The Man in the Hat Comes Back
"So, you need my help, huh?" Roman Torchwick asked, and it was clear from the tone of his voice and the – incredibly smug – look on his face that he wasn't even pretending not to be enjoying this.
"Unfortunately," Sunset growled. They were still at Beacon, since it was probably both the most secure and the most secret – in the sense that there was hardly anybody there and those who were there were loyal to Professor Goodwitch and the turns-out-not-so-late Professor Ozpin's memory – place that they could go until they got their route out of Vale sorted out. Presently they – and by they Sunset meant everybody, their whole extended, one might say bloated, party; she understood that they had to make this look real for Cardin's superiors, but she didn't quite get why that meant they had to take the Bluebells with them, for example. There were far too many people coming on this 'secret' mission for Sunset's liking, and the fact that Cardin couldn't, or said he couldn't, justify leaving them behind while taking Torchwick didn't make Sunset any happier about it – were in the auditorium; Torchwick had, of course, taken the opportunity to get up onto the stage like he was some kind of movie star about to get an award.
Thinking about it like that was easier – and better for her temper – than thinking about him standing up there like he was Professor Ozpin or something.
"Can you help us or not?" Cardin demanded from his seat directly in front of the stage.
"Of course he can help," Cinder murmured. She got up from where she had been sitting next to Sunset, just to the right of the auditorium stage, and walked towards it. "The question is whether he will, isn't that right, Roman?"
Torchwick smirked. "You see? She gets it. You're lucky to have her to make this conversation go quicker. Can I do it? Sure, of course I can do it, who do you think you're talking to. Will I do it? Well, that depends on what you're offering, doesn't it?"
"The Kingdom of Vale has already made a deal with you, Torchwick," Cardin said.
Torchwick raised his – manacled – hands, one finger in the air. "Technically the Kingdom of Vale made a deal with me to fight in Vale, they didn't say nothing about a long trek to Anima."
"Hey, he's got a point," Jack said from the back. "Hey, boss, can we stand on our contract and refuse to do this?"
"No," Sunset shouted over her shoulder.
Cinder chuckled. "What's that expression, Jack? Join the army and the see the world?"
"But I don't want to see the world," Jack said.
"Too bad," Cardin snapped. "And as for you," he added, returning his attention to Torchwick. "Your deal didn't say anything about you only being sent to fight in Vale, only that you fight for Vale until Vale says you’re done."
"Is that right? Teach me to read the fine print, I guess," Torchwick said. "Except no it doesn't, because you need my help so how about we skip to the part where you kids admit I've got you over a barrel and we talk business like reasonable adults." He glanced at Taiyang, sitting off to one side with Ruby (and Zwei). "Hey, Pops, you get it, right? Why don't you explain to the orphans here how the world works?"
"What do you want, Torchwick?" Ruby demanded.
"And little Red speaks," Torchwick declared. His expression softened, if only for a moment. "Hey, Kid, I heard about your sister biting it in that battle. That's rough, I'm sorry."
Taiyang got to his feet. "Don't talk about my daughter. Don't talk to my daughter for that matter."
Roman Torchwick probably would have looked a little intimidated if he'd seen what Taiyang had almost done Tyrian, or that was what Sunset thought at least. But he hadn't, so he wasn't; he just looked at Taiyang with a dispassionate eye. He was about to say something, and knowing him it wouldn’t be something friendly, but Ruby spoke before he could. Her voice emerged soft and tired and sad. “It’s okay, Dad. This guy isn’t someone you need to protect me from.”
“You see?” Torchwick said. “Red and me, we go way back. That’s why she knows I mean it, don’t you Red?”
Ruby didn’t answer. She just sighed. “What do you want?” she repeated.
“What do I want?” Torchwick asked as though the question were rhetorical. “I want out,” he said. “I’ll help you get to Anima but once we get there we’re done, me and Neo. Which is the second thing I want, she’s coming with us.”
“No way,” Cardin said. “Your partner is staying right here, and she’ll be waiting for you when you get back from our mission.”
Torchwick snorted. “Is that right? Then good luck finding another way to Mistral.”
Cinder climbed up onto the auditorium stage beside him. “Why don’t you tell us what you really want, Roman?”
Torchwick blinked. “I thought I just did.”
“You don’t want to be set free in Anima,” Cinder said.
“Don’t I? And what makes you think you know what I want?” Torchwick asked. “Do you even know what you want?”
Cinder didn’t suffer that with a reply. “You were free once before. After Mountain Glenn you could have gone anywhere you wanted. But instead you came right back to Vale, right back to playing gangster, right back to playing the same old games with the cops and waiting for them to catch up with you. Waiting to end up in the cell that Cardin dragged you out of. We both know that you can’t keep away from this city or this life, so why pretend that you’d make a new life in Anima when you couldn’t make one in Sanus?”
Torchwick held her gaze, for a few moments at least, but as she bore down upon him, pressing close against him, he was forced to look away from her smouldering gaze. He took a step back and away from her, as skittish around her as he had been – Sunset guessed – when she still possessed the powers of the Fall Maiden.
“Maybe you’re right,” Torchwick admitted. “Maybe the bright lights of the big city will call me home again. Maybe I can’t stay away. But you know what I know for sure? You need me right now.” He grinned. “And the reason I know that is that I know how much it must be killing you to ask for my help again, all three of you.” He pointed at Sunset, Cinder and then last of all at Ruby. “I know what you think of me, I know that if you had other options you’d have used them by now. Which means that you need me, which means that you don’t get to judge my choices; this isn’t a negotiation, this is me naming my price: Neo comes with us, and when we get to Anima you let us both go. Take it or leave it.”
“You weren’t this bold last time we asked for your help,” Sunset grumbled.
“You might have noticed a distinct lack of Atlesian soldiers and airships this time around,” Torchwick said.
He’s not wrong. Also a distinct lack of CCT. And a distinct lack of Professor Ozpin. And a distinct lack of Pyrrha and…and a distinct lack of everything else that we had going for us the last time we trusted you to lead us into the serpent’s den.
Sunset glanced at Cinder. At least you’re on my side this time around.
She leaned forwards, resting her elbows on her knees. “Freedom for you and Neo once we cross the ocean. That’s it?”
“That’s it,” Torchwick said. “I’m not unreasonable, after all.”
“Done,” Sunset said.
“What?” Cardin said.
Sunset leaned across the bench to whisper into his ear. “He’s got a point: we don’t have many other choices but to pay him off.”
“We can’t just let him walk free,” Cardin hissed.
“It’s not like we’re letting him go in the city,” Sunset said. “He’ll be Mistral’s problem.”
Cardin drew back a couple of inches to look at her.
“Okay, that sounded more heartless than it should have,” Sunset said. “I meant…he’ll be one more petty criminal in a country that is crawling with them already if its reputation is accurate.” Admittedly she hadn’t seen any evidence of Mistral’s infamous underworld when she was there last, but then she wouldn’t have expected the darkness of the city’s seedy underbelly to have spread so far that it could touch the rarefied heights on which the ancient and noble House of Nikos dwelt; it didn’t mean that said reputation was completely undeserved. Most likely he would either fall in with some local gang – one more thug amongst many – or they would eat him alive for trying to muscle in on their territory. Either way, it wasn’t as though she was unleashing any great evil on the world; certainly she wasn’t placing it at the kind of risk that world might by in if they failed to find Professor Ozpin, failed to understand how to defeat these new and more powerful grimm, failed to take the road to Anima that Torchwick alone could show them.
What happened to no sacrifices?
I’m not sacrificing anyone.
Except for his victims.
I don’t know he’s going to have any victims.
You know what he is.
Did she? Sunset looked at him. He didn’t look like a monster. Whether that was a simple case of deceptive appearances or not…
“If it makes you feel any better,” Sunset said as softly as she could because she did not want to be overheard by Torchwick right now. “We don’t need to behave honourably towards him. Give him your word, it means nothing given to a man like him.”
Promise him freedom, promise him Neo, promise him a fragment of the moon if it would get him to do what they wanted and then, when they got to Anima they could snap their fingers at their bargain and…well, it would be hard to control him after that but it would be an alternative to simply letting him wander free to do mischief.
Princess Celestia wouldn’t approve but…who knows? It’s a long way to Anima, maybe we’ll make a friend of him by the time we get there and none of this will come up.
Although that doesn’t – and shouldn’t – make me feel better about planning to betray him. I never planned to betray Cinder.
I could see the good in Cinder more clearly than I can see it in this guy.
But that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t try and bring it out.
Sunset glanced at Torchwick. She had an idea from the look in his eye that he had, if not overheard them, then at least gathered a pretty good idea of what they were talking about. No matter, even if he was smart enough to work out or consider the possibility that Sunset and Cardin planned to betray them he couldn’t do anything about it. He was in the same boat that they were: he was going to get a better offer than this.
To confirm that Sunset’s glance flickered form Torchwick to Cinder, who nodded to show that she concurred with Sunset’s assessment of this.
Sunset rose to her feet. “Done,” she repeated. “We accept your terms.”
Torchwick chuckled. “I knew that you were the one really in charge,” he said.
“If you wanted to be allowed to run your mouth you should have asked for that before we made a deal,” Sunset said. “Now, how are we getting to Anima?”
“First I have to pay a visit to an old pal of mine,” Torchwick said. “Actually he’s more of an acquaintance. Actually he said he’d kill me if he ever saw me again but don’t worry, I’m sure that me and Cinder here will get everything straightened out and make the arrangements just fine.”
“You…and Cinder?” Sunset repeated.
“You’re not going to trust me to go by myself, are you?” Torchwick said. “And Cinder fits in the kind of places we’re going a lot better than any of the rest of you.”
“Me and you?” Cinder said.
“Sure,” Torchwick said. “It’ll be just like old times.”
Cinder rolled her eyes. “If we must.”
“I love how you’re not even pretending to check with our glorious leader first,” Torchwick said.
“What did I say about running your mouth?” Sunset said.
“Nothing that I paid any attention to,” Torchwick said.
“Don’t get any ideas,” Sunset said. “Cinder, a word?” She turned away from Torchwick as Cinder leapt down off the stage and came to stand beside her. “Are you going to be okay?”
Cinder looked somewhere between amused and affronted. “You think that I can’t handle Roman Torchwick?”
“You don’t know where he’s leading you,” Sunset said. “It could be a trap.”
“If it is he’ll regret it,” Cinder said. “I may not be the Fall Maiden any more but I am still Cinder Fall.” She was silent for a moment. “I’ll always be Cinder Fall, after what I’ve done.”
“You changed your name before,” Sunset said. “There’s no reason you couldn’t do it again.”
“Children can start afresh, you know as well as I do that’s not so easy for us,” Cinder said. “The caterpillar only gets to become a butterfly once, afterwards it has to live with the dirt it accrues on its wings.” She smiled. “Besides, the name Cinder Fall can still be useful; it commands a certain…respect. Don’t worry about me; I could handle a dozen Roman Torchwicks with one eye closed.” She turned to face Roman himself once again. “So,” she said. “Lead the way.”
Ruby glanced up as the door opened and Cardin walked back in, with Neo walking in front of him with a step so light that it was almost a skip. She was wearing a smile on her face, and she kept it there as she hopped up onto the edge of the stage and sat there with her legs dangling from it, kicking up and down as she waited for Torchwick to return.
Ruby wished she'd stop. She didn't say or do anything to make her stop but she wished that the other girl would stop all the same. It wasn't her fault but at the same time it didn't seem right for her to be so happy in this place.
This place where Ruby had been happy once, but now…now she just wanted to get out of here; out of this room, out of this building, out of Beacon. It had too many memories for her now and they were memories…they were memories that she didn't want to forget but that didn't mean that they wanted to be reminded of them either.
Just looking up at that stage she could, if she looked long enough, see Yang up there instead of Neo, sparring with Weiss or Pyrrha while Professor Goodwitch watched them with a keen eye that nothing could slip past. In her mind's eye she could see them all sat on the bleachers, watching one spectacular fight after another, watching Jaune grow before their eyes. They had been such good days, such happy days and yet now when Ruby thought of she was filled only with a kind of empty sadness that wouldn't go away like a stubborn morning mist over the land.
I didn't appreciate my sister when I had her. I let us grow apart and now she's gone.
Now it's all gone.
Ruby glanced at her father, who was sat beside her as silently as she herself; he looked thoughtful, and a little pained. Was that how she looked? Was Dad seeing his ghosts, of Mom and Raven, the same way she was?
I wish that we could help each other. But how can we help each other when we can't help ourselves?
Ruby was recalled to herself by the sound of footsteps approaching her. Sunset. Her only friend in the room had a tendency to stomp, especially when she wasn't in the best mood. Pyrrha you could rarely hear coming in spite of her armour, Jaune had been getting more light on his feet but then had decided to go the heavily armoured tank route instead and Sunset…if you heard Sunset coming it told you that things were less than perfect.
Not that Ruby needed to listen to Sunset's feet to tell her that.
Sunset loomed over Ruby, momentarily blocking out the light that had been shining on her face. "Mind if I join you?"
"No," Ruby said, looking away from her.
Zwei hopped up into Ruby's lap, clearing the space on the bench beside Ruby – and on the other side of Taiyang – for Sunset to sit down upon it. She spread out her legs and clasped her hands together between her knees. "How are you holding up?"
"I'm fine," Ruby said softly.
Sunset was quiet for a moment. "You don't have to pretend with me. I know this can't be easy for you."
"What makes you think that?"
"Because it isn't easy for me," Sunset said. "And I haven't…suffered, like you."
Ruby closed her eyes. "I see her," she admitted. "On the stage and…and on the way here."
"I thought you might," Sunset murmured.
"Places like these bring back memories," Taiyang said, his voice hoarse. "But sometimes…sometimes the last thing you want to do is remember."
"Listen," Sunset said. "I know that this situation is…far from ideal. I know that this isn't the company that you would like to keep; believe me it isn't the company that I would like you to keep. And I know that I can't do or say anything to make this better although I wish I could, but…you can tell me anything you want or nothing at all, but whatever you say…I'm listening. You don't have to carry this all by yourself.
Ruby opened her eyes. "I'm glad your back," she said softly. "Do you trust them?"
"Who?"
"Everyone," Ruby said. "Torchwick, Cinder, Cardin, Emerald, Team Bluebell…those guys."
"I trust Cinder," Sunset said confidently. "And I trust Cardin too, though I'd rather have Cinder beside me in a fight."
"You trust Cinder more than Cardin?" Ruby asked.
"She's changed," Sunset said. "She's not the same girl who attacked the CCT. She's become…"
"What you always thought she would?" Ruby suggested.
"More hoped than thought," Sunset said. "But yes. I suppose it isn't easy for you to trust her…and I'm not sure that I have the right to ask you to trust me any more, but if you watch her you'll see that she won't let us down. We're lucky to have her on our side."
"Because she's the only one you trust," Ruby said. "Apart from Cardin."
"And Cardin is a special case," Sunset said. "Yes, Cinder is the only one I can rely on. Well, I trust Torchwick not to betray us at this point because I don't think it's in his interests yet; but do I trust him not to betray us at any point in the future? No."
"And the rest?" Ruby asked.
"Jack is just Torchwick without the wit, Sami is a brute, Emerald is..Emerald," Sunset said. "And is there any way for me to explain why I don't trust the Bluebells without seeming like a screaming hypocrite?"
"Probably not," Ruby said. "But I get it. Do we have to take them all with us?"
"Unfortunately, according to Cardin," Sunset said. "Don't worry, I don't plan to let them near Ozpin."
"They're there to help you get Professor Lionheart, right?" Ruby said.
Sunset nodded. "That's right."
"And once you get him, and the time to take him back to Vale comes, what are you going to do?" Ruby asked. Are you going to stay with us, or are you going to drop me and Professor Ozpin off with Pyrrha and Jaune and then go back to Vale with Cinder and all these people you don't trust?
Sunset blinked in surprised. "I…I hadn't really thought about it," she admitted. "And, to be honest Ruby, I'm not certain that I want to."
“I’ve got to say, I was surprised that they let you come out with me on your own like this,” Torchwick said as the two of them made their way down the street towards the location at which, according to Torchwick himself, they would meet with his contact who could get them out of the city.
They were in a seedy part of town – which Cinder wasn’t surprised by – but also a largely deserted one. They were down by the river wharfs, which might have been a hub of commerce for Vale back in the day or which might have been a triumph of hope – the hope that the kingdom would expand up-river and develop a thriving riverside hinterland of towns and villages trading with the city – over the reality of the grimm. Mostly what lay upriver was the Forever Fall forest, and the railroads had almost killed off what river traffic there had been before the iron rails were laid. As a result the street down which they walked was empty, and the buildings between which they passed looked like they were falling apart. Cinder was a little surprised the wharfs were still there at all; someone must be using them, but who?
People like Torchwick’s associate, I suppose.
Cinder snorted. “Surprised? Why?”
“I’m surprised they trust you enough to let you out unsupervised,” Torchwick explained. “I’m surprised they’re right to trust you out of their sight.”
“You’re surprised that I can work with Sunset?” Cinder said.
“Last time I saw you you wanted them all dead,” Torchwick said.
“The last time you saw me was a very long time ago,” Cinder replied. “A lot has changed since then, and so have I.”
Torchwick smirked. “You’ve gone soft, you mean.”
“No,” Cinder said flatly. “That’s not what I mean.”
The smug look didn’t leave Torchwick’s face. “It might be what you meant but that doesn’t mean that it’s what happened. The Cinder I knew would never have been content to be anyone’s errand girl.”
“You don’t know me,” Cinder said. “You never did. And I am nobody’s errand girl.”
“I knew you well enough to know that that would set you off,” Torchwick said, to which Cinder could only roll her eyes. “So what changed? How did the monster who wanted to burn the whole world down and rule the ashes end up taking orders from the likes little Red and her do-gooder friends.”
Cinder chuckled. “You’re probably the last person in the world who would describe Sunset as a do-gooder,” she said. “Evidently you haven’t been keeping up with the news.”
“No, I heard,” Torchwick said. “Kid made the right call and got crucified for it. I could have told her that trying to be the hero is pointless; sooner or later you slip up and then nobody remembers all the good stuff you did beforehand.”
“Because you would know so much about trying to be a hero.”
“I know that we’ve only got one life,” Torchwick said. “And we ought to make the most of it instead of wasting it on other people who’ll never be grateful for it.”
“Oh, please,” Cinder said. “Roman, we’re all alone here so there’s no need to pretend. You’re not some lone wolf who only cares about himself; you care about somebody, you always have, or else you would have left Neo behind in jail instead of making her the price of your cooperation. You understand as well as I do that there are things more important than power or success, things that are worth sacrificing for; so why pretend?”
Torchwick was quiet for a moment. “Because the less people think I care about her, the less likely they are to try and hurt her to get to me.”
Cinder shook her head. “An observant person only needs to see the two of you together for a little while to see it. I noticed it immediately. That was always my plan if you tried to betray me: to use Neo to remind you where your loyalties lay.”
“I thought as much,” Torchwick muttered. “That’s why I kept her close.”
“As for the rest of your enemies,” Cinder said. “She can take care of herself.”
“Why do you think I taught her how to fight?” Torchwick asked. He frowned, for a moment. “This journey, to Mistral; how dangerous is it?”
“All journeys are dangerous nowadays, the world being what it is,” Cinder said.
“That’s a terrible answer.”
“If we do this right, and we leave in secret,” Cinder said. “Then we shouldn’t have to deal with more than ordinary trouble.”
“Huh,” Torchwick muttered. “So how did they do it? Melt your frozen heart?”
Cinder stared at him.
“Okay, okay, I was just trying to make conversation, sheesh,” Torchwick muttered to himself. He patted down his pockets. “I could really use a cigar right now,” he said absently. “I wonder if the authorities realise that they’re about to turn this whole city into a smugglers’ paradise.”
“It wasn’t one already?” Cinder asked.
Torchwick laughed. “Sure, the cops were dumb and even when they weren’t they could hardly be bothered to do their jobs, but at the same time it was so easy to get almost anything you wanted legit that there wasn’t a whole lot of call for it outside of the hard stuff, you know: guns, drugs, that kind of thing. But now? With borders coming down, with flights stopping, with communications between the kingdoms out, a lot of the little luxuries that people took for granted are going to become a lot harder to come by: Mistralian wine, Vacuan cigars, fruit from Menagerie, luxury food, the black market is gonna boom.”
“Is that why you came back to Vale?” Cinder asked. “So you could cash in on a new opportunity.”
Torchwick laughed again, but this time it had a self-deprecating edge to it. “Have you ever met anyone more ferocious than a Vacuan mobster defending his territory?”
“Me,” Cinder said.
“Yeah, right,” Torchwick said. “The point is that sure, I was going to get into the smuggling business, but from the Vacuo end. I had the contacts here to distribute the stuff, I just needed to make a connection to get the stuff from Vacuo. I found a guy to grow me some plants-“
“You mean weed,” Cinder said. “You were going to smuggle weed into Vale from Vacuo.”
“All the cool kids are smoking it, after all,” Torchwick said. “Only it turned out that there was somebody already shipping their own product into Vacuo, and the next day they sent me my botanist’s fingers in the mail.”
“So you came back to Vale because you got run out of Vacuo by the existing syndicates?” Cinder said. “It seems I underestimated you, Roman; I thought for sure it was your own weakness that drew you back here.”
“I like this city, but I don’t like it that much,” Torchwick said.
“I’m a little curious as to what makes you think that Mistral will be any more welcoming.”
“Anima’s bigger,” Torchwick said. “There must be somewhere that some local gang hasn’t already taken over.”
Cinder kept her thoughts – that if Roman did find some unoccupied piece of territory it was likely because there was something very wrong with it – to herself as Torchwick continued to lead her, now in silence, down the alleyways until they came to what looked, from the outside, to be a derelict store of some kind. Metal shutters were down over the windows, and a wire mesh door had been placed on top of the ordinary door beneath. Graffiti covered the walls and the metal shutters. Garbage bags were piling up outside.
“This is where we find your contact?” Cinder asked sceptically.
“It’s more sophisticated than it looks,” Torchwick said.
“That wouldn’t be difficult,” Cinder replied.
Torchwick didn’t answer that, but simply strode up to the mesh door and banged on it. “Hey, is anyone home?”
After a moment in which Cinder wondered if Torchwick hadn’t been completely mistaken about all of this, the door opened to reveal a dog faunus with bull-terrier ears growing out of his dark hair, wearing a dark t-shirt and carrying a sub-machinegun lightly in one hand. “Roman Torchwick,” he said in a kind of awed – at Torchwick’s audacity, Cinder assumed – surprise.
“Bullseye!” Torchwick said jovially. “Long time no see. Listen, I’d love to chat, but I need to the boss, okay?”
Bullseye – almost certainly not his real name, but then his real name didn’t really matter – raised his eyebrows. “You want to see the boss?”
“The little guy, yes,” Torchwick said. “I’ve got a proposition for him.”
Bullseye smirked. “Okay, you can see the boss. If only so I can see him pull your head off your shoulders. Come on in.” He opened the mesh door, and then stepped back to admit them into the dark and shadowy interior.
“Pull your head off?” Cinder asked.
“It’s all a big misunderstanding,” Torchwick assured her.
Cinder was not so sure, but she followed him inside regardless. It was as dark as it looked from outside the door, and as dingy and rather disgusting. Dust was everywhere, and she thought she saw a cockroach skittering across the floor and was glad that it wasn’t a rat.
And these are the people that we have to rely on. Perfect.
In addition to the mess there was also a great scarcity of furniture, with very little in the way of places to sit. The only chairs were being occupied by various young and cocky-looking thugs lounging around on threadbare and faded sofas with guns shoved into their waistlines. The only mature man was also the largest in the room by some considerable distance, a giant of a man with a bald head and a square cut beard, wearing a leather waistcoat over a faded t-shirt.
“Tiny!” Torchwick called enthusiastically, spreading his arms out wide as he approached, as though he were expecting.
“Roman Torchwick?” the big guy – Tiny – said, sounding even more surprised than his henchman had been. He scowled as he surged to his feet. “You’ve got a lot of nerve showing your face around here after what you did.”
“Are you still mad about that?” Torchwick asked. “For the last time, I didn’t know she was your mother, and even if I had known she was the one who threw me onto the-“
“Shut up!” Tiny snarled. “Shut up! I’m going to kill you you son of a-“
“As amusing as it would be to watch Roman get what’s coming to him,” Cinder drawled, taking a step forward. “I’m afraid that I don’t have time for it. I’m here to talk business.”
Tiny stopped, and stared at her. “And who is this?”
“My name is Cinder Fall,” Cinder said. “And I have a proposition for you.”
“Does it involve me popping this guy’s head like a grape?”
“Unfortunately not,” Cinder said. “But it does involve me paying you a lot of money.”
Tiny grunted. “I’m listening.”
“I’m interested in passage to Anima for myself and my…associates,” Cinder said. “I understand that’s something you can help with.”
Tiny glanced at Torchwick. “You skipping town again, is that it?”
“Don’t talk to him, talk to me,” Cinder said. “I’m the one calling the shots.”
“Is that right?” Tiny said softly. “You know that passage to Anima ain’t so easy to come by these days.”
“That’s why we came to you,” Cinder said. “Were we wrong?”
Tiny sat down again. “I usually smuggle goods in and out, but people…recently, you’re not the first folks looking to get out. How many people?”
“Thirteen,” Cinder said. “And a dog, but only a very small.”
“A group that size is going to need some protection.”
“We can protect ourselves,” Cinder said. And if we can’t then no help you could give would have kept us safe.
Tiny nodded. “In that case…fifteen thousand lien a head, all upfront. Because I’m a nice guy I’ll throw in the dog for free.”
Cinder smiled. “One third up front, the rest when you get us to Anima. And don’t think of me as the kind of idiot who will hand over all her money to a man like you just because you ask for it.”
Tiny smiled. “I think of you as the kind of person who was desperate enough to get out that you came to me. Which means that we do things my way.”
“It also means that you don’t get any money at all when I walk out of that door,” Cinder said. “What’s the matter? Don’t you trust me to pay you the rest?”
“Trust is hard to come by around here.”
“Why do you think I won’t pay you everything up front?”
Tiny snorted. “Half now, half when you get to Anima.”
Cinder was silent for a moment. “Agreed,” she said. “So when does our ship leave?”
“Ship?” Tiny laughed. “You want a ship you find it yourself. You’ll take a barge upriver into the Forever Fall, there’s an abandoned compound there I use as a truck stop; one of my guys will drive you across the mountains and you’ll get on the boat on the east coast.”
“You want us to cross the entire continent?” Cinder repeated. “And pass through the forsaken lands east of the mountains.”
“There’s no law out there,” Torchwick said. “Nobody watching what comes or goes. The perfect smuggling route.”
“And you won’t be worried about the grimm,” Tiny said. “Seeing as how you can take of yourselves and all. So do we still have a deal?”
Cinder’s eyes narrowed. The overland route would take longer than travelling by sea…but it wasn’t as though they had much choice if they wanted to be quiet about this. And they did have to be quiet, not so much for Cardin’s reputation – about which Cinder cared less than nothing – but because it wasn’t as though she or Sunset could get on public transport without risk. Even if there was any public transport still going to Mistral.
“Yes,” Cinder said, after a moment, because what other choice did she really have. “We still have a deal.”