Nicholas ran. His lungs burned and his eyes stung. There wasn't enough breath in his lungs, and still he ran. His father's words rang strong in his ears. The German words full of outrage and disappointment muffled the clatter of passing horses and carriages. No cries of alarmed passersby penetrated the thick blanket of shame and fear suffocating him. And he ran.

The world changed from simple to grand to mottled and run down. Streets of West End twisted away from him, and he looked for the Eye. He prayed unlike he had ever prayed since arriving in the bizarre world of Rhydin. He prayed he could find them, and get there in time.

It was after dinner. Normally Ali would go and hide in his study for a few hours—poring over some just-discovered old tome, taking notes on a new course of study, writing notes and letters for work. It had become, after his physical recovery, his time to go and bask in his aloneness. However, tonight was different. A restless urge drew him down to the third floor, where he gazed at the ropes for a long time before shaking out a mat and going to work. The forms were familiar; he drew comfort from the strain and welcome each pose asked of and gave to his body.

Veins stood out in his arms and neck, and his upper body was flushed with effort as he settled himself into the Vrschikasana, the Scorpion Pose. Nevertheless, his breathing was even and deep, and he was not yet sweating. He closed his eyes as his toes touched the top of his own head.

The eye beckoned to Nicholas. It taunted and scolded him, too. The great dark eye that seared into his soul and condemned him. He stumbled to a halt, gasping in cool air and nearly vomiting on the street. He could turn back. He could pretend he didn't know what he had done.

Idiot. He couldn't. His family had their own eyes on him, digging into his conscience and spurring him forward. Finally he came to the door, and he punched at the buzzer. He banged his hand against the door and punched the buzzer again.

Beside the mat, the intercom buzzed. Ali opened one eye and peered at it. It buzzed again. He sighed at that, and slowly unwound himself until he was forearms and shins flat on the floor, before reaching for it and thumbing it on. "Yes?" It was after hours in the WestEnd, and someone was interrupting his meditation. He was entitled to a moment's rudeness.

Nicholas gagged a moment, his words a jumble blocking his throat. "Sir." He managed and then sucked in more air. "Sir,—-" what should he say' He finally just managed, "It's Nicholas. Is Lirssa here?" Maybe— maybe she had gotten away and home"

He settled back onto his heels, his back achingly straight, and frowned at the intercom. "No. She left...about an hour ago. To meet you, was my understanding. Is something wrong?"

"Yes," he groaned, "please let me in. Or come down, or...we have to stop them."

The words rolled over Ali in a wave of fine hairs rippling to attention. "Stop...who." Each syllable was precise, razor-cut with Oxford and Cairo, and cold as the grave. Snatching up the intercom, Ali rocked back onto his heels and rose, limping toward the hall door.

Having no notion of a portable intercom, Nicholas imagined a doubtful man standing at a wall. He growled. "Please, sir. I'll—" he choked again, words coming out hoarse, "—I'll explain. Just let me in. I don't know where The Society will go now they have her."

The next step Ali took was into death. His will forced the way, and his fingers tore a hole in the Veil. Adrenaline cranked up his blood pressure, sending his skin stinging and his blood roaring in his ears. The next step was only partially into life, one bare foot out into the alley beside the Eye, behind a boy standing in front of Ali's own front door. He knotted his free hand into the boy's collar, and yanked him backward without a moment's warning into a long cold black tunnel that seemed to stretch for eternity.

In reality, it only led out into the library on the fourth floor. Ali dropped Nicholas, not caring whether he landed on his feet or his knees, and snarled at him, "Stay there." Then he turned and headed for the bedroom at a dead run, shouting Fionna's name.

What air Nicholas had was obliterated when he was pulled through, and only in his mind was he able to keep the prayer going. Und ob ich schon wanderte im finstern Tal, f"rchte ich kein Ungl"ck And when he found the world again, or it found him, he landed roughly, head cast against the wall, crumpled on a floor. And no, he dare not move.

((Adapted from live play with Ali al Amat with thanks))

Ali plunged out of the Nothing and into his living room, Nicholas" shirt knotted in his fist. Elsewhere in the house, he heard Dante's piteous whining, heard Fionna's saying crossly to the faerie hound, "I'll let you out in a minute. Hang on!" He dropped the boy, thrusting Nicholas toward the floor as if he had no more strength or agency than a rag doll. Dante's claws scrabbled on hardwood; the dog met him in the hallway as Ali ran toward the rear of the house, shouting Fionna's name.

She was in the nursery, attending to their son. He caught a flash of her red-brown hair as her head jerked up, a swirl of pale skin as she turned, Raza's scent as the baby drew breath. "In here," she said. "What is it?"

He skidded to a stop in the bedroom across the hall. "The boy," he panted as if he'd run miles, and yanked his shirt over his head and off. "Nicholas. He says someone's taken Lirssa." Not again. Not again. His nature was a vortex, a whirlwind drawing him inexorably into its dark heart as mingled Rage and bloodlust rose in his throat to choke him. Never again.

His control slipped, and his perception of the warm afternoon light in the bedroom changed with the Change in his eyes as his pupils elongated into slits. They fixed on the bedroom door for an instant before he left his pants behind on the way to the closet. Kill them. "Find out what he knows." The last word ended on a rippling growl that echoed through the empty spaces between them, as he fought with the need to rend, tear, shred. Hair that had been cropped close now tumbled down his back.

Fionna slapped the rail on the baby's crib into place and laid him in it, turning to dash down the hall toward the living room. "Nicholas!" she cried as she ran. "Nicholas, tell me"tell me everything!"

"They took her," he heard the boy respond, and, "I took her to them. The Society." The rest was lost as he tore through the closet looking for clothing, weapons, some purpose that was not kill them all.

Ali tugged on the combat fatigue pants he'd been looking for, jammed his feet into socks, into boots. He had to wrestle with the belt, with the laces; his fingers wouldn't obey, the claws that had burst from his fingers hampering him. He pulled the shirt over his head, shoved it into the waistband. He shrugged into the double shoulder holsters and fought with the buckles. Three knives. Four clips of spare ammunition. One thing at a time. He labored to breathe, to clear his head. His earlier meditation seemed a lifetime ago.

Dressed, he stalked out into the hall, into the nursery. Pulling a radio from his belt, he flipped a switch and snarled into it. "Treemma. We need you upstairs, now." Raza heard that note in his voice"the dissonance, the fury"and began to wail.

One thing at a time. A bag. A bottle, full of the milk Fionna had been warming. Deep breaths. He finished tying off the baby's diaper. Extra diapers in the bag. A change of clothing. His head swam. Towels and the drops she'd been using to clean him with. He wrapped Raza in a blanket and scooped the baby up. He, the boy, and the bag headed for the living room. Raza's furious choking sobs went with them.

"There are three or four of them. One is called Maudry. He took her to meet them at the park near his home"Little Bavaria," Fionna told Ali tersely above the sounds of her son's wails. "He doesn't know anything else, and he wasn't lying." She'd just begun to reach for Raza when the lift dinged and spilled Treemma into their home, the drow bristling with drawn weapons.

Ali crossed the room toward the drow, gold-green cat's eyes fixing on him. "Someone has taken Lirssa. Take Raza to the safehouse," he told Treemma, and held the bag out to him. "Assume you're under watch and being threatened. Warn her." Nissa. Nissa's house. She would watch over Raza. If his family was responsible, he was going to kill every one of them himself. "Get your guns," he said to Fionna. Whiskers tangled in his Change-grown hair as he looked over his shoulder at her.

"What about him?" She nodded toward Nicholas, who had tried to scuttle backward at the sight of the drow and now stood trembling and whimpering, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.

"He goes with us."

Treemma took the bag from Ali and reached for Raza without a single argument, then sent a slice of a wicked grimace toward Nicholas. "I can dispose of him on the way, if you'd prefer."

"No." Nicholas had taken Lirssa to them. Ali needed to know where to begin the search. The boy's life would last at least that long. "Stay with Raza." One of the lessons he'd learned well during Michael's reign was never to send everyone off on a chase while leaving the weakest unprotected.

"I will protect him with my life," the drow growled before he and the still-sobbing Raza disappeared back into the lift.

Fionna returned a moment later. She had changed out of the long dress she'd been wearing into a pair of low-slung cargo pants, boots and a dark knit shirt like those he used for yoga. In addition to the holster and ammo case she had belted on, she was stuffing some of the throwing darts Treemma had gifted to Lirssa as a birthday present into her pockets. Her hair still swung in a thick rope of a braid at her back.

Ali double-checked the action on the pair of .45s, ensured that a round was chambered in each. Then he focused on Nicholas, the guns in his hands. "Why." Why did you do this to us" How could you know her and do this to her"

Wiping sweat from his brow with the back of that damp sleeve, Nicholas coughed as if he were fending off an urge to vomit. "My family. They helped my family. I didn't know her, just...a kid. One kid so my family could have what they needed." The boy's eyes shifted sideways. Guilt and terror warred in his tone. "I...I wanted to stop, but they wouldn't let me." He sucked in a breath. "Please...I can take you to the park...that's all I know."

"Listen to me." Rage pounded gleefully in place of Ali's beating heart. Short sentences, small words. It helped him focus. "We are going to your house. You will take us to this park and show us the place where you gave her to them." His fingers trembled minutely. He had to focus. If he lost control now, once he was done Changing he would kill the boy outright and they'd lose their best chance for finding Lirssa.

"Yessir," Nicholas gulped, took a few uncertain steps towards the lift.

Fionna reached for his shoulder and stopped him. "You're just one kid," she whispered like a nightmare into his ears. "Think about that, the next time you see your mother."

"Hold him," Ali told Fionna, and tore a hole through the Veil separating between now and forever. She clutched the boy to her breast: the most tender of vises, stronger than any slender, delicate woman had a right to be. Nicholas clenched his eyes shut, his lips still moving. Ali caught his wife's arm, and pulled them all into death.

There was time for an endless scream down that long dark tunnel, but only a second passed before they were stepping out onto the picturesque street in front of Nicholas" home. In the small enclave of Little Bavaria the houses were well-kept half-timbered structures with empty flower boxes at each window, painted in the buttery yellow of lamps, candlelight, and lit fires past lawn curtains. Cobblestone streets wet from snowmelt reflected those lights.

Which way?" Fionna murmured into the boy's ear. She loosed her arm from around his chest, but kept a hand clamped on his shoulder.

"This way. It isn't far," the boy gasped, and nodded south toward the area where Little Bavaria melded with the rest of the city.

Ali spun out a moment's reconnaissance over the quiet evening street. Then he shot a sharp glance at Fionna. At once she urged the boy into a stumbling jog, visibly scenting the air around them as they ran. Ali fell in line behind them.

The park was a simple one: wedge shaped, with two high walls protecting from it the nearby houses and businesses, and a small frozen pond where people still were skating under the glow of lamps and moonlight. The gate at the front was iron. Nicholas stopped a few short feet from it. "There." He pointed into the park.

Ali reached the gate and pulled it open, his senses tingling with awareness in the chilly evening. Footprints marked the slush. The scents of strangers were loud as shouts in the cold air. Past the sound of the gate's high, thin whine, he told Fionna, "Keep him here. Thirty seconds." Then he ducked back into the shadow of the wall and walked through death once more"now that he knew where to meet them, he could return to their house for one last thing.

Those seconds ticked off, one after the other. Then he was back, dragging a panicky dog after himself. Dante shook himself several times from snout to tail. Catching sight of Nicholas, he snapped and snarled at the boy. They'd never tested the faerie hound's intelligence, but it wasn't the first time the dog had shown an awareness of a situation greater than any mere dog should have had.

"Dante." Ali dropped to one knee, soothed the hound. It kept him focused, kept his thoughts from circling around the violence his blood demanded, distracted him from his fury. "Find Lirssa." He let the leash out to its full length and rose.

The dog turned to a nearby patch of grass and snuffled at it, trailed his way slowly out into the street. A whimper and a shake later, Dante tugged at the leash. He'd found familiar scents: cardamom coffee, paint thinner, chalk, baby powder. Ali looked back at Fionna and Nicholas, then wound the leash around his left hand to keep his right free and gave the dog his head.

Nicholas stepped back, apparently believing his job was done, but Fionna's grip tightened on his shoulder. "Please let me go. I can't..." The boy clearly had no idea what was in store for him.

"Coward," Fionna murmured, dragging him forward after Ali and the dog despite his protest. Compelled to go along, Nicholas lapsed into a sulking silence.

Ali followed Dante, his eyes constantly casting up and down the street, from pavement level to rooftop. Dante circled an area near a sewer drain; searched one direction and then the other before being sure of his path down a left hand street. He whimpered at a corner two blocks from the last, again checking each direction before angling further into the New Haven area. They eventually drew to a stop before a simple house with a small fenced front garden. Beyond its gate the steps rose by four to reach a black door with a brass handle. There were three stories" worth of windows, with attic windows gabled above.

"Good dog," Ali breathed and fell silent for a moment while he thought. Beside him, Fionna held the still-sulky Nicholas and stared intently at the building. A simple home. A small front garden. Ali wanted to charge in, take her out and burn the place down. But there was no guarantee someone had not installed a Nexus gate within, or that someone in his family had not merely used it as a stepping stone to their compound. This wasn't that far from the Bubasti House. He didn't know what they were walking into. And they couldn't take Nicholas with them.

His eyes moved over the face of the house, as Dante whined and danced beside him. It gave away nothing of the happenings inside. No one looked out the windows, there were no visible signs of life save for a few dimly lit windows. "Guard him," he told Dante, and unclipped the leash. Dante took his duty perhaps too far. He pounced against Nicholas's chest, knocking the boy down, and sat on him. In any other situation, Ali might have laughed at the dog's eagerness. But not now.

"Five inside," Fionna said beside him, still staring with all of her concentration at the place. "Two are....something is happening. Very rapid." Heartbeats. She was counting heartbeats. His own seized for a breath. Her voice was tense with an edge that had not been there before. "There," she pointed toward the second floor row of windows. "Another there, nearby..." Her eyes ticked over the house. "One"no, two below ground."

"Can you tell whether any of them are hers?"

"It's hard to be that certain. But I think, maybe?" She pointed to the second floor. "It's so fast."

He decided. "I'm going up the side of the house," he told Fionna. "If anyone comes out, don't hesitate. If he tries to leave," a glance at Nicholas, before he repeated himself, "don't hesitate. If I am more than?" he judged the size of the house, ?"four minutes, come in through one of the ground floor windows. Knock him out before you come, tie him with the leash and leave Dante to guard him." The leash came back out of his pocket, was handed off to her.

He listened. No traffic sounds, no voices anywhere on the street. Everyone was shut in for the night, and the houses nearest this one were fully dark. There was a chance he might be seen'there was always a chance. Better to go up the side. Turning, he vaulted the fence. A moment later he was swarming free-handed up the side of the house, relying on his height and claws that sunk into wood and stone as if they were cloth to support him, as he headed for that second-floor window.

A glance back at the street showed no other people visible in the slice of it that he could see. It also showed him that Fionna wasn't waiting to tie Nicholas up, just as Dante hadn't waited to leap. Using positioning and expert knotting she immobilized him, making it look as though he'd gone for a walk with his dog, tired, and decided to rest against that fence for a little while.

Ali braced himself, claws hooked into the meat of the windowsill, and peered around the edge of it; but the room had shutters closed and heavy curtains drawn over the windows. Damnation. Working his way to the second window, he squinted in to see a hallway stretching away from him. The back of a man standing in a doorway was clearly visible through gauzy curtains.

Unhooking one hand, he supported his weight on his toes and the other hand as he tested the window to see whether it was locked. Locked it was, but the house was old; force and desperation wiggled it free with only some slight coaxing of pressure. He braced himself, his fingers shouting at him, and shoved it open. In the next instant he rolled inside.

(Adapted from live play with Fio Helston and Lirssa Sarengrave, with thanks.)

"Are you quite sure you want to stay?" Ali asked Lirssa thirty-five minutes later. He'd washed away the blood and broken glass, and changed into silk slacks. He knotted his tie into place, checked the straps on the holsters for the guns. He wasn't bothering with a jacket to hide the guns. He wanted them to be seen. Glimmering yellow-green eyes caught her reflection in the mirror of his and Fionna's bedroom, as he glanced her way. "I'm certain Nissa will be overjoyed to see you, "toile, but it was you who were trespassed against, and your voice would speak with greatest authority in this matter." He tightened the knot on the tie.

She looked"worn down. Fionna had spoken with her when they'd arrived home, and there were no striking physical marks. Her knees were a little bruised, but nothing really scarred the flesh. He could only imagine what she was feeling at that moment, though. He wanted, truly and sincerely, to simply murder the boy. "Yessir. I'm..." she rubbed at her chest and then closed her eyes as if summoning courage or inner reserves. His own heart ached when she opened them again and nodded at him. "Okay. If you think it best."

"I think it best that you be certain of your course of action, whatever that course may be," he replied carefully. He wanted to hug her. He wanted to go to her and wrap her up tight and never let her go. But he was as certain as he was currently abjuring her to be that if he did, he would lose the righteous and absolute fury still swimming in his veins and causing the fine tremors in his hands.

Lirssa let her fingers creep across the familiar walls, brushing skin against paint. "It would be easier to face it all now then wonder what was said or what happened. It would be better to know it as it is." She spoke with resolve and a more confident nod.

"Then come with us. What are the possibilities that Nicholas was telling the truth, that his parents were uninvolved" This, especially given his other lies?" Ali looked from one to the other, maintaining his control over himself. Difficult as it was, it was better than destroying the furniture and tearing the boy's head off for what he'd done. He could still feel Nicholas' cheekbone laid livid across the back of his hand. It felt inadequate.

Fionna wore the sort of dress she might don to go to dinner with the other family, meeting them for the first time. Her hair was smoothly plaited, and she was just putting the finishing swipe of lipstick on her lower lip. Tucking the lipstick and a gun into the little handbag dangling from her arm, she snapped it shut and nodded at Lirssa's response. "If his mother is any kind of a woman, I cannot believe she would knowingly let him sell our daughter to those people. But I never would have suspected that he would do such a thing, either," she added grimly. Lirssa flinched and rubbed harder at her chest. "He might be telling the truth on that. The Grants seemed to still worry about money at times. If they knew, I don't think they would have so much." She looked to both of them with their thoughts on that.

"That they wouldn't have worried so much?" he asked her.

"Yeah. I mean, they knew they'd be getting some money, right' Takes a lot of practice to keep up a show like that. Most adults don't have a good enough imagination to pretend anymore, not like kids. So, they wouldn't have worried about money so much."

Fionna rolled her lips one last time and plucked a tissue from the counter box to blot it. "There is only one way to be certain."

His focus skipped to Fionna. A black brow climbed his forehead. "And that is?"

"Talk to them."

He shrugged, a roll of his shoulders that shifted the guns in their holsters. "We shall see. When you both are ready," he said, and turning away from the mirror, passed out into the hallway, headed for the boy and his watchman.

Nicholas sat where they had set him those thirty-five minutes before, just at the entryway under the baleful eye of one greyhound and the more disturbing and almost more threatening eyes of a cat who was taking particular pleasure in flexing her paws to reveal the claws. At Ali's return, Siva stretched to stand and twitched her tail in her turn away from the large prey. "Truly you are mighty in this house and in Bast's sight," Ali rumbled to the cat in Kheuar, "and long shall they sing your praises under the light of the waxing moon." His fingers smoothed over the fairy hound's long narrow head. He met Nicholas' gaze. "We are taking you home. Do not look at Lirssa. Do not speak to Lirssa. Do not speak at all unless you are spoken to. If I find that you are telling lies to your parents about your involvement in what happened to my daughter, or attempting to signal them, it will go very badly for both you and them. Do you understand me?" His voice was cold and crisp as a cemetery in October.

The boy ducked his head, accepting the instruction with a nod and a mumbled, "Ja"yes." He kept his eyes down as he climbed to his feet.

Ali looked over his own shoulder down the hallway, clamped a hand on Nicholas" shoulder; then, trusting that they were following after, and unwilling to subject Lirssa to any more of the boy's presence than absolutely necessary, he led Nicholas to the stair and down to the carriage still waiting outside. He set the boy into the carriage just as Fionna's heels click-clicked on the sidewalk outside it, and moments later they were on their way.

The carriage rattled off to the house in Little Bavaria, giving them a fine view of the less savory elements of the WestEnd before giving way to New Haven and the kinder, gentler vistas of the city north of the river. The sound of their arrival was met with a door jerked open at the Grants" house, spilling its light out around two figures.

Ali read tension in their shoulders, worry in faces distorted by half shadows. As soon as the carriage drew to a stop, he threw the door open and called"quietly due to the late hour?"Herr Grants, Frau Grants." And he stepped down out of the carriage, helping Nicholas along the steps with a hand on his arm. Lirssa stepped down behind him. Fionna brought up the rear, navigating the steps carefully in her skirt and heels.

"Oh, Nicholas," breathed out Helena Grants, one hand going to her throat and the other reaching out to him with a washcloth untwisting from her fingers. "Wo bist du gewesen?" Her tone hovering between worry and chastising as she questioned her son where he had been.

Georg Grants, however, stood as a tired and beaten wood carving. When he spoke, his accent was thick. "Hallo, sir. You are Lirssa's father, ja?" When he sighted Fionna, he added, "And mother."

"Indeed. If we might go in with you? There are things we very urgently must discuss." Ali kept his hand on the boy's arm, rather than relinquishing him into their keeping. His free hand gestured toward the rectangle of light awaiting.

"Georg?" Helena looked to her husband. She was obviously confused at her husband's manner as well as those of the visitors. "Go inside," Georg murmured to her, a pat to her wiry shoulder. When he turned back his thick, callused hand gestured them inside. "Ja, there is, as you say, much we must discuss. Come in, bitte." He stepped aside to let them in.

The small, low-ceilinged room held a narrow table, well-constructed; four chairs and a high chair clustered about it. Just beyond sat two tired wingback chairs around a fireplace and a nearby old iron stove. A narrow stairway in the back left of the room led to the three rooms upstairs. Handmade toys clustered in a corner, mostly carved wooden items. It was the home of a working man and his family. Their lives were visible in unfinished sewing in a basket, pots set aside to dry near a pump sink, brooms of yew and thatch resting by a closed pantry door. But for all that, the room was light, bright, and clean. Ali eased Nicholas in past his parents, through the door and over to that narrow table. He pulled out one of the chairs at the table for him and waited. Nicholas took the seat and kept his eyes downcast. When Lirssa passed by Herr Grants, she glanced up at him only for an instant before shuffling inside to stand next to the nearest wall. In contrast, Fionna did not look aside from the man as she stepped into their house. Her gaze held so that she had to turn her head to maintain it after she passed him, came to rest beside Lirssa long the wall. She did not say a word.

The weight of Fionna's gaze slumped the man's shoulders a little more. Georg closed the door to seal out the world before pulling out a seat for Helena and standing behind her. After looking closely at Nicholas his gaze lifted to Ali, and for all his apparent exhaustion and shame did not turn or cower from the green eyes. "I am sorry for what my son has done, but I am glad to see no harm has come to Lirssa."

Confirmation. Ali faced the man across the table, poised as he was behind Nicholas' seat. "Explain." That was all.

"And just what is it you wish me to explain?" Incredulous, Georg's face grew red up from his throat. "I know little more, I think, than you. Nicholas comes to me, tells me the money he earns not all from running errands. Tells me he made mistake. Mistake." Georg scoffed through a scowl. "He does it for family, but never"never one trades life for money." The last aimed sharply at Nicholas, who dropped his head onto the table, his shoulders shaking. "But what you want me to explain?" The anger had stripped his language of its fluency, and he took a deep breath.

"When did he come to you? And did he tell you of the nature of his 'mistake'?" Ali's hands were on the back of the chair, flexing and relaxing.

From Helena's expression, it was clear she understood only parts of the conversation; her frown was perplexed and frightened. Georg drew breath and answered more slowly, clearly attempting to preserve some shred of his dignity. "This afternoon. He said he had bargained a trade for Lirssa for a sum of money. I did not learn more; it was more important that he get to you." His eyes went to Fionna. "It was important to stop before it went too far."

Her gaze dropped from Georg Grants to fall heavily upon the bowed head of his son, then back. She considered what she heard beyond his words, and glanced toward Ali with a small, tight nod. Not lying, that nod meant.

"And you did not call the Watch," Ali continued, "or choose any other method to inform us that our daughter had been taken"beyond sending your son, who had himself been the one to sell her."

Georg shook his head. "The Watch. No, I did not. These people, to buy a child" What would they do if they saw the Watch coming" I have no other way to tell you of it." He looked around his house as if searching for some other method Ali saw that he could not. "My boy runs fast. He knew his fault, he knew it when he spoke to me. It was his to make right."

"And what do you intend to do now?"

Georg rubbed his hands together like a man straining to keep back a flood inside. "Has Nicholas made things right with you? Then we go on. We live on, and he must live with what he has done, as we all have. But what would you have me do' He is my son." As Nicholas lifted his head and looked at his parents for the first time, Lirssa looked up to Fionna, frowning in silent question before shifting closer. Fionna wrapped an arm around her shoulder, gave it a squeeze of reassurance. And her gaze finally strayed back to Frau Grants. Mother to mother, a hard look. "Did you know?"

Helena's breath was unsteady. "I did not know. I heard things, but did not know what Nicholas was doing. He brought money home. He said he got a raise. This world, people pay large amounts times for simple things, ja" As if they are made of coin. I did not think it was so...my son!" Her hands balled up into fists at her temples.

"You have daughters, yes?"

"Ja, three." The woman glanced upward as if looking at those daughters; then she focused on Lirssa, her face full of disillusionment, eyes reddening with unshed tears.

"Your son told me tonight that he told himself that Lirssa was 'just another kid.'" Fionna was none too gentle. "I hope no one ever looks at your daughters like that."

Nicholas cringed as he heard his words spoken out loud to his parents, but made no denials. His tears started again, and Helena's jaw clenched as she watched her son weep. "No, not my Nicholas. Not my boy. Just another child" Just another" No." But at each refusing shake of her head, it was clear she knew.

Ali had, all this time, been standing behind Nicholas' chair with his hands wrapped round the top rail. Georg said what he said, a flat denial of reparations of any sort. Helena and Fionna exchanged words. Lirssa looked at her mother. And the whole time, his fingers tightened on the wood, which creaked alarmingly. When Helena gave her weak denials and Nicholas began to cry, as if he had the bloody right, Lirssa's father went up in a blaze of absolute fury.

"You tell me something," he spat at both of them. "Your miserable arse-pimple of a brat gained our daughter's trust for the express purpose of selling her to people who fully intended to cut her apart until they found out what they wanted to know. And you took the money, and did not investigate, and when he came to you and told you at last what he'd done, you did nothing." He wanted to pick up the chair with Nicholas in it and throw it at them. "And you dare to tell us that he was somehow not responsible, and that there is nothing you could have done to prevent it or warn us, and that this"this sulky little f**k'should not be punished" That you should not be punished" Tell me why we should not press charges against the lot of you for slavery without a license, for kidnapping, for assault and battery, for complicity in the attempt to murder my daughter!" His voice rose up into a shout.

Georg's expression changed, a flash of fire, of temper. "I sent him to you when I found out. To you, who know better what this place is and how it works. What would you have done if the roles were reversed?" Helena's hand reached for his, relaxing the fist he'd made.

"I would have called the Watch, I would have called upon you myself instead of leaving it to the person responsible for his abduction, and I would have moved heaven and earth to get your child back!"

Georg scoffed and shook his head. "Of course, you pretentious prig of a man, you with your fine home and all your fine things. Your guns," he gestured to the holstered arms, "and skills to use them, no doubt. You'd have me do what? Take an awl to threaten such people" You want me to condemn my family to starvation' Would you do that to your family?" Helena spoke up. "What do you want' Apologies are not enough, we have no money to give you, want our home, or children's lives" Our lives?"

"We want you to be sorry!" Fionna burst out. "We want you to take responsibility for what you all did! You would have left us to bury our daughter!"

As Georg watched him mistrustfully, splotches of red standing in the man's cheeks, Helena nodded. "We are sorry. We are ill with?" she was obviously hunting for the translated word "'regrets for this." She looked to Lirssa. "We are sorry."

Somehow, Ali managed to master his temper long enough to respond. "Apologies tendered when you're frightened into them aren't enough. I do want your son's life. For the next year, he belongs to me." He picked the chair up a few inches, then dropped it. Bang! And shot a look at Fionna.

He got the reaction he wanted. At last, they were paying attention to him: the parents were wide-eyed, Helena's hand inching to her throat again, and Nicholas was stone still, not a whimper or a gasp.

"Papa?" Lirssa whispered, confused. She hadn't been privy to his and Fionna's conversation in the shower. Her eyes shifted to her mother.

Fionna gave a small grim nod, her lips thin and her expression hard as she looked between the Grants. Her fingers on Lirssa's shoulder tightened. "My husband has contacts with both the Watch, and with some of the hospitals and clinics in the city." Her eyes cut between them. "We know that you need his income, and we would not sentence your other children," a subtle stress there, "to empty bellies.

"So this is what Nicholas will do." Her tone brooked no argument. "Ali will arrange for him to work half of his week with the Watch, assisting them with clerical tasks or whatever other assistance they think he can reasonably provide, while they work on missing persons cases. There, he will see the grief of families who have lost their own. He will watch the officers when they tell mothers that their child has been found dead at the hands of another. He will listen to every shriek and wail in this city." And oh, her voice was tight, quavered with anger that she did not show. "The other three days will be spent working in the trauma unit at whatever hospital or clinic we can find that will take him to do it. And he will see every horror inflicted by men upon others, and he will think about what might have been done to Lirssa.

"He will be paid for his work. And he will learn to be useful. And perhaps, if you are very, very fortunate, he will learn at their hands what he did not learn at yours: how to be a decent human being. If his work is not satisfactory, then we will press charges against the three of you. If he makes it through the year without incident, perhaps he will have other options available to him with the Watch or the clinics, and will not have to deliver letters for the rest of his life."

Lirssa sat taut as a wire beneath Fionna's touch, one hand drifting to rub at her twitching thigh. Georg flushed red at the accusation, but he did not argue the point. The defeat had taken over him and he nodded. "He will do so." Nicholas looked around to listen intently with red eyes on Fionna, nodding once and sitting up straighter.

"See that he does," Ali said icily, and finally stepped back from Nicholas' chair. "Have him report to the nearest precinct house tomorrow, when his schooling is over for the day. If you have questions, I trust you will contact me directly. He is not to contact my house. He is not to come anywhere near my daughter ever again. Is that clear?"

"Ja, yes, that I can promise you. He will never have contact with your home, your family, or your daughter ever again." His eyes went to Nicholas, warning to his son in a low, crisp tone.

When Lirssa finally spoke, her fingers already reaching behind Fionna to the door, the words were soft and directed to the parents. "I can forgive...someday, but I can't ever forget. Not ever. I'm sorry." She turned for the door.

(Adapted from live play with Fio Helston and Lirssa Sarengrave, with thanks.)