Flora names the creatures that a hunter was made to bring to ground, and for each syllable she shapes he prays none of the named are around to hear. Their corner of the harbor was quieter than most - Kearn did not care to be tracked to his den like a fox - but like calls to like, and he's sure he hadn't been the only one to feel the strange current to the night's air.

So it is that his gaze is eating up the hazy block around him when she lifts the sword to her breast, and only the sudden gleam of the blade as it catches the sickly-yellow streetlamp has his chin jerking back.

He watches with an eyebrow arched as she finishes the cut, freeing the blood there (it is dark enough to be nearly black in the night, in this light), but his stomach is a cold fist. A bit dramatic, indeed, and better her own blood than either of theirs, but it all gives him the distinct feeling that they're letting something they shouldn't into their lives. A wild animal, or a lightning bolt, or a blade he hoped never pointed toward them. Kearn's life was made up of simple but delicate things: connections, secrets, things owed, things known.

Calliope, as she named herself, did not seem the type for discretion.

He nods to Florentine, continuing his silence as the girl offers her handkerchief. A corner of his mouth twists at her curtsy, but it could not quite be qualified as a smile; he is too edgy, now, for such an expression.

And it fades quickly when Calliope stands, his expression going darker, curious as a crow. It is not difficult, now, to see that mark that spreads like a tree's branches or roots, and he wonders how it was given to her, what it is, what it means. He loathes not knowing, and he licks his lips, parts them, perhaps to ask â€"

but he is shaken from his thoughts by Florentine's sharp exclamation. Once again, she was the one showing sense; this time when her gaze met his he tipped her a wink. That made him feel marginally more himself, anyway. "She's quite right. Murder, gambling, thievery, substance abuse - sure. But public indecency? Tsk.. They'd shut you away for a year." Not until his coat was back on her, looking strange on her slender, graceful figure, did he begin to lead them home, breathing a sigh of relief to have escaped unseen.

-

Relief washes over him like a cool hand as they cross the threshold into Xenia Manufacturing. The first floor of the old plant was empty, cool concrete patterned with cloudy blue from the light that crept through the western wall of square windowpanes. It smelled a little of dust, a little like the ghosts of old machines long since removed, but to Kearn it had been home for four years, now. His posture is easier as he moves up the metal staircase, feet sure and mostly silent on the grated steps, and up to the second floor.

It's late enough the moon is beginning to set, but it and the streetlights still make enough light to show the suggestions of furniture. There was a shabby couch, a thick rug recently lifted from a market stall, a table that carried a messy sheaf of papers, a few scattered pens, and a vase. The colors of the flowers were impossible to tell, but their scent was light and sweet, a welcome change from the air at the docks. He liked to steal them, for Flora - from time to time to even buy them. Next to the full-length windows sat a cot, the sheets made for once; there were walled-off spaces for bedrooms, but sometimes it was nice to sleep in the open, pretend you were under the stars.

"Welcome to the Bricks," he says softly, and crosses to a lamp next to the couch. Even its relative dimness was jarring, running out the moonlight, and it's a strange sight he turns back to.

Or maybe not that strange - there has always been a wildness to Flora, a sense of belonging to something other than this city or any other place with so much concrete, so much smoke, so much noise. Maybe he is a fool, to be ignorant of the things she dreamed.

Suddenly Kearn is more tired than the hour should make him, and when he collapses onto the couch he looks like little more than what he is: a nineteen-year-old boy with no business planning crime empires.

But then he tilts his head and his cheeks are hard planes, his fingers steepled in his lap, his eyes alight with nefarious potential. "Flora can show you the bathroom, and where to find clothes. Then it's time to talk."