeping and waking being almost indistinguishable. I was really starting to miss clocks. When the sunlight finally started trickling into the cell block, I sensed a change in the atmosphere. I wondered if that was the feeling of knowing you had only two more sunrises to your name, but that wasn't it. There had been a dozen times in the last few weeks when my life could have ended in a split-second, and that hadn't felt like this. I decided to try to get into my awareness trance to see if that revealed anything.

I allowed myself to be utterly open to world that surrounded me, and the source of my discomfort still eluded me. I heard voices and footsteps in the distance, but that wasn't it. If anything, the guardhouse was unusually quiet today. I almost had decided to give up and switch to my exercise routine when I heard the tell-tale cadences of a woman's voice whispering something in the distance. I couldn't make out the words, only the fact that the speaker was angry and frightened.

She approached my cell. It was Brit, looking even more grim and serious than usual. I couldn't resist the urge to mess with her.

“Good to see you, random stranger whom I have never met.”

“This is serious, Raymond. I don't have much time. I had to bribe the guard to get in here.”

“I'm touched. Did you come to say goodbye?”

“I came because I need your help. I don't know what to do.” Her voice broke. She wanted so badly to be strong right now.

“Something is happening outside. What is it?” I asked.

She sniffed. “The whole town has lost its mind. The magistrate has ordered that everyone in Dogberry Lane is to be rounded up and imprisoned. He claims they were planning rebellion, but I would have heard if they were.”

“They are planning to leave and never come back. You'd think he would be delighted.” Of course, I knew that the real reason was to kill off the Unseelie in order to win brownie points with the Seelie, but Brit didn't need all that on her plate.

“It's turning into a war. They have all the weapons that they got from the raiders, and they've barricaded the whole street. All the town guards are down there now, trying to starve them out. They have a whole army of Garth-Morhead enforcers backing them up.”

I felt a surge of adrenaline shoot up from my spine. My adopted people were under attack, and I was stuck here with no way to help them. No. I wouldn't be able to help if I lost my cool now. I turned my attention back to Brit.

“Well? What does it have to do with you? You should just keep your head down, stay out of trouble.”

She fumed at me. I had clearly struck a nerve. “I am not like that, and you know it.”

I shrugged. “You are like that if you choose to be like that. You either take risks to help others, or you don't. I know that you have strength and courage in you, Brit. But those things don't mean anything if they don't affect what you choose to do. Why so involved all the sudden?”

Her face reddened. There was a tear forming in her eye. “My...my boyfriend is inside the barricade.”

That surprised me. Not that she had a boyfriend, but my own reaction to that fact. I hadn't really entertained any romantic ideas about Brit, not really. Or had I? Maybe that idea had also been sitting somewhere in the back of my mind, out of sight.

“Anyone I know?” I asked.

“He was the guard assigned to that part of town. He told me he was planning to abandon the guards and side with the locals. He is so brave. But they are totally outnumbered. When he is captured, he is certain to be beheaded for treason. I must help him, but I...I don't know what I can do.”

I was astonished. “You and Gerald?” I guess it wasn't so far-fetched. They were close to the same age, and they both had a barely-suppressed streak of rebellion in their make-up. “So, Gerald came down on the Dogberry Lane side when the chips were down. I'm so proud of him.”

“He told me that you were the strongest warrior he had ever seen, and that he doubted they could hold out without you.”

“Well, unless you brought me cake with a file in it, I don't see how...wait, did you say that all the guards are down at Dogberry Lane?” I asked.

She nodded. “So who is guarding me here?” I asked.

“There are about five guards in the building. It's just Damien in here.” she pointed toward the left, where my jailer was being his usual attentive self.

“In that case...listen, I'm going to try something, but I need you to be really quiet while I do. Understand?”

She nodded, and glanced toward Damien.

I took a deep breath, reached forward, and took two bars in my hands. They were at least an inch and a half in diameter, which meant they fit nicely in my grip. I considered summoning the feelings of rage I had felt on hearing that my compatriots were in danger, but I knew that wasn't the right approach here. Instead, I closed my eyes, and focused all my attention on my breathing.

In...and out. In...and out. In...and out. The world, and its problems and confusion and threats, drifted away like a dream. I was alone...alone in the void, with nothing but my hands and the two iron bars. I slowly began ramping up the pressure, letting the effort flow out of me like water. The pressure increased, and the pain began...

“What are you doing?” she asked. I glared at her. “Nothing, if you keep interrupting me.”

She nodded. Shit. I had to start all over now.

In...and out. In...and out. The world drifted away. Nothing but my hands, and the two iron bars. The pressure gradually increasing. The pressure didn't matter. It was just a feeling. The pain didn't matter. It was just a feeling. My shoulders ached, but that didn't matter either. Effort too, was all in my mind, and I could create as much as I wanted. The pain increased, until the bars were white-hot. I let it flow into me, until the pain was simply another part of me. Then it increased again, and it became the whole of me. I was only pain, and the bars were only iron. I felt the iron soften in my grip. Its strength was just another illusion. Nothing was real, nothing mattered. It was all in my mind, and my mind was my own.

I allowed my eyes to open. I saw Brit, staring at me with the same expression she had when she had watched a fox transform into a naked man. Between us, the iron bars bowed outward. My fingers had left small indentations in the metal. Thank you, Mind Over Matter.

There was no time to lose. I squeezed myself through the gap I had opened. My arms were tired and my fingers hurt, but I was so excited to be free again that I barely noticed. The jailer was shouting and lumbering toward us as I emerged,. He looked even more shocked than Brit when he saw the bent bars. I was well past the point where one guard could pose a credible threat to me, even unarmed as I was. He telegraphed the thrust of his spear so much that I could probably have dodged it even without my Combat Prescience. I caught it in one hand and drew him forward, easily knocking him over with a solid punch. I passed the spear to Brit, then picked up the struggling man and pinned him against the wall.

“Do you want to live?” I asked him. He enthusiastically nodded that he did.

“Tell me where they keep the things taken from prisoners.”

Damien (a name less suited to the spineless little twerp could scarcely be imagined) led us to the guardhouse armory. On the way, we encountered the other guards, two of whom we easily disarmed and locked in cells, and two others who fled when they saw that the situation was hopeless.

“Shouldn't we go after them?” asked Brit. “They will bring back more guards to retake the guardhouse.”

“Perfect. We'll be gone by the time they get here, and the more we can scatter their forces, the better.”

Damien unlocked the armory for us. Brit kept an eye on him while I equipped myself. Luckily, everything I had had when I had been arrested was still together. The armory was near empty otherwise, as is expected when the town is in a state of civil war. I had hoped for a crossbow or two, but there was only a shortbow and a quiver of arrows.

“You any good with these?” I asked Brit, as I handed them over. The question was redundant. Thanks to Talent Scout, I knew full well that she was.

“Yes, I am a good shot. What do we do with him?” she indicated Damien as she strapped on the quiver.

I addressed the man. “Give me your keys. Then you can go.”

He spluttered “Wh-what am I supposed to do now? I can't work as a jailer after this!”

“I don't care where you go. Go home and hide under your bed until all this is over.”

He seemed to consider for a moment. Then, he turned and fled.

I turned to Brit. “It's not too late for you to bow out as well. You can skip town and start a new life somewhere else. Maybe Miller's Glen. It's going to get more dangerous from here.” I knew what her answer would be, but I had to ask anyway.

“This is my war now too. I'm never going to live the way I have lived again. We will leave this town together.”

“Alright. It's agreed then. What we need to do now is force Harker to pull his forces out of Dogberry Lane, so that they will have a chance to escape.”

“We can't fight all of them. They have dozens of armed men. Even you would be overwhelmed.” I appreciated how level-headed and serious she was being about this.

“We don't need to defeat his army. We just need to keep them busy long enough for Gerald and Sigmund and the others to pack up and get the hell out of town. There is one thing we can do right now that would force him to send as many men as possible to the opposite end of Rocky Shore.”

Brit's brow furrowed. I knew she would get there if I let her. “The warehouse district?” she asked. I grinned.