I had thought Bea would take me back upstairs again, but she didn’t seem too keen to run into her sister anytime soon. Instead, she pulled a First Aid kit out from underneath the kitchen sink, sat me down in a lawn chair, and got to work on my hands again. I was pleased to see that the scrapes on my palms, while still sore, had at least begun to scab over.

“You’re as bad as Peg, honestly, the lot of you think you’re invincible. Think if you ignore things, they’ll just sort themselves out. Nothing to worry about, Bea, nothing at all. Just focus on your little used clothing store and don’t worry about the fact that a bloody supervillain showed up on our roof wanting to get us involved in who knows what!” Bea cut herself off abruptly. The words hung in the air of the kitchen, mixing with the smell of cooking stew to create a sour feeling in my stomach. Realizing what she had said, Bea backpedalled rapidly. “By which I mean, your hands are going to get infected and fall off if you don’t take better care of them. Serve you right, I say, but no one asks my opinion around here.”

With a sharp click of her tongue, Bea stopped talking and focused on rubbing antiseptic cream into my hands. I let her rub them in peace, letting out a sigh as the cool cream soothed away the pain. The floor above our heads creaked as Bea’s sister moved around upstairs. Good. I would be able to speak with Bea in privacy, and the old house would provide some warning before her mysterious sister came downstairs.

“So there’s something I need to tell you...”

“Mm-hmm.” Bea didn’t look up from bandaging my hands.

“Our mutual acquaintance wanted me to let you know that she’s planning a bank robbery two nights from now. She’ll fill you in on the details tonight.” I kept my voice low, barely audible over the creaking of the upstairs floorboards.

Bea’s head snapped up, and her eyes locked with mine. I instinctively tried to jerk my hands away, but held tight to my wrists. For the first time I realized that her eyes were usually crinkled at the corners and her mouth turned upwards, as though taking part in a perpetual joke. Now, however, her mouth carved a ruler-straight line across her face and she glared as though trying to cut me in half with her gaze.

“What is it? What did I say?” I asked, still attempting to tug my hands free. My fingers were tingling now, but Bea seemed unaware she was cutting off circulation at my wrists. I had assumed that if she were going to be mad, her anger would be directed at Death’s Dancer. Never had I considered that I would be in danger as Delphi.

“So what’s your role in all of this then, hmm?” Bea asked, leaning in close to my face. It was precisely what I had done when trying to intimidate my minions the previous night.

“What are you talking about, Bea? You’re scaring me.” I leaned back as far as I could in my chair. “I don’t know, I’m just a messenger.”

“Just a messenger, ha!” Bea snorted, but she sat back and released my hands. I pulled them into my chest and began rewrapping the bandages myself. Bea didn’t seem to notice. “Just a little messenger, here to keep an eye on us and report any seditious talk to Her Majesty, the future queen of Toronto. Is that it?”

“What? No, not at all!”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. I should have seen this coming. I had thought myself so clever, blaming my injuries on my alter ego and convincing my minions that we were two separate people. All that had only opened up the door for this new line of inquiry, a line that still passed far too close to the truth for my comfort.

“Look, Bea, I don’t know how I can convince you...” I began, as my mind buzzed furiously, trying to come up with a story she would believe.

“You can’t.” Bea spat the words at me.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, making a rapid decision to play the innocent country girl and looking up at her with big mournful eyes. It was only when I said the words that I realized I truly was sorry. I had thought they would leap at the opportunity to get in on a big score. They were supposed to be pleased they had been chosen, not angry. Now I realized what a foolish thought that had been. “I didn’t have a choice though! She had you in her sights before I even entered the picture, although I’ll admit my recent arrival as an outsider to your group may have helped her infiltrate it more easily than other criminal gangs.”

“We are not a gang!” Bea shouted, so forcefully I scooted my chair back a few feet, my eyes wide with genuine shock.

“What I mean is, we’re not a gang, and I don’t want to be considered one,” she said more quietly, but with a core of steely certainty behind her words. “We may smuggle things, but we’re not a criminal gang. We’ve never done anything like killing people.”

It was interesting, I mused, how people justified their actions. Bea seemed to think she was a good person; despite the smuggling operation she was running. Just because her smuggling harmed mainly large businesses and they didn’t partake in physical violence.

“What about when Abe and Knife threatened to kill me?” I asked.

“Don’t be ridiculous, they weren’t actually going to kill you. I don’t think, anyway.” The last part was muttered under her breath.

“Really?” I said. “They seemed pretty set on it to me, you know with the gun and everything.”

“They had a gun?” Bea sucked her cheeks in and blew air out, her dark eyes turning hard and flinty again. Having already experienced her anger recently, I didn’t want to be the person she was about to get very mad at, although it seemed like a distinct possibility. After all, I was the only one in the room.

“Yes, pointing right at me. Why, didn’t you know?” I said innocently.

“We agreed! When we started this, we all agreed we wouldn’t - ” Bea was talking to herself now. She seemed to have forgotten I was in the room, although perhaps not entirely, given how she cut off her sentences just when they were getting interesting. “But they always have to push things! Kidnappings at gunpoint. What next, will they - ”

“Is everything alright?”

That voice belonged to neither of us, and we both turned to face Sera, who was standing uncertainly in the door of the kitchen. With the unexpected turn the conversation had taken, I had entirely forgotten to listen for her footsteps on the stairs. How long had she been there, and how much had she heard? I replayed the conversation in my head, trying to remember if we had ever mentioned Death’s Dancer, or any other incriminating evidence.

“Yes, everything’s just fine,” Bea answered, pushing back her chair and bustling over to Sera with forced cheerfulness. “How are you settling in?”

She placed an arm around Sera’s shoulder and led her to the table, settling her down in a chair opposite me. Behind Sera’s back, she made the universal ‘I’m watching you’ gesture, two fingers pointing at her eyes, then at me. I did my best to look innocent, but having not had much practice with that I wasn’t sure how successful of an attempt it was.

“Everything’s fine, thanks Sis,” Sera said, smiling warmly at me. I gave a tentative grin in return, still reeling from Bea’s fury. “Sorry for popping in on you so unexpectedly.”

“No worries, none at all. Now how about you two just sit here and get acquainted, and I will be right back with the boys.” I took note of her emphasis and folded my hands demurely in my lap, trying to convey my complete lack of desire to harm her sister. “Then we can all have a nice lunch together. I hope you like stew, Sera.”

“Stew’s just fine,” Sera replied, as Bea rushed out the back door.

I leaned across the table conspiratorially. “I swear stew’s the only thing she knows how to make.”

Sera giggled, then covered her mouth with her hand and cast a guilty glance towards the door. With exaggerated secrecy, she whispered back: “It is.”

I surprised myself by laughing as well; a real laugh, not the insane giggling of Death’s Dancer.

“Do you mind me asking a personal question?” I asked, my confidence restored by the smile on my face.

“Ask away,” Sera said. “I can always refuse to answer.”

“Not to be rude, but why are you here? Bea doesn’t exactly seem pleased to see you, and she’s never mentioned having a sister who might visit.”

Sera traced a pattern in the wood of the table, her fingernails scratching against the stained surface. “That’s probably because I didn’t tell her I was coming.”

“Oh?”

Sera nodded, flashing a crooked half-smile at the tabletop. “You see, she ran away from home as soon as she hit eighteen, and didn’t tell me anything except that she was heading for Toronto. Of course I wanted to follow her, but because I was still a kid she said I needed to stay with our parents. They’re not the nicest people, especially since Bea left.”

Sera spoke matter-of-factly, as though these details were part of someone else’s life, not directly influencing her own happiness and well being. “So naturally, as soon as I turned eighteen I came to the city to find her. She was rather difficult to track down. I’ve been in the city a few months, searching, but just this morning I happened to be walking by and saw the sign for ‘Beatrice’s Boutique’. I thought I might as well check it out, and who should I run into but my very own sister!”

“Quite the coincidence,” I said. Turning the details over in my mind, some things that had been bothering me suddenly started fitting together. I suddenly understood why Bea had been so unexpectedly nice to me, a complete stranger. She must have been thinking about her sister, and transferring all the love she would have bestowed on Sera onto me in an effort to ease her guilt over having left. It made a great deal of sense, particularly given how similar Sera and I looked. Both eighteen, with long, dark hair, and of roughly the same height and build.

“But if all of that is true, why isn’t Bea jumping with joy that you’re here? Especially after all these years apart.”

Sera fiddled with the ragged cuffs of her baggy sweatshirt, not meeting my eyes. “She’s probably just mad that I took such a risk in coming here by myself, even though it’s exactly what she did ten years ago. Bea’s always been a little overprotective of me. It’s nice sometimes, but mostly just stifling.”

There was something that she wasn’t telling me. Simple sisterly overprotectiveness didn’t explain the cold welcome Bea had shown to her long-lost sister. I didn’t want to push it too much though, in case Sera grew suspicious of why I was asking so many questions. At least I had established that she likely wouldn’t be a threat to my schemes, as long as she kept to herself and didn’t walk in on any other incriminating conversations.

We sat in silence, Sera gradually scraping the remnants of varnish from the table, me staring out the grimy window concocting plans for my upcoming bank robbery.

A crash from outside, followed by a muffled oath had us both jumping out of our chairs. We shared a startled glance before racing to the back door together, Sera just a beat behind me. She had remarkable reflexes for someone who hadn’t spent six years honing them.

We ran straight into Bea, who was rushing inside at the same moment that we were rushing out. Bea grabbed Sera by the shoulders, spun her around, and shoved her firmly back into the kitchen. I frowned at her, and she simply jerked a thumb over her shoulder at the backyard before following Sera back inside the house.

I looked in the direction that Bea had pointed, and found Peg, Knife, and Abe gathered around an overturned box. The backyard had once more been transformed into a cardboard maze. Although I couldn’t see what they were stuffing back inside the box, I caught a glimpse of something metallic. Knives, maybe? Or guns?

Knife noticed me first.

“What are you doing here?” He said, pushing himself to his feet and moving in front of the box to block my limited view of its contents.

“I’m not quite sure. I heard the crash and came to see what was going on. Bea hustled her sister back inside and told me to stay out here.” I shrugged. “Maybe they need a little sister bonding time.”

“Bea did say we needed to talk to you about something,” Peg said, getting to her feet and dusting her hands off, leaving Abe to finish cleaning up the mess.

“Oh, you mean the bank robbery?” I asked, clasping my hands behind my back.

“Bank robbery?!” I winced as their voices echoed off the surrounding houses. That had certainly grabbed their attention.

“Which bank are we robbing?”

This question came from the kid, Billy, who poked his head out from behind a wall of cardboard boxes. My heart stopped for a moment. When it started beating again it was going double-time. How had I not noticed that he was listening in on our conversation? Mistakes like that could get a supervillain killed very quickly.

“I know nothing about it,” I said. The men didn’t seem at all surprised by Billy’s abrupt entrance into the conversation. Did that mean he made it a habit to spy on them? And if so, had he been somewhere on the rooftop last night and I, in my smug complacency as Death’s Dancer, hadn’t noticed him?

There was no helping that now. At least he probably wouldn’t go to the police, because that would involve incriminating his guardians as well as me. I realized I’d never even asked who his parents were. Billy was just one of those kids who was incredibly easy to forget about when he was not in the room. But I had learned my lesson: I would not forget him again.

“If you want to find out more, talk to her tonight,” I said, backing away from Knife, who had taken a step forward and looked prepared to beat some answers out of me. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some errands to run this afternoon.”

Before they could ask any questions, I turned and bolted through the store.