Spectral Evidence

“Oh, really. And what is it makes you think I give a good goddamn about cross-checking the correctness of all your little biographical details? I look like oprah friggin’ Winfrey to you, cupcake?”

Others might’ve met this sort of dickery with a similarly harsh word, or even a punch, and ended up in Ad Seg for a month as of Day One for it; Dionne sure as Hell looked like she wanted to kick him where it counted, from the way her fists balled up. Samaire, though, just shrugged, and made herself look somehow small—small as a gal who loomed over Curzon by a good two inches while slumping ever could, at any rate. Projecting, if not saying right out loud: Nope.

“Thought not,” Curzon shot back, and flounced off to finish count, Guard Brenmer hot on his heels. Which left us all alone together, free to get acquainted however we felt most inclined.

—

But I didn’t approach ‘em right then, no. I watched ‘em a while instead, from long-range—across the yard, passing in the halls, two tables over in mess. Sent Maybelle to do fly-bys; she told me how they?

??d been split up for work (Samaire got library, Dionne got workshop), but stuck together as cellmates (no surprises there). Kept my eyes peeled for whatever scuffles might arise, so’s I could confirm for myself both what quarters said scuffles might come from, and how the Cornishes might deal with ‘em, if and when they did.

Now some fools will speak from hubris and say that we women are too frail to fight, and some’ll speak from rosy innocence and say we’re too compassionate. Neither of these is true. What is true is that unlike men, women—most women—don’t fight for fun. A woman throws down with you, she wants you either dead, or beaten bad enough you’ll never look her in the eyes again. Two women throw down, it don’t stop until it stops for good, or gets stopped. Which is why women mostly don’t start a fight unless we’re either damn sure we’ll win or we got no other choice, and why we learn right quick to tell the fights we can win from the ones we can only hope to survive.

Even the dumbest of M-vale’s denizens, it seemed, could see with a single look neither Cornish was a winnable fight. Around them the subtle vicious swirls of violence roiled on, while they floated through it like pumice in a Yellowstone caldera, untouched, untouchable. Model prisoners, ‘cause they could afford to be. And because…they needed to be.

No, it was the guards they had to fool, not us; it was the men with the keys they wanted to be overlooked by, the watchdogs they had to bore to sleepiness. That extra edge of alertness Maybelle reported, that I saw for my own self, whenever a bluebird came within hearing of their constant low mutters to each other: the tension, the flickering eyes, the expert balance of submissiveness, dullness and sullenness, thrown over that spark of sharp defiance like an oil-rag wrapping carbon steel. That it took me so long to realize what it all meant is some embarrassing, in full honesty.

Once I did realize, though…well. I never have been one for wast-ing time, once the course of action is clear.

—

“You two’re thinkin’ on escape, ain’t you?” I said, sliding in between both Cornishes without any fair warning, as they leant up against their usual staked-out corner of the prison yard. Dionne reacted pretty much just like I’d expected she might to this display of unmitigated gall: shifted back into fight-stance and fisted one hand, while the other went on the sly for that shank she kept shoved down the back of her pants. But Samaire just drew herself up to full height and shot me the downwards cut-eye, before asking, calmly—

“And…you would be?”

“Oh, just another poor victim of stunted parental creativity.” I stuck out my own hand, so fast she almost couldn’t help but take it, if only for a second. “Allfair Chatwin—Alleycat, they call me; looks like ‘all-fair,’ sounds like Ah-la-fahr. Kinda like bein’ named Cinderella, back where I come from.”

Dionne glowered at me, and snapped: “Don’t say word one to this bitch, Sami. I’ve been askin’ around; she’s nobody we need to know.”

“Oh, I’d say that probably depends, pretty gal.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not it’s true your li’l sister’s Daddy wears the same set of horns mine does.” She flushed a bit at that, but didn’t argue; though it might still be a sore spot, the concept obviously wasn’t really up for debate. So I simply smiled, and continued. “‘Cause if he does…”

“If,” Samaire put in, raising a brow.

“…Well. Then I think we might be fit to do some business together.”

Dionne and Samaire traded looks; Dee’s seemed to read like she thought she could probably stab me quick and walk on ‘fore the guards noticed, but Samaire’s half-shrug, half-headshake seemed less for than against. So Dionne let out a breath, and stepped back just far enough to let me get between her and her sister—metaphorically, at least. Especially considering exactly how little wiggle room she’d left me to work with…

(For now.)

“I mean, you do need to get outta here too, am I right? Go back to savin’ the world, and all.” Now it was my turn to get looked at. “So…how’s that goin’ for you, anyways?”

Dionne: “Like it’s any of your damn—”

But: “Not as well as I’d hoped for, considering,” Samaire replied, cooler than cool, at almost the same moment. “But I take it you have suggestions.”

‘Cause she could see it on me too, ‘course; no way she couldn’t. We all know each other by sight, if nothing else.

I nodded. “Now, don’t get me wrong,” I began, “I hear you’re an educated woman, so I know whatever sort of craft you practice probably got to have mine beat all to Hell and back, just on the reference material. But I been in here long enough to learn this much: Craft in itself ain’t gonna get you through gate one, let alone out those front doors without anyone puttin’ a bullet through ya…or better still, through her.”

Dionne snorted loudly at the very idea, naturally—but Samaire’s eyes flicked over nonetheless, automatic as a skipped heartbeat, like she was already checking for damage. And: Well-a-day, I thought to myself, wonderingly, as I so often had before. Ain’t family something special?

Best earthly way to get an otherwise smart person to do somethin’ stupid under pressure that I ever have tripped across, inside jail or out of it, hands damn down.

“I’m listening,” was all she said in return, though. Which was more’n good enough.