You know, she’d sounded so proud. The thing I’ll say now is: she should have been. Of course she should have been. There are a whole heap of ways that my cousin was cheated of opportunities which had come cheaply to me. There was so much we hadn’t known – fumbling blind through the dark at the start of an upturned age. Where could she have turned, or to whom, as she made her own way? Anne Hektor never trusted to induct her daughter into her secrets. Mr Sadiqi had not mentored the girls as close as he’d sponsored me.

But nonetheless the young woman had invoked the names of Craft of her own initiative. By her own cunning, she had evoked the rod, and turned the favor of the Witch to her own purpose. Even then already, not a month into her first Grace, she made designs to manifest the crown: that mad and naive hope to set a blessing to do something new.

If fact I, ah - well, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I would actually steal that Rosary from her later. The dispersal tensor, which came out of a solution for ol’ Proskauer? Well it’s always done outperformed the more standard thunder mediated wind-water field, and we’re talkin’ by seventeen percent in the upper bounds, which…

Well, I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself. To spare you from numerics, I’ll have you know that over my years to come, that trick of hers practically kept me alive more’n any other. I’d never have been nothing but nothing if it hadn’t been for her.

As is so often true of moments which are most important, I can only wish to say we’d had more time together. But we had been open with all the things we should have known to keep hidden, and so it was within 23 seconds, and I’ll swear to that number, that the Mister did impend upon us.

The ceiling creaked with his transit, and so incited us into panic. The sudden smell of dust choked out spring waters, and withered the spaces folded between edges. The oppressive thump of boots descended the stairwell like the felling of a gavel. Our time was only sufficient to shut our blessings tight, and throw our secrets under the bed in desperation. I perceived the taste of gunpowder, and my skin itched under the splintering touch of linen. We felt the man as he loomed on the other side of the door, and quailed.

The table I’d wedged against the door cracked as the door pushed in. I practically jumped out of my socks as one wood leg slipped its nails and bent crooked against the rug. With a lunge, I pulled it away and dropped it aside, and then all three of us assembled fast into a line. We stood ramrod straight, chins up and shaking. In all my fifteen and one half years, the Mister had never entered our room before. Now he stood still outside, and filled the frame of our only exit.

Upon reflection, I suppose that till now there is some measure by which I have avoided describing the man in full. Indoors, Quade Walton was bare of his hat. His hair grew full and dark. His complexion was vigorously hale. The nose on his face was narrow. The teeth in his mouth were small.

We made a study of the floor, and the ceiling, and every other direction except meeting the eyes of the master of the house.

“I feel corners in my house that were not there before.”

When the Mister spoke, it was in a low, abrasive growl. His attention roved about the bounds of the room; and everywhere he searched was no longer safe. When his scrutiny fell on us, he looked through me like I was glass and I swallowed.

“How can we help you, sir?”

Ashli was first to speak. In haste, Ursula and I echoed after.

Rather than acknowledge us; the Mister tilted his head slowly and his eyes narrowed. I’d mentioned that good living and rich food had widened the man’s middle. I’d made petty mention about the veins of his legs. But I had also chosen to omit the subject of his age. He should have been gray, and wasn’t. He should have gone wrinkled, and hadn’t. He had passed through the years like an oilskin through rain.

“Ain’t back-talking me now, huh? Show me what you’re hiding. You’ll do it now.”

The toe of his moccasin slippers touched down onto the sill, breaching the doorway. I pressed the back of my hand against the back of Ashli’s.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she scoffed. She tossed her head with a dismissive sniff.

Dispassionately, he stared at the girl. Her fists clenched until her fingernails cut marks in her palms.

“It ain’t red. And it don’t smell blue.” The Mister raised one hand and rubbed his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully together. “Can’t be fire either, and purple I’d know anywhere. Yellow? Been awhile since I’ve tasted yellow, but no.”

“Sir,” I gulped, “we would not bring the ‘vader influence into our house.”

“Sometimes,” he whispered, “the vecks’ll cook up more than just a flavor. There are pieces of them left behind, pieces that remember what they used to be. It wouldn’t be your fault, it’d be easy enough to mistake for a… Grace. I’d understand. If that’s it you found – if you turned one over to me, I’d grant you such favors. How about a horse of your own?”

Ursula bit off a reply with a squeak as Ashli gripped her hand.

“Th-there is no higher law,” I stumbled. Then I grit my teeth and shut my eyes. “Than to say that what a man owns is his.”

“Oh?”

I could not allow myself to stop. “Nonetheless to your want. What’s mine is mine. I refuse to amputate from myself. By what right can you deny me?”

I was still standing. I was still breathing. Therefore, I snuck a peek to see what was gone wrong.

The Mister was smiling; actually smiling. He let out a gruff chuckle. “You think you learned what gumption is, I s’pose you can’t help it. That’s what happens if you fill your head with book reading. You leave no room for sense.”

“Yea, well,” Ashli replied. She bumped my shoulder with hers. “Some people I know grew up plenty dumb enough without reading a single book at all.”

The Mister’s grin only deepened. “Hm,” he said. His fingers touched along the door jamb and slid down along its length. “Not the horned woman, nor the painted tart. But it’s not got a penchant for metal, neither.”

Little Saleena appeared behind the Mister in the hall. She froze, having bitten into a melon aphid’s swollen nectar sac. She looked at him, and at us. Heedless of the sweet ichor dripping out of the insect onto the hardwood floor, she blanched and fled.

The Mister scratched his chin, not caring to look back. “Something that Baker left behind?” He considered. “No. This is someone new.”

I knew his intention; the way he levered tension and patience against us. Any mouse would’ve known the same of the ferret, any bison would’ve seen the bluff before the jump. But I was just a boy, and when reason and passion were at odds, a boy’s failing is that he’ll only fold one way. I saw his foot inching ever closer to the carpet. Inevitably, I was run to the end of my wits.

“I’m going to get stronger than you,” I swore. The Mister’s eyes were silver and cold as I dared to meet them. “I’m going to find someplace safe. Then I’ll leave and take everyone away. There’ll be no one left behind but you, forever.”

Ursula gasped at my discourtesy. Ashli hummed in dissatisfaction at my mildness.

The Mister only bent at the knees, his hands on his thighs and condescending to my level. “That’s right. A man makes his own way. But you ain’t a man, yet.” I smelt the faint sting of burning. The Lady’s Opinion remembered me of the red heat wafting off the branding iron. My bones rattled as she unearthed the leash and the chain from her mantle, and I hated that it was a part of her.

The Mister stood, and he was taller than he was before. “M’fraid not one of y’all have reached your majority. The right to property is denied. Everything you have belongs to your guardians, as is right.”

My throat parched; the waters had run dry on my dwindling side of the Argument. The three of us took a step back. I felt the door changing – from an impenetrable border into just another space inside a house that belonged to him.

Then Auntie Anne Hektor rose up out of the cellar in anger, lifting the pressure on us with each stamp of her boots.

“And by that account, anything my daughter owns is mine.”

The Mister wheeled to face her. He didn’t seem so tall anymore, but neither did he quit easy. “Yet we all contribute,” he haggled, “what we must for the good of the house –”

Ms Hektor cut him off with a snap. “Then you’ll treat with me, and on another day. You are out of line, Quade. You raised a subjugation Rosary against the children.”

He paused, calculating. Then he eased into a relaxed and casual laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous, Ann. How might I do that? I don’t even have my gun.”

Silence fell directly, and it boiled.

“It occurs to me,” the Mister cleared his throat and said, “I may have phrased that somewhat awry.”

And so, within half an hour (and by unanimous accord of the good ladies of the house), the Free Holder Quade Walton of Ghost Perch, bearer of the rifle called Fortitude and champion of the Lady Diana...

was thrown out of his home and onto his ass.

That very night, he rode out on his horse for Will Rogers Ford in the east: where he would stay gone for two full days to ‘cool off’ in the interest of the peace. I had never felt so safe as when I tucked into bed that night and went to sleep.

In my relief, it did not occur to me to think and count the sum of guns left which kept our ranch safe. As of that evening, it was zero.