just tying loose ends.

THE VETERAN

~

Cam, for all intents and purposes, was much nicer than Clem gave him credit for. She never thought of him as someone in line with the likes of Damian Harker, but she also knew him to be stoic and secretive. That, on top of the fact that his family was well known to hunt her kind, made any conversation she held with him automatically twice as intimidating as it was meant to be. 

But, then Cam would go on about how much grace she had surrounding this entire situation, or offer that Dad like smile that was well worn and didn’t meet his eyes anymore, no matter how genuine it was, and she wondered how anyone could ever be intimidated by such a man? It made sense to her why Connor insisted that Clem could trust him. Had she not believed it, she would have kept the letter close to her chest, especially with the knowledge of the Original Debt laid out so plainly on the page. 

“You might be giving me too much credit, Cam. Grace and poise are easy to feign when you can fall apart behind closed doors. I’m trying my best, but I don’t think I’ll ever live up to being a Devlin.” And, there was the ever present question of: Did she even want to? There was a weight that was carried in a name like Devlin, and not a friendly one at that. One that possessed a lot more power and fortitude than Clementine was convinced she could ever have.

It’s surprising that Cam takes her up on the offer. Because, well, she’s not exactly the kind of person that runs head first into adventure. She’s not brave like Connor, wise like Lilith, or scrappy like Chloe. She’s… just Clementine. Which was fine in a lot of ways, but for digging into secrets hidden by her estranged mother in the Underground? Well, she didn’t know if it was obligation or ease of access that had Cam legitimately offering to let her into the fold of all of this. “I’d like to be as involved as I can if that’s alright with you. I get the feeling some of what you’re looking for will give me answers to the questions I have for myself as well. Besides, I know my status or whatever might change, but I have been in the Underground since I was a kid. Being a pivotal member will be the real challenge.”

Too much credit. Didn’t sound like him. Did it? Not now. Been a long damn time since anybody’d called him something like an optimist. Like hopeful. 

Well, whatever he was - Cam cocked his head, birdwise, brow faintly furrowed. There she went again, doubting herself out loud. As if Moira wasn’t a hell of an act to follow. Maybe she’d crumpled up just the same, here, in this home her daughter was tentatively trying to make her own. Neither of them could know for sure, of course; seemed like Moira was more an enigma for her own child than him, even. And Cam knew he’d hardly scratched the surface. 

Perhaps his hopes really were a little high, on the whole, but... hell, seemed like Clementine might have some of that Devlin diamond finish to her after all. Good. She’d need it. Cam took her answer in, nodded once, thoughtfully, with a careful but ever so slightly crooked smile. Like there was a joke - not a mean one, just told a little too often, maybe - on his mind. Something similar, at least. “Well, who says you've got to? Live up, I mean. You’ll be a Devlin anyway. And that’s something nobody can deny you, yeah? No matter what they think.” He half-shrugged that off, his shot-through shoulder stinging all the same. Two cents, unasked for, flicked into the wishing well. Christ, Cicerone, and Clem’s own Guide - he’d wish a few things, for this kid. 

But all he had to actually offer was a couple uncertain schemes. Starts, at least. Starts. “As for how we get moving, on this. It’s pretty damn unlikely I could get us into the Circle archives. Our wannabe Orators were all happy to see me out of the Interim spot, nice and quick, keys and all - and don’t owe me anything, favours-wise. But I’ve got an in to the next best thing.” Lili, and that fortress of a collection. Which he’d say was, in fact, the best an archive could be around here, but. Might be biased. “Won’t promise I can bring you with. That’s not my call. Still, whatever we find, I can follow up there.” Cam bridged his fingers, cracked those scarred knuckles, slowly. “Beyond that, there’s a more, ah... direct way we could try to get some answers. It’s a long shot, though. Long, long.” Another crack, the other way, and he wrapped his hands around the warmth of that coffee cup. “Might be able to manifest her. If she hasn’t moved right along, already. Moira’s ghost, I mean.” There it was. Cam kept eyes on Clem, there. Keenly. “Vampires - anybody undead, on the whole - don’t tend to linger. But with you, helping - well, most anything’s possible.” Most. Not anything, anything. “Won’t know until we try.” If Clem was prepared to take this that far, exactly. Right through the Veil...

* ✶    

For as comfortable as she felt around the people of this Lot, the Lot itself was…less than welcoming. Not to say Cameron had gone out of his way to make it so, but certain things made a Faerie tense in a million little ways. The scent of that Rowan tree on the property carried all the way to her nose, the smell pungent as it tickled at her nose. Besides that, there were so many things she’d kept from touching, wary of what they may be made of. What an odd juxtaposition that had been then, a Hunter with an aura so warm…and the looming wisps she’d caught sight off, peculiar in their own ways, misplaced and perfectly fitted all the same— a mismatch of pieces of the same puzzle, hailing from different boxes altogether and she? Esmeray wasn’t even a jigsaw piece, so where did she fit here? Bones fused together, in a way that didn’t belong, bits of muscle and sinew caught on those exposed edges. 

Shaking the thoughts from her head, she lets herself sink deeper into the seat, “courses, Theirs and their iterations of the plentinfulnesses…theirs are in the rootings of ours all and after,” though Esmeray was well aware that words like those were hard to believe. She knew them though, not so far removed from herself that they’d smite her for all those ways in which she’d circumvented the rules. And they’d taken care of her for some short moments of her life. Bits and pieces of what a family could be perhaps, if not tainted by the all-consuming desires of a mother and father?

It was an odd thing to be welcomed into a family in this way, whatever this way was. If Esmeray knew anything about family, she knew about duty, conditions. Before she was Esmeray, she was Dilara, and before that even, she was one of a clan, part of a matching set for Evren’s own use. Not that she blamed the woman for being who she was, not that she’d ever blamed the one that had brought her into this world. Those first few years of her life were filled with love and what came after was a lesson: something so beautiful came with conditions, and filial piety was the first. If she was good, she was loved and when she made mistakes ( and there were plenty ), Evren and Hasim both rescinded that. 

All those years she gave the prince the cold shoulder her father grew irritated, and when she’d denied Corliss’ proposal, they sent her to the mountainside for some years, punishment for being so ungrateful of all they’d given her. Even then, she told herself she understood, that she’d be given that same love again when she’d earned it. We need the throne, for this clan and for the people of this court, kızım. You see how much they suffer, they’re hungry, and suffering. Her blood runs through your veins, Dilara and she’s a protector, why not do the same?

Take care of Cerese and Nesim could have the throne. Subjugate the queen herself, and her subjects might be better for it. Esmeray owed her parents that much, and if her brother was crowned after the fact, even better. And if she lost her head in the process…a casualty of war. 

Her parents loved her, she was sure, her brothers even more so, but Evren and Hasim had taught her that love was transactional. Sitting here now in front of Cam as he welcomed her into this family, she felt confused. That he’d offer to do anything to make it feel like family, that he’d be honored to— it was perplexing and his words had her antennae tensing up behind the glamor. How does one even process something like that? What does family mean to people like them? It’d been hard enough to attach herself to the idea that she could be loved unconditionally, that Connor would surrender part of himself to keep her safe, and now this? Still, Esmeray had to say something, anything in response, “many and all of the thank yous, Cam…” and thereafter, “if yours are in the needings of the reciprocations, do the tellings, yes?”

Even when the lessons were Sorcha’s - older, for lack of a better way to describe them, unlike anything other hunters he’d known in the flesh had ever had to tell him - Cam was always taught that fae couldn’t, and shouldn’t, be expected to make any sort of mortal sense. His grandmother hadn’t minded it so much. Mystery was just a fact of things, far as she was concerned. Didn’t have to embrace the unknown. Just respect it. That was the difference, there. His mother had feared the unfamiliar. Stared it down. Suspected it, constantly, of some sort of malice.

And of all the things out there, in the Underground and beyond, Clara had found fae most malicious of all. She’d brushed those older stories aside like so much dust. Rowan and iron were all the sense she needed to make of Esme’s kind. They were too powerful. Too long-lived. Too used to toying with what they thought beneath them, endlessly amused by their own cleverness and cruelty. Even the ones who’d wound up on this side of things, away from their Otherrealm for whatever reason. They weren’t prone to compassion, or generosity. Unless it suited their vanity, or offered some kind of entertainment. Or was simply some twisted trick. Like that nauhlum, frosting the hillside with its silvery pollen. Blooming even as Mal died, and died, and died, anyway. 

So his mother’d said. Was it Sorcha who’d made the worse mistake, accepting a gift from the Court, trusting in the good faith of a fairy? Or was that Clara, who’d neglected, refused, to learn all the craft that might’ve been able to save her second son? Didn’t matter now. They’d both made their choices. He would make his, and live and die with the consequences, like his mother and grandmother and every Kiskadden before him. They were only human. And humans, even his mother had known, and known well, could be as bad as anything in the Underground’s shadows. And full of their own goddamn mysteries. 

Esme might be more of a mystery than Ken and his kids and Connor had been. Still family, though. That was Cam’s choice to make, and simple enough, having seen and heard all she meant to Connor. Even the trouble. Family could be that. Often was. And family could be confusing, too, which... well, she did seem confused. Guess they were both a little mysterious to each other. “Don’t have to thank me. Or reciprocate, for that matter. Though I appreciate the sentiment.” The weight of it; a peri, offering a Kiskadden any kind of hand. Even if that was just out of startled politeness. Sorcha’d never seen such a thing, reckonings and all. 

Taking a deep, brisk breath of the night, Cam hauled himself up, all his bony snaps and pops quieted by that still-fresh craft. “But I will ask, if I do find the need. Spare your husband howling at me for turning down good help.” Yeah, he remembered the way Connor’d just about growled at him, not long ago. About help, and knowing when to take it, and how many people were here, with him, wanting to give it. At least Esme would be hard as hell to get killed.

The screen door creaked awfully as he shouldered his way inside, pausing halfway through. “That was a non-binding kind of promise, there. So we’re clear.” Cam left his unlikely niece with a softer smile, closing that fraying screen behind him - carefully, without a clatter to tweak Connor’s wolf ears. Kid needed the rest. They all did. In their own way. 

Dossier:

Name: Cameron Kiskadden

Age: 51

Species: Human — Legacy Hunter

Circle: Mortalis

Known Relationships: Clara and Thomas Kiskadden (parents, deceased), Malcolm, Taye, Gillean, Elspeth, Orla, Reyne, and Ross Kiskadden (siblings, deceased), Kenneth Talbot (husband, deceased), Daniela and David Talbot (children, deceased), Connor and Austin Talbot (nephews), Lilith Talbot (mother-in-law), Esmeray Talbot (niece-in-law), Kellan Trebond and Sebastian Harker (former apprenticed hunters and New Year’s team), Chloe Li, Matthew Coleman-Reyes, and Elias Hart (New Year’s team), Henry Jones (volunteer employer, New Year’s team, “Think it’s safe to say we’re close.”)

Interview:

What's your name?

“Thank you, for that,” Cam started, taking that coffee Kel had brought along from Pete’s. A sip, then an answer. “Cameron Kiskadden. Lyall, in the middle, if you need the whole thing.” Just, never together, never in order. You didn’t give away your name, like that. Force of habit. 

How do you know Tabitha Spencer?

“As Bash’s kid sister. So, since she was little. Before she got bit, even.” Yeah, he’d missed that. Like he’d missed so many things. Tibby had been lucky, it seemed; to be turned and survive, and in a place where she could be brought into a pack, supported. Lucky. Until now, apparently. “Shy, to start with. Sweet kid. Loves Bash to bits. She was getting to be a real history buff, all full of questions. Don’t know if she kept up with it. I’ve seen her around the shelter, since I got back to town. Seemed happy. And so young, still, but.” He shrugged, with a tired smirk. “We don’t all do it in wolf years.” 

How do you know Jose Alves Cruz?

“Through work. Once upon a time.” He whistled, suddenly and sharply, eyes on the dogs as they ripped off a little too far for his liking. “Hey, come! Here!” With a wild round of coyoteish song-and-barks, they spun and started back. “Him and his family’ve been up in the politics of this place for as long as I recall. Just about inevitable I’d run into them, especially once I got to leading a Circle, nevermind running for Orator.” Aware, embroiled in the political workings of the Underground and Unaware Las Vegas, both; a necessary evil, his folks had always figured, and even then, they’d curled a lip at the necessary. Like it was getting any easier to keep their home hidden, in this ever brighter, ever fuller world, so surveilled and tested and documented. There were fairer reasons to dislike the man. The sharpness in little Jo’s voice, the bright burning shine to her furiously unhappy eyes, even years ago, and now, less little, but bitterer still - that was all high on his. Cam held his coffee out of dog-tongue reach as he half-bent to meet the pack, patting shoulders, scratching jowls and ears, grimacing - with love - through the canine kisses. “He always was a thrall, even back then. Quiet about who to, like most of them. But he said it himself, during the party - sucking right up to Harker and Whitlock about how he’d be a worthy asset to whoever took the seat, even though he’s thralled to Fiala. Politics in action, huh?” He almost laughed. Not quite. Because it wasn’t funny, for a Circle Leader, nevermind a would-be Orator, to have that kind of power over somebody of Jose’s standing, out there in the Unaware world. Then again, what the hell would a royal heir know about power but how to consolidate that shit - so as to abuse it best? 

How do you know Hollis Fiala?

“By reputation, by their campaign. By their dealings, mostly.” To be as politic, yeah, and specific, as he’d be. Not getting into how pettily, pissily, murderously sadistic they’d shown themselves to be, accepting what Connor’d offered them, to get to Esme. Like they didn’t know what it’d do, to take his wolf. As if they didn’t understand the state he was in, when he put that promise on the table. Then again, what would they understand about it? Being prepared to suffer, and die, for someone you loved. What did that even mean, when pain was for other people, and death, too? Esme knew. That much, he was sure of. And she’d know better than ever, now. But Hollis? They knew how to take advantage. That much was real fucking clear.  And now they’d let his nephew run again. On their leash. So they could feel so goddamn magnanimous, he’d suppose. Until they decided they liked him and his wife better in agony. Dying, moon by moon. But Kel wasn’t asking for anything so personal, and the case didn’t need it. And neither did Connor; Fiala’s graces were bullshit, but bought time, all the same. Time to save him. So. Cam wrinkled his nose, with something only vaguely like a smile. Closer to a snarl. “Yeah, that’s about it.”

Did you see the shot/what happened that night from your perspective?

“I didn’t see who had hands on the gun, no.” Gloved hands. Goddamn, he’d just hope whoever they got on the evidence could find a way around that thin, thin layer of so-fucking-simple protection the shooter’d scored. Black tie, right? Unremarkable.  “Our Oracle saw that the shooting would go on at some point during the fireworks, so midnight, or close to. We’d put together a little divining, to help keep Karlha and everyone safe from whatever the hell this might be. Something to look for silver, so, the bullets, or, ideally, the gun, loaded with them. And a craft from the washerwoman, which’d point us to anyone who intended to hurt Karlha, whoever was out to cause her death. Both were built to a hell of a high standard, I can tell you that.” With the help they’d had, yeah. Work well done. “Those in hand, we turned up a silver bullet in a box, under the bar. With a maker’s mark. Not one I recognize, except from some of the gear carried by those shitstains who went around kidnapping and torturing our people, put us all in lockdown...” And wasn’t that funny. “If you’d like to match the mark, I’m sure it got some sort of documented when Harker’s people processed the bodies, their things.” He’d left plenty of that marked shit behind; more of those hunters had been carrying that sigil than not. No way to miss it. Back to the night of, though. “The washerwoman pointed us to the table Jose and Tibby were at. Jose’d already snuck past the magic we had out for silver, at the door. Those bodyguards, right.” Those fucking bodyguards. Ganymede wailed for attention, his coppery nose in the air; Cam hushed him, softly, curling a hand over that snout and petting the dog quiet. “So we kept eyes on. Jose dropped something. Gave one of those guards a look about it. Guard picked it up, I didn’t see what, and put it in Tibby’s purse, while she was paying attention to Karlha, onstage. Then, off we go: I heard something like two shots, one after the other. I was closest, so I went to Jose and Tibby. One of those guards had already got ahold of her, and Jose was down, with her purse in his hands. Already telling me it was Tibby who’d fired. The whole place was going to hell, so. Rather than risk losing the damn gun, I put it in a napkin. Stayed right there, for whatever proper authority turned up. That’d be Karlha. I gave her the gun, and - got Dr. Jones home, after he was done seeing to Hollis.” There. Thorough. 

When did you get the invitation for the party/know you were going to work it?

“The invitation showed up like it did for everybody, I suppose. Didn’t think anything of it until I was asked along by Chloe Li. The Oracle.” He felt the need to say it, to remind whoever’d be listening of the Power they’d been trusting in. The person had been enough for him, but - an Oracle, that ought to mean something to anybody in the Underground. Anybody who knew enough to be worth listening to, at least. “Told me she’d had a vision about Karlha being killed, shot, with silver, and people being hurt. And the things she sees have never done anything but save lives, before, so.” A taibhsear talks, you listen. Sorcha’s words, for him, not some investigation. But he spoke with the sureness of all he’d been taught, and all Chloe’d shown him. Answer enough, far as he was concerned.

Did you go with someone?

Kel knew this one, like they knew a good few of these. But the recording wasn’t for Kel, so. “When Chloe came to me, she’d already got a team together. Lilith Talbot, Bash Harker, Elias Hart, who Thaddeus’d asked to the whole thing, and Matthew Coleman-Reyes, a friend of his. Then, I roped you in.” There was a smile. A little apologetic, perhaps. Mostly proud. They’d done damn well, in the midst of all that, slung up and all. Of course they had. “Dr. Henry Jones, of the clinic, was also good enough to join us. At my invitation. As medical support, in case the worst went on.” Or less than that, as it turned out. As much a mess as this was, at least it wasn’t what Chloe’d been so afraid of... 

Do you own a gun/have you ever owned a gun?

Clean up would always be the bane of Bash’s existence. Even as a boy, the only time his eldest brother, Nico, yelled at him it was because he refused to help clean the house. Now, bloodstains, unsanctioned murder, and his uncle’s disapproving look was what made Bash stumble into the back of the animal shelter with tired eyes. But no amount of clean up could stop the shelter from having to run, so he tried not to show his disappointment when Tibby caught him just as he was about to sit to tell him that the play area for their new arrivals hadn’t been cleaned properly the night before. Alas, more cleaning.

The mop bucket was dirty three times over when he heard the familiar voice being called out and he was quick to place the mop to the side to greet his old friend. Before he could get the chance, Tabitha’s voice echoed through the shelter. “Bastian! Your old man friend is here to see you!” He rolled his eyes as he opened the door from the back and spotted Cam and his sister.

“Tibs,” he said gesturing for her to go back to the receptionist office to finish the paperwork she was working on, “he’s the Interim Orator and almost the same age as Nico and Nat.”

“Exactly. He’s old.”

He could only give Cam an apologetic smile as he placed a gentle hand on his uninjured arm. “Sorry about my sister. Come on this way.” She stuck her tongue out at him as he walked by and he couldn’t help but do the same back. She always would be his little sister after all. He kept the back door open for the old hunter and started towards where he office was. “How’re you feeling? I assume Doc patched you up well.”

"Hey, Tibby.” There’d been a smirk to that, the kind that came wrapped around a laugh. It’d taken a moment, long enough to account for fourteen years of growing up, but. He remembered her. Sweet kid, like Bash. Further from all this. Nice to see them together, again. Cam followed along as Bash directed, shaking off the apology. “Don’t be. Just what’s on the tin.” In both respects. She was, very much, a sister. A little one at that. And he had, somehow, survived to be an old man. But he’d have a couple hours, maybe, of feeling like an old man who could get shit done, coasting the bloodbuzz of the evening through what errands he couldn’t put off. 

(Really nice to see them together, again. Pulling faces and messing around and making fun. Brother and sister. Hit more than he’d have expected, but - the Underground had all kinds of goddamn suckerpunches for him, didn’t it?)

Those dogs were going fucking wild, weren’t they? He’d cocked his head, curiously, noticing the funny pitch on all that sing-howling. Then blinked back to attention, to answers. “Yeah, yeah. Those healing hands...” They were that, alright. Very. Good work, the Doc did. “I’m set. How about you, after everything? Not a scratch, huh?” Bash’s angel of choice had to be proud as hell, or heaven, or whatever the fuck, after a showing like that. Then again, what did Cam know about angels? Precious little. The Kiskaddens had never hunted those. And his family weren’t the type to Swear. Too suspicious. Most of what’d offer you Power, for a promise, didn’t mean half so well as Bash’s patron. And most hunters didn’t mean half so well as Bash, so. For the best, that he’d found another way to help around the Underground. What help he’d been, too. “Thank you, again. For getting in on that. It's good, it’s nice, seeing you,” Cam smiled over, honestly. “Circumstances and all.” 

~

Settling into a mansion from a friendly, homey apartment was… a challenge. Clementine had grown up in nice neighborhoods going to nice schools, but there was something some entirely different from that and living in the Devlin mansion. It’s halls tall, dark, and oozing with the macabre oddities that only Moira Devlin could curate, Clementine often wondered if she was living in a home or the antique parlor at the start of a scary movie. 

Now that Jo and Clem were further settled, Clementine had been working on bringing her own touch to the home, pastel coffee mugs indented with white polka dots, and flowers adorning the freshly dusted kitchen table, dark and wooden. It felt like a visual reminder of how disconnected Clem was from the world she was destined to be a part of in many ways. Especially as she sat across the table from Cam, tendrils of the warmth off their drinks billowing past the brim of each mug as she read over the letter. She felt out of place. Like, maybe, he was meant to be sitting across from Moira right now, and she was nothing but a sad consolation prize.

But to let the mask of calm confidence in her choices slip would be a mistake. 

Connor insisted she could trust Cameron, and according to this letter, Moira felt the same. But softness was as good as weakness in a place like this, and Cam would recognize that. So, she stoically reads over the letter, clearing her throat as she passes it back across the table towards him, and pulls her notebook towards her.

“I, um— well, I may have wasted your time in coming here, Cam, I’m sorry.” Pulling forth her own letter, creases fluid from her constant rereads of the letter in the dead of night as she tried to anchor herself to the feeling of love and closeness it provided. Gingerly, she pushes it towards Cam. “This is the letter she sent me. She told me she had been poisoned by turncoats.”  

“I would have told you what was in it sooner, but there’s… sensitive information in there, and Connor says I can trust you, but you’ll understand if I’m wary of who I share this bit of information with for the time being.” She glances at her hands then, a small flash of guilt burning hot through her body at that statement. “I’m sorry to hear about your family. If there’s anything that helps you in that letter or anything around here you think could help you, know I’ll do what I can.”

That - looked familiar. Cam blinked, taking the paper Clementine slid his way. Poisoned by turncoats. He glanced up, at that, then squinted back down at all the spidery cursive unwinding across the pages she was prepared to share with him. Straightening up, Cam dug his glasses out of his coat pocket, focused. Frowning, as he read. Too bad; he’d almost hoped this might make less sense. That it’d be easier to decide that Moira’s last, unexpected words to him had been the bitter, wild accusations of a vampire at the end of her unraveling immortal rope. Instead of the awfully real warning they seemed to be.

He’d almost hoped. But... whatever their differences, Cam couldn’t say he’d ever doubted Moira before. Not when it came to what the Underground meant to her. Their safety. Their future. Be nice if she was here, herself, to fight for it. They’d all lost a goddamn champion. And Clementine had lost a hell of a lot more. 

Refolding the letter, he sat back, sliding his glasses up and off as Clem spoke, so softly, and apologized. Again. The frown had sanded right off his brow, that worry stripped down to a worn-out smile. “You haven’t wasted anything, Clementine. I do understand. Enough, at least.” Being left a legacy, with all its debts and secrets - yeah, he’d hazard he understood a little of this. Not everything. But, yeah. Enough. “I’m sorry, too. For your mother. For how much things have changed on you, so fast. Far as I can see, you’re bearing up with grace.” A kind that’d make Moira proud, he’d think. To himself, though. Because - it was hard to gauge what the mother she’d never known, and her pride, meant to Clementine. 

I got out of bed today Swear to God, couldn't see my face I got out of bed today, staring at a ghost Who forgot to float away Didn't have all that much to say Wouldn't even tell me his own name And where'd my body go?

~

Leave it to Chloe to admit to herself that Connor is her best friend and wreck the friendship all in the same 48 hour period. Maybe that was over dramatic, and everyone was right. That Connor would see sense, and it would all be fine. But, Chloe’s heart ached, and not just over the debt. The longer that went on, the more she was convinced this was some permanent torment she’d endure. Not only the ache in her chest, but the hole Connor’s absence would leave behind. 

How many times had he saved her sorry ass? Be it from being bit by Karlha or just scaring off creeps at the bar, Connor had always been there for her. And, they had managed to implode after admitting that their little kinship ran much deeper than casual acquaintance. 

She does her best not to let it get under her skin, following Cam into the kitchen. The smell of the crockpot hits her nose instantly, and her stomach flips in hunger. She didn’t even realize she was hungry in the first place with all the other ailments surrounding her at the moment. Between the headache and the ache in her chest, Chloe was lucky she was still upright. She kept herself cool, though, waiting until Cam invited her towards the table, motioning towards the home of the first aid kit. 

That stopped Chloe long enough to check in with herself. Painkillers seldom worked to stamp out her headaches, she had given up on them long ago. Few things really numbed the dull ache that overtook her body after an intense vision like the one she had at Court. Still, out of manners alone, she figured she could try to at least lessen her symptoms with something. Even if she knew it would do little to help her supernatural headache.

“I don’t think anyone reads like Connor does,” Chloe jokes with a shake of her head, “But, I do read. I’ll take a look at what he’s collected.” He was always trying to get her to read something or other whenever she’d entertain book conversation long enough. “He’s always on about how much some book sucks or how great this other book is. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t need to read at all, just listen to him talk about what he’s reading and I’ve read it by osmosis alone.”

He’d had to laugh, quietly; the sound was a warm one, fond, thinking back to how Connor read. “Like it’s a sport, yeah? With a Major League and everything. He always was so put out that he never got to play much, you know...” She would, he’d bet. That was a thing Connor would grouse to a best friend about. The troubles of growing up werewolf. 

How Danny’d cried, frustrated to tears, about the same. Just wanting to play field hockey, or basketball, with the other girls. Swimming? The noise she’d made, at the idea. Cross country? That she’d just sniffed at, already wobbling towards a different kind of crying. And right into his arms. The Underground could give so much, but. Not a tournament’s worth of teenagers prepared to survive werewolf-wild roughhousing. It’d been so hard for them, to know their own strength. To sort out what feeling normal might mean, for them. Even here. 

And how much harder must it be, for Chloe? With how rare Oracles were, with their strengths? At least werewolves had a pack, people who'd been there, broken that, underestimated this, had to sweep up after... 

He’d misspoke, though, it seemed. Confused things. “Oh, no, these - these books, they’re not his. Sorry to say.” Round and round, in the ever-redder sink. Cam watched the dye leach, moving the wool in unhurried circles as it set. “Connor’s never been here, matter of fact. Not really.” Elbowing the faucet, he ran some cool water over the skeins. “Wasn’t missing much, even back then. Anyhow,” Cam stood straighter, half-turning, to be a little more conversational. One hand in the water, still, just keeping that yarn on the go, cooling evenly. “I’ll ask you to keep to the driveway, if you need a walk at all, and the main floor, while you’re inside. I’ve left a bedroom and the bathroom open, so you’ll find those easy - there’s blankets and things, you want more, just take them outta the den.” What else? “All the food’s in the pantry, and here. No need to go rooting around the cellar...” Hopefully that’d suffice, to keep her out of it. Ought to find a lock for the doors, but. Christ, all the things he ought to do, around this place. The list was only growing. 

Fourteen years gone by, he felt damn sure there’d be more of them. The mansion was just that sort of place. 

He’d just hope Clementine was seeing herself in gently. What a house, what a story, what a name, to inherit. And here he was, passing that neat scroll across the utterly spotless kitchen table - over place settings and coffee cups too bright and warm to have ever come out of Moira’s coolly elegant cabinets - throwing what felt like gasoline on the flash-fire that’d eaten up life as Clem knew it. Devlin’s letter had been unsettling enough for him to read. For Clementine? He couldn’t begin to guess. But he wouldn’t keep it from her, either. Not when those were her mother’s words, her mother’s accusations against the world Clem was fast revealing herself to, and her mother’s dire warnings for the future they all shared. Clementine Devlin should know. In case Moira’s past came around to haunt her. Well - when. 

“Take your time,” Cam insisted, softly, before sitting back, shifting that slung arm. The letter was in her hands, now. To keep, if she wanted; he’d made his copies, for Lili, for safekeeping. The original, with Moira’s wavering cursive cut into the paper - as sleek and expensive as all her things - could be Clementine’s. With how little she seemed to know of her mother, even a shred like this might have meaning to it. “If you wind up wondering anything, I’ll try to answer. If I can.” If. 

Almost. Almost everything. The rest - the hardest part, the closest-clutched, the truth that’d nearly cracked Connor’s mind past repair - would wait. Just a little longer. They would wind around it, first. No way to escape that, with what he’d put on the table. He’d watched Lili scan and slide through it all, the sight of her working-frown and the sound of rustling papers some strange sort of comfort. Nostalgic. Nice to find a little history that didn’t hurt, first and foremost. 

It’d been an honour, to set foot in the Archives at all. A privilege, to learn from them. And a pleasure, once he’d ironed out those over-keen hunter’s instincts, to do so alongside his mother in law. She’d never been less than that, to him. Or to Kenny. Lili was Ken’s mother, loved like that, trusted like that. Abe leaving hadn’t changed them the way it seemed to change Lili and Senior, Lili and Cathy. Sure as hell hadn’t made her less of a grandmother to those kids they’d both helped bring up. That, that’d been - everything. Honour, privilege, pleasure, purpose.

And they’d both lost it all, and he still owed her the truth of how. Cam shifted in that sling, his shot-up shoulder hardly a day out from being poked through by the good doctor. And feeling like it, that healing ache turned tar-thick, not-so-slowly seeping through those too-human painkillers Henry had insisted on. “Sorry about some of that chickenscratch,” he interrupted, quietly, with a wry, apologetic sort of smile. “Sonofabitch got me right in the penmanship. Pass anything you don’t wanna squint at, I’ll read it out, spare you the headache.” Whatever he could do, to get this not-so-little research project rolling. Fast.