Challis twitched her head to the side. Another presence had appeared in her mind, like a knock on a door, followed by a wash of mixed emotions. She turned and realized that she had just sensed Rasalas before even seeing him.

He stood frozen in the doorway, in that awkward stance of having walked in on something unexpected.

"Ras," she said, delighted. "Come try this. That is," she looked at the other man and sheepishly started to remove the cord, "if that's okay. I'm sorry, I should have asked."

He winked and gave a grand sweeping gesture toward Rasalas.

"You need to try this," Challis said again as her brother approached, though he didn't even glance at her. He was eyeing the other, openly sizing him up and down with a dubious frown.

"So you're another FHF agent," he said, a little too loudly. "What are you doing?"

The man held out an amiable hand and Rasalas shook it, his expression stiff.

"Lakko Haske," he husked out. "It's a pleasure, Gannagen."

They held the handshake for a moment too long, while Rasalas' eyes darted to Challis and back to Lakko. Then they broke their hands apart with a jerk.

Rasalas turned deliberately to his sister. "Are you done? Drunnel's ready for you."

"Ras, just try this first." She held out the cord to him, only then realizing how the energy overflow that had saturated her disappeared as soon as the cord was off her neck. Her breath came slow and dull, the brimming emotions gone as if brushed away like dust. While she was noticing this, Rasalas had turned a glare of disbelief at Lakko before hurriedly looking back at Challis.

"What do I do, eat it?"

"Put it around your neck. It's brilliant. It helps you feel at your surroundings with your mind just like you would with your eyes. Or something like that – is it even made of punchcord?" she asked Lakko. He had taken a step away to lean back against the stall across the aisle. He had a grin on his face as he watched.

"That's nugget," Rasalas tried to push her hand aside. "Will you come on or do I need to carry you out?"

Challis glanced behind him at the doorway. "Say, what happened to you anyway?"

Rasalas placed an elbow up on the gate, hoping she couldn't see the bruise forming on his cheekbone.

"What are you talking about?" he said harshly. "I was talking to Drunnel. And now it's your turn."

"Did you fall down or something? I thought I saw…"

"No. I came straight to get you. Or –" He straightened and swiped the cord out of her hand, dusting a palm against his trousers as he did. "Fine, I'll try it. What does it do again?"

At her silence, he cleared his throat and looked over at Lakko. "You want to tell me what the hell this is?" Energy buzzed from beneath his fingers.

Lakko roughly slung it up around his neck for him, while Rasalas' hands settled onto the knots on either side.

"Just hold it there," Lakko said quickly, glancing at Challis. "Don't do anything else."

Rasalas froze in place. It took a moment, then his sister was staring at his eyes in shock. His irises had flared a harsh yellow, brighter and brighter until they glowed. So did his patch, the pattern of hexagonal snaps almost shimmering with color.

Lakko reached out and tore the cord away. Rasalas sagged instantly, squeezing his eyes shut as he pressed a hand to his head.

"Crimp my niggles," he said in a shaky voice. "Why'd you do that?"

"You're not ready for that yet." Lakko replaced it around his own neck with practiced ease, pulling his shirt collar over it. "You know there's thrike crap in your hair, right?"

Rasalas shoved his palms at the other man's chest hard enough to send him stumbling back.

"You and your brother and your blasted Cormellican technology," he burst out. "She won't have anything to do with it, you hear me?"

Challis leaped out of the stall to pull him back before the flux of the shove drove forward his momentum and made it worse. Rasalas shook her off and turned away to lean heavily against a beam. His eyes were closed again, but this time it was in a deliberate effort to settle himself. Challis took the opportunity of her momentary clear vision to turn to Lakko, who was brushing off his shirt with a scowl. She knew more than Lakko did about Rasalas' anger, hot and quick as a fox, and where it stemmed from. Violence always seemed such a gray area for him, but there was always a reason, if rarely a good excuse.

Her brother's voice came then, hardly a murmur compared to his explosion. The tone more than the words made Challis recede quietly back against the gate.

"I don't care to be treated like that, Agent Haske," he said. "If you had any hopes of recruiting us into this expedition, you'll keep whatever that thing is away from us. I don't know how much you know," he went on, finally turning to face him, "but my sister and I have taken enough of a hit with invasive brain procedures. Especially her."

Lakko stood unmoving, boots in a firm stance in the center of the aisle.

"You want into the program, don't you?" he said finally. "Did Drun tell you about the funded training period? That will involve more than just learning how to sit on a saddle."

Rasalas looked past him at the thrike in the stall, and walked slowly over to watch it through the bars. The creature had its feet tucked under as it sat in the nest. It rubbed its beak into the base of its neck with low thrumming noises, the only sound in the stable as Rasalas watched it and Challis and Lakko watched him.

Challis could guess what he was thinking. Drunnel's quest-like invitation had blown him, and her, out of their downtrodden existence into high spirits and a thirst for competition. This unexpected component, a re-entry into the world of technology of the sort that changed everything about their lives six years ago, was a serious setback. At least to him.

She could hardly hear her brother's whisper: "Get the hell out of here, Lak."

Challis paused, then turned to Lakko with an apologetic air.

"Could you leave us alone for a minute, sir?"

He gave a nod, not meeting her eye. "See you at the tables." Then he strode out and left the twins in the quiet. Challis walked up next to Rasalas to watch the thrike.

"So why'd you hit him?" she asked quietly. He shrugged.

"Same reason I did Rib-eye. You're my sister."

The thrike snorted, one eye peering at him.

"Ras…" Challis put a hand on his arm. He started to pull away but then went very still as she went on, voice gentle. "I never thought I'd have to say this. I thought I would never need to again, but…" She took a deep breath. "What are you hiding from me?"

He swallowed and looked away from her. Challis felt the air quiver with an external wave of emotion, what Lakko had called an efflux. She let go of Rasalas as guilt rolled off of him into puddles. Then it began to harden into anger again.

Challis left him there and climbed a ladder to the loft. She began pitching crackling piles of leaves down into the empty cages. At the far end of the loft, she put down the pitchfork and stood up on her tiptoes to look out through the gap between the wall and the ceiling. Where one of the pipes lining the edge of the roof was loose, she levered aside a wood panel to reveal a little opening. Her fingers dug out a wrapped bundle, then a second.

Rasalas had noticed her working and wheeled the now-empty muck wagon back into the stable and into a corner. Challis threw one of the bundles at him and sat with her legs hanging over the edge of the loft. It was a good spot to rest, where she could see part of the courtyard outside and have an eye on all doors. She took a bite out of a strip of dried meat and sighed.

He spoke up to her. "Look, Chall, I know how much you want to ride thrikes. So do I. But do we really want to get into that, again?" He gestured out toward where Lakko had disappeared, including the whole FHF and its ties to the Cormellican Institute in the simple motion. Challis kept looking out the doorway.

"I know, it sounds amazing," Rasalas continued, sitting down hard against a beam and tearing open his package. "And it's at a good time. But all these promises, the very idea of them throwing money at us to go on an expedition and join the Franken Historical… Haberdashery Foundation…"

Challis snorted out a laugh. "Histological."

"Whatever."

"I have an idea, Ras. I know you're going to hate it, but –"

"But we have bills to pay. We need to settle into something more dependable now, while we have the opportunity to look wherever we want. Not go off into something dangerous, with you all –"

He stopped, then coughed as a small crowd of thrikes and their handlers entered the stable on the far side, the laughs and jostles accompanied by wary eyes and strong grips on the reins. The Gannagens stuffed down the rest of their meager meal and tried to remain inconspicuous. Challis saw Flantain, one of the girls she had gone to school with, tall and slender as they come. She felt they would have been friends in a different context, but now Flantain only pressed her lips together in distant acknowledgment as she unsaddled her thrike in the stall next to the twins.

Someone called out to them in a brief command. Challis and Rasalas shared a glance, each silently asking the other Why are we still here? At their hesitation, whoever it was whistled sharply at them. Rasalas' eyes flashed, and a remaining trace from Lakko's neck wire sent the emotion burning through Challis as well. It was bad enough for mistreated muck rats in stolen boots and smelling of stable to be invisible, but it was worse when they weren't allowed to be.