"Clansman Jaxwulf! You will stay right where you are!"

I moved down the hospital corridor, voices ringing through the building too loud and too clear given the lateness of the hour.

"Get yinz hands off! I've got business to attend to!"

"Your bed was bought and paid for by Lord Bloodsword! We'll see you're well before we let you leave!"

I continued down the corridor, homing in on the raised voices. This was the fine, high-Order hospital in the center of the city. The same institution I had stayed in after the concussion I suffered during the Choosing. I'd had a vague memory of instructing Olaf to bring Dirk here on my behalf. It seemed like days ago that we'd crossed the lands back from Buffalo. It seemed so, so long ago. It defied reality that Lauren had been alive this morning. That I had been with Racquel, in bliss and blissful ignorance this same day.

I peered in the door of the room. Martha, the doctor who had treated me, and a younger female nurse stood on either side of a bed. Dirk lay between them, deeply frustrated by their efforts to restrain him. I eyed them and him. He could stand if he chose to, push them aside with ease. I imagined that had these been men, he would have done just that. He limited himself, contained himself, with the women. I couldn't tell if that was vaguely chivalrous or inherently sexist.

Dirk barked at Martha, "Let me up, woman! Look at me, I'm right as fucking rain. Let me back to my people. They's seen nor heard of me with days."

I cleared my throat and three sets of startled eyes snapped to me. The young nurse almost swooned at the sight of the Blood Prince standing before her. Her eyes went wide with shock, and obvious interest. Dirk's face folded into a frustrated frown. Martha, though, instantly beamed at me.

"My Lord Bloodsword!" she spoke with unmistakable delight, and possible melodrama. "It is an honor to have you back in our humble institution of healing."

I nodded my head, smiling. I remembered her kindness the morning I left my room that day. She had bolstered me when I felt weak. It had only been Lance left to stand between me and the armor I now wore. How… how long had it been? So much had happened so fast. The Falling had come and gone. My apprenticeship under Chowwick. My weeks of Fiend hunting. Was it Spring already?

I said, "Thank you for tending my friend."

Martha winked. "Paying his bill will be thanks enough. I take it you've come to have a word with this rogue."

Dirk said, "Yinz don't know if I'm a rogue! I'm not! I'm a chief, dammit."

Martha said, "Respectable people don't deposit themselves in this institution, bleeding profusely and bearing broken wounds, with no explanations."

Dirk said, "I told yinz! I fell off a horse!"

Martha said, "Onto a field of edged weapons? A field of numerous different edged weapons?"

Dirk folded his arms and looked away from her. Under his breath he muttered, carefully modulated to be just loud enough for all to hear, "I just want to go home."

Martha ignored him. "We'll leave you to him. Try and explain to him that it's in his best interest to stay here. He's had relic treatments, you know how quickly they work, but we need to monitor him for another few hours."

Martha walked by me and left, the young nurse following. The nurse had gathered her senses a little in the interim, and curtsied to me as she passed, fixing me with a dazzling, intense smile. I found my head tracking her form as she left.

"Racquel wouldn't like to see yinz eye-groping that poor lass like that," Dirk's voice was loud.

I hissed at him, moving closer to speak more privately. "Shhh. You can't go talking about that so— Do you know what would happen if people knew?"

Dirk said, "Aye, yinz'd be done for a traitor, her too. Fucked up, isn't it? Yinz can pal around with another suit from another city as much as yinz want to. But the moment yinz lay down with 'em yinz a traitor."

I waved my hands at him, "Still too loud, Dirk!"

He cocked an eyebrow, the devilment of his game playing on his face. "So, what do yinz want? What brings the Blood Butcher to my bedside at this unsociable hour?"

"What were you doing in Buffalo?" I spoke low.

His eyes darted to the closed door, then back to my face. "Maybe yinz don't wanna know."

I said, "I have a sense of the kind of madness you get up to. I think I can handle it."

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He bobbled his head. "Technically yinz'd be bound to arrest me if you knew."

I said, "We'll work around it. Tell me, Dirk. Enough of the innuendos. You've said before that you're involved in social change, it's got something to do with Racquel as well, and it nearly got you killed today. It cost me the chance to catch the bastard who murdered Lauren. I'm owed this."

He lay his head back on his pillow and looked at the ceiling. "I've been thinking about telling yinz. I've nearly told yinz a few times. Yinz knows Racquel is involved with us. We need Griidlords, nothing's gonna work without some help from up top."

I stilled, suddenly unsure.

He raised his head, fixed me. "Yinz don't like the way things are. I can see that. Whole world can see that. It's why the common folk here are so in love with yinz. I heard about the way yinz ran around protecting the houses of the common folk in Dodge. Yinz know people talk about that? Most un-Griidlordly of yinz. There's more. All that talk about the Falling being a waste of lives and resources that could be better spent on making life better for everybody. Yinz natter on about that, think nobody's listening, but folk do listen, and when they're done listening, they talk."

He propped himself up higher, wincing slightly. "Yinz know there's a better way out there. Yinz want it. But are yinz too afraid to do something about it?"

My voice was rougher than I intended. "Dammit Dirk, you're not answering me."

He rolled his eyes. Here was one common man at least who had no respect or fear of my station. "Told yinz before that I'm workin' with people, that we're trying to do what the Green Men are fucking up. I got friends in Buffalo. Cells yinz could even call 'em. I was touchin' base."

I raised a brow. "Touching base?"

He chuckled. "I was tryin' to see if we had the strength in numbers and in spirit to come out against the Green Men in Buffalo, knife the fuckers in their sleep, push 'em out. Give the city back to the people maybe, maybe leave 'em with the impression that there's people out there more worthy of their loyalty, that there's a way out of this shitheap of a society without resorting to supporting rapists and murderers."

I breathed slowly. "This sounds more organized than it sounded before."

He shrugged. "I didn't tell you before."

I said, "There's a name for this. Whatever this is, this network, you can't hold people together like this without having a name for your cause."

He laughed. He confused me the way he laughed — he started chuckling and couldn't stop. I didn't understand what I could have said that was so funny. Wiping a tear from his eye, he said, "I swear, we've been at this since long before yinz put on that training suit in the arena."

"What? You're not making sense."

He said, "The name. Yinz asked about the name. It's so fucking funny. I swear, it's just a fucking coincidence."

I folded my arms and stared at him.

He got control of his mirth and straightened his face. "We're called The Blood."

My head sagged. "You're… What? What? No wonder the people think I'm some burgeoning messiah! Dirk, you can't be serious!"

He chuckled again. "When yinz chose your house name, folk thought it was a message. I don't know how much that helped you pick up Blood Butcher and Blood Prince, but folk love it."

My arms fell to my side. "I'm… Have you made me some kind of anti-establishment symbol?"

He said, "No, no. Never. Couldn't even tell if I could tell yinz about The Blood for a long time. It was kinda organic the way it happened."

Silence hung between us. It stretched as I processed, with my fume-fueled brain, what he was telling me.

After a time, he said, "So?"

I said, "So what?"

"Are yinz in?"

A crystal moment of frozen time struck the room, and then we were both laughing. I wouldn't have thought I could find humor that day, but it was so ridiculous.

Dirk said, "Alright, alright. I'll put yinz down as a maybe. Says a lot though that I feel like I can tell yinz this, and that I know yinz won't stick me up whether yinz're in or not."

"I won't turn you in, Dirk."

He said, "Satisfied? Now yinz know why I was there, yinz can figure out how some fucker ratted on me and the Green Men sent their dogs. Happy enough?"

I shook my head. "Not yet. I want to know how much force you've got in the city."

He narrowed his brow. "Why...?"

I said, "A delegation is going to Buffalo to demand they hand Perdinger over to us. If they refuse then the honor of the city almost demands we take action…"

He said, "War?"

I nodded. "But there is another path. A middle road."

He waited.

I said, "A motivated group with the right resources and access could possibly get him out of there and avoid a war that could mean ruin for two cities."

He scoffed. "Perdinger's back in the Tower, Ti. He's back in his pod. The demented bastard's back to full strength. Well, one hand short still, courtesy of yinz sword. But there's no way The Blood can cart off a full power Griidlord even if he's mad as a sober night."

My mind raced. This was not good. What was Danefer doing? How could he reinstate Perdinger? I understood that Danefer was employing the Green Men to further his ends — yes, he had tried to kill me — but I had sensed that he was a man of greater integrity than this.

I said, "What if they had a Griidlord of their own with them?"

He eyed me up and down. "Leadership might not like that. We'd be exposing ourselves to yinz. Be different if yinz were of The Blood. Symbol or not, yinz are an outsider."

He chewed his lip. "Leave it with me. I'll see if there's not a chance of it. It would go down a treat, the Blood Prince working hand in hand with The Blood..."

Weariness settled on me. I suddenly felt the contracted night that remained before me. There were short hours left until I would head a train to the West. And the day had been apocalyptic. Lauren. Perdinger. Threats of war. Violence. It all weighed down on me suddenly.

I gave him a nod and a smile and turned to go.

"Wait." He called at my back.

I turned.

He waved a hand. "In my jacket. Somethin' for yinz."

I went to where his clothes lay folded on the chair by the door. My hand delved and returned with two envelopes.

I said, "Racquel."

He said, "And another."

I said, "Is that how you pass the letters between us? The Blood's network?"

I looked down at the envelopes, one bearing my name in Racquel's now familiar script. The other written by a heavy hand with urgency. I didn't open either of them.

Dirk said, "They'd take that suit from yinz if they knew yinz were seeing her. Maybe hang yinz. There's plenty of tail round here that would lie down with a Griidlord. She that special?"

I eyed him. I'd seen the way he acted around her. Every man acted the same around Racquel. She had a gravity about her that pulled us all in.

I said, "You know she is."

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