Chapter Ten: Cotton

As Cotton headed towards her tent after the show she breathed a sigh of relief that her brother was not waiting for her there. It would have been entirely too close. It should not have surprised her that though he had shown up unannounced he now kept a respectful distance. For her own sanity she needed to remind herself that he had never in the past been the one she needed to worry about. She would even have invited him to a show next week if he hadn't turned up on his own. Still, as she had told Kestian, the two of them were not exactly close. Cotton changed quickly and then went to go find her brother. He was with the Horse Thief waiting for her by the ticket booth.

"There you are" he said.

"Here I am." She replied.

"Shall we go? I actually have a thought for a little surprise in mind but I don't know how long they will be hanging around." He offered her his arm. ,

"What kind of surprise?" Cotton asked.

"Oh don't worry, none that would upset things with your oath knight friend."

Cotton blushed a moment and then folded her arms across her chest and started walking. "First I don’t know why you think my friend would be upset by you introducing me to someone. Second I don’t know why you would think I would assume you would make that sort of introduction in the first place."

"Something does not need to be personally experienced to be understood. I'm an academic, perhaps I made a study of it in order to find you a perfect special new friend." Linnaeus said.

"Except you didn't." Cotton said.

"No I did not. And besides, your circus shows you find friends of the regular sort on your own easily enough. I know we are not exactly in competition but I cannot help but think if I were to introduce you to any of my colleagues it would just be hurting my own numbers."

That made Cotton laugh.

"Ah, will flattery still get me everywhere?"

"I didn't hear any flattery I just heard facts" the Horse Thief chimed in.

"Oh well done!" Cotton said.

"Do I get souls off my contract for that?" he asked.

"That is not how it works but I appreciate the effort Horse Thief."

Linnaeus smiled "by the end of the night Horse Thief I am going to know your name."

"It will be difficult for you I think not even a fairy could trick my name from me. So would you care to make it interesting?"

"Interesting how?" Linnaeus asked

The Horse Thief looked to Cotton and back to Linnaeus. "Fifty souls off my contract."

"Fifty! That is outrageous. I don’t even want to know your name at all now. Five."

"Five? You insult me. I shall keep my name and not even consider negotiating further with you. Forty."

"Horse Thief, my brother works rather different pacts than I do—”

"No Cotton let him bargain, ten" Linnaeus said.

"You'd take ten?" Cotton asked.

"Like he said boss, let him bargain. Thirty-five" the Horse Thief said.

"You are slowing down far too soon; we may not get to a middle we agree on. Twelve." Linnaeus said.

"Twenty" The Horse Thief said.

"No." Cotton gasped.

"Done." Linnaeus said.

The Horse Thief reached out his hand and Cotton blocked him.

"You don't have an escape clause brother what are you going to do with those souls when you don't discover his name."

"I'll take them off." Linnaeus said.

"You’re not in a position to do that." Cotton said.

"No but you are." He said

"You have lost your sense completely if you think I would ask mother to renegotiate a contract because you lost a bet." Cotton said.

"She might like the idea of adding souls to his contract if I win the bet."

"I don’t call her with maybes and renegotiations, I call her when I have a new mage for her."

"Fine, a different sort of wager for tonight then." Linnaeus said.

"Pit and Valley what?" Cotton asked.

"Me verse you." Linnaeus said.

"In what capacity?" Cotton asked.

"First soul sealed into pact wins."

"Wins what?"

"Bragging rights, the esteem of the other—”

"And forty five gold and a bottle of spirit." The Horse Thief interjected.

"It is interesting that you should mention spirits." Linnaeus said.

"What are you getting in on it as well?" Cotton asked.

"Well apparently I am not getting fifty souls off my pact so I may as well get one taken care of tonight. The other things are just a bonus." The horse thief said.

"Alright" Cotton sighed "bragging rights, esteem, and ten gold and a bottle of spirit. Though I still don't think it's quite fair, we are going somewhere where you already know the people."

"Yes but I usually take weeks or months to get a pact. You are used to working quickly. And I assume you are also training your Horse Thief to work the same way so I think it evens out."

Cotton rolled her eyes "fine," she stuck out her hand and Linnaeus shook it. "Where are you even going to get a bottle of spirit? The nearest monastery is leagues away." She asked.

"As I said, it is interesting that your Horse Thief mentioned spirit. And what is your name by the way?"

"My name is something you will not learn for less than fifty souls off my contract."

"Fair enough" Linnaeus shrugged. "Well like you said the nearest monetary may be far away but I have a mendian."

The mendians were those that trained and studied in the monasteries. They were not as a rule devoted to any deities. Though some monasteries did worship deities. The real focus of any mendian was the truth. Simply stated the truth was that all being is one and that which is not can not be said to be. The understanding of this truth made them capable of miraculous feats. Running across water and up walls, stepping through shadows, catching and throwing back arrows, and various martial feats. Some monasteries also had business they did to support themselves. The distillation of spirit was a common practice.

"What in a cupboard in your room?" The horse thief interjected.

Cotton snorted a little laugh. She was enjoying the Horse Thief's playful hostility.

"In my classes." Linnaeus said. "He as it turned out left his monetary. Apparently, it was a nasty place but isn't any longer. It’s a long story. But anyway, he has a still and more than that design prints for a still. So, you can have not only a bottle of spirit but the means to make your own."

"Who are you selling to Linnaeus?" Cotton asked.

"Hopefully a mendian who wants to fight demons." He said. "Now come on its not so much farther."

"Wait," the Horse Thief said "what is it about the pacts you broker that is so different than Cotton?"

"Mine don't have a time limit and a buy out." Linnaeus said.

"But why not?" The Horse Thief asked.

"Well let me put it this way, what did you want, what did you get from your pact?"

The Horse Thief looked over at Cotton sheepishly. She gave him a nod “I wanted a safe place to sleep, and food in my belly. The magic was a bonus."

"So the eventual fighting of demons was not a factor for you." Linnaeus asked.

"It was so little a factor I hope to avoid it entirely." The Horse Thief said.

"Well let's say that the pact mages I've brokered for have different end goals in mind. The fighting demons is the part everybody wants to get to. So much so that there is not so much an escape clause as a retirement fee. Everyone that signs on with me wants to fight demons already. I, our mother that is, just give them an avenue to do so."

"Who actually wants to fight demons?"

Cotton and Linnaeus both gave him a distinct glare.

"Even if it is not a want it is a duty, an eternal inclination." Linnaeus said.

“What exactly is an eternal inclination?" The Horse Thief asked incredulously.

"Forgive my brother," Cotton teased. "He comes by his hopeless academic side honestly, and the demon fighting too."

"Which means what exactly?" The Horse Thief said.

"He is in the family business on both sides."

"Icey death,” The Horse Thief swore. “I know the empire has its flaws but people at least do not waste so much time on ridiculous imprecise language there." .

Linnaeus let out a laugh. "My father is also a broker for our mother. He studied and taught about demons at the University in Northtown. Decided he wanted some more practical experience of them so sought a way to fight them. He did his research, summoned my mother and more or less asked for the job."

"Of brokering?"

"No, of demon killing. The brokering is something she had to convince him of.”

"Linnaeus grew up with his dad back South in Northtown. When he was old enough, he came up here to study and work."

The southern continent was the vast continent located to the south of the norther continent across the monstrous sea. Trade and commerce of goods and ideas had existed between the continents nearly as long as history had been recorded. Corsaña sat on the south eastern tip of the Northern Continent and North town on the Northern tip of the Southern continent. Their were many families in both cities that could claim relations on both sides of the sea.

“Alright, Linnaeus' father wanted to fight demons. What did your father want Cotton?” The Horse Thief asked.

Now it was Cotton's turn to look sheepishly away.

"Here we are" Linnaeus announced. And gestured to a small Cafe along the busy street. "After you," he said

Cotton stepped past him into the charming interior.

"Ah perfect there they are in the back. Follow me." Linnaeus said and led them further in.

At a dim and cozy table in the back sat a man and a woman. Cotton could not help her immediate appraisal of the pair. He was human and Southern. He had a posture that suggested swift readiness and perpetual alertness. Cotton guessed that he was the mendian with the still and the complicated past. The woman was western and elven. The golden undertones of her dark skin shone in the lamp light and she had large bold features to her face. She was taller than the man even sitting. Though she did not have the bird on a line readiness that the man had in his posture Cotton could tell she would have speed and grace in her movements. There was an intimacy in the way the two sat together that suggested they sat together more than they sat apart. The pair both looked up as they approached.

"Linnaeus," the man said, "I didn't know if we should expect you this evening."

"Well then I appreciate you getting the large table all the same." Linnaeus said "but I have introductions to make." With a hand on her back, he nudged Cotton forward. "May I present Cotton Talarna, master bard in the guild of story, ring master of a most exceptional traveling circus, and my younger sister."

Cotton felt her blood freeze and every hair on her body stand on end. He had just called her sister in front of people she did not know, in public. Both of her siblings wore their horns, but her infernal heritage was something she had learned to keep hidden.

"Your sister?" The woman asked.

"Half-sister." Cotton supplied.

"On your mother's side?" she asked.

"Yes" Cotton said simply. He had outed her, there was no way of hiding now.

"You must take after your father." she said.

"Yes." Cotton said again. “half borns always take after their mortal parent.”

Linnaeus cleared his throat "This is her Horse Thief, a disgraced Northern aristocrat."

"As in from the Northern Empire?" The man asked.

"That is correct. Do you know of it?" The Horse Thief asked.

“I have a friend from there.” He said.

“Well perhaps they know each other” Cotton joked.

"I doubt it" the Horse Thief said. “The empire is a large place and—”

“Petrianna Yekaterina Vasilya Androvna.” The man said

“The ambassador’s daughter?” The Horse Thief asked.

“Yes.” the man replied.

“I do know her. She saved my life actually. You see this man and I had a disagreement about what his horse needed and what his wife wanted and so he put a knife in me about it. Do not be alarmed, I am fine, and it was a night of many murders. In fact, it was in the very act of him stabbing me that we stumble upon the princess examining corpse of other murdered man. She was with a Southern woman and little gnomish bard.”

Cotton noticed the way that both the man and woman stat differently at the mention of the bard.

"Anyway I am stabbed; the princess heals me. My would-be murderer goes to prison, and I go into exile. It was a fascinating evening if half the rumors flying through air that night were true. So perhaps the empire is large, but the court is small. The world is not so wide as they say.”

"Indeed, not but we have gotten distracted with introductions only half made. Cotton, Horse Thief, may I introduce Vishranti and Tornas Forester."

Vishranti smiled. "It is a pleasure to meet you both. It is always good to meet another bard especially. Come sit down, what use is the big table if everyone is standing up?"

Cotton slid around the table and sat next to Vishranti.

"It is good to meet another bard." Cotton said, "What guild are you with?"

"Shadow" Vishranti said with little smile.

Cotton raised her eyebrows.

"Don’t worry we're not as bad as all that. Not anymore anyway."

"What does that mean?" Cotton asked.

"The founder was a vile and despicable man. But he is dead now."

"I was there when he died." Tornas added.

"But you're not a bard." Cotton said.

"No." He answered.

"It’s a long story. Better told another time." Vishranti said, taking his hand in hers.

Cotton could feel the mood at the table darkening. It may make her brother’s job harder, but it was not what was needed. After all she wanted to get a soul tonight as well.

"Vishranti," she said, "what instruments do you play?"

"most of them that I've come across." She said with a smile.

"And what instrument do you have on you now?" Cotton asked. She knew she would have one. She never left home without one either.

Vishranti smiled a very superior smile. "Bells" said and pulled up her skirts.

Cotton looked bellow the table to see thick bands of tiny bells fastened around both of her ankles.

"Do you enjoy announcing your presence from a mile off?" Cotton asked.

"She’s silent on them." Tornas said.

"How did you learn that?" Cotton asked.

"From my cat" Vishranti said. She did not hide at all her satisfaction at being so admired. "And then I’ve had a century or more of practice since then. But what about you Cotton in your guild of story? What instrument do you carry?"

Cotton pulled the piccolo from her pocket.

"He's not my favorite, but he gets the thing accomplished and is exceptionally portable."

"And what is it you prefer to play then?"

"My violin, it was my father's"

"He played as well?"

"He was a bard as well."

"Interesting, bards don't usually run in families the way blood mages do." Vishranti said.

"My father always said I was special." Cotton said with a smile.

"And where is he now?" Vishranti asked, "does he come to your shows?"

Cotton felt her heart fall down through her chest. She suddenly wanted nothing more than to go back to her tent, curl up beneath all of her blankets, and think about absolutely anything other than this.

"Cotton's father is no longer with us." Linnaeus said.

"I’m so sorry." Vishranti said covering Cotton's hand with her own. "How long has it been since he passed."

"It’s been 16 years now." Cotton said

"You were young when he died." Vishranti remarked.

"It was my ninth birthday."

"Poor child" Vishranti said.

"He would always get me up in the morning. It was always early. He always had somewhere he needed to be so he would wake me up and get me dressed and make us breakfast. Then we would be off to a rehearsal or a job or a lesson of some kind." Cotton paused she felt the lump in her throat. She remembered that day. She hadn’t felt fear or dread, not at first. She had even been proud of herself for waking g up first. She had been so excited to go and tell her father what a sleepy head he was being. What a terrible fool she had been. "But that morning I woke up on my own. The house was quiet. I went to my father's room and I couldn't wake him up."

Silence fell around the table.

"I sat their and cried till someone came to help. It was one of my father's friends, one of the people he played with. She managed to find my grandparents. I had never met them. But, arrangements were made. I played my violin, his violin, at his funeral. And the next day, after he was buried, my mother came for me." Cotton took a shaky breath willing her tears to stay behind her eyes. "I’m sorry everyone." She said "I seem to have put a rather dark cloud over the evening. Horse Thief, say something."

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"You do not need to apologize for your loss or for your grief" Vishranti said. "I do not think any here are strangers to it."

Cotton looked into Vishranti's eyes and found there a softness, a gentleness, and a deep and aching sadness. There was something this woman wanted.

"Indeed," Linnaeus said. "I think loss is what binds all of us here this evening. As well as what can be done about the loss."

"Not this again Linnaeus." Vishranti said, the annoyance in her voice just on the edge of anger.

"Vishra," Tornas said taking her hand.

"Tornas," she said "I have made my opinion clear on this. Linnaeus is your colleague and his friendship and company is something I value. But I cannot let you do this."

"Vishra please." Tornas said.

"It won’t bring her back!" Her voice cracked over the last word. "She's gone Tornas."

The silence fizzled with Tornas and Vishranti at its core.

"Who is gone?" Cotton asked gently.

"Our wife." Vishranti said.

"How long have you been without her?" Cotton asked.

"Nearly two years." Tornas said.

Cotton looked up briefly at her brother. If he was interested in them, she could guess the answer to her next question but she needed to ask it anyway.

"How did you lose her?"

"A demon." Vishranti said. "Possessed her and made a legion of her."

"She just wanted to feel safe." Tornas whispered. "I should have made her feel safe."

"It’s not your fault." Vishranti slipped her arm around her husband.

"So you have a personal stake in this war against the demons that we fight by our nature?" Cotton asked.

"Yes" Tornas said looking up at her.

"My brother often finds people like you among his classmates and now students. People that want to fight with us. They seek our war for a sense of fighting terrible evil, in answer to some call for balance, to stand against a force that would destroy everything if it could. Many that my brother has recruited to our army have very high ideals. But you would not be alone in our number for wanting revenge. It is a practical thing, cold and hard enough to hold in your hand. If revenge is what you want, we can give you every opportunity to seek it."

"My wife has already been condemned to the valley, I would not have my husband condemned to the pit."

"Condemned is strong word for the pit is it not?" The Horse Thief interjected.

Vishranti glared poisonously at him.

"Horse Thief, just wait a moment" Cotton said holding up a hand. "The difference in the pit and the valley is one I can well explain." Cotton felt the attention of the table settle on her.

"The Pit and the Valley, most know them only as two of the places one could be sorted into in the afterlife, but there is much more to it than that.

The Pit of hell is the home and eternal abode of the devils. The Valley belongs to the demons, and they seek to have the whole of creations crumble into it.

In the beginnings of things when the gods still sang their song of creation, there were not yet any realms or planes of being besides the singular material plane. The divine needed beings to serve them as they made and chose their domains. Their mortal worshipers could not fulfill this for them and feyries well, the queens loved their father, but they were their own creatures with their own realm and loyal only to themselves. So the divine made the angles to serve them. Now different divinities had different aims, and some were at odds with others. And so the angles were made to fight. There were some among the angles who did not like this arrangement. They did not appreciate being created for the purpose of service and the aims they were made to fight for were not their own. Their magic was innate to them, a part of their creation, and so they with their combined power, in an act to challenge the very creative energy of the divine themselves created the Pit of hell and dove into it, fleeing the capricious whims and wars of the divine."

"They say the devils were lazy and refused to work, and were therefore cast down into the Pit of hell." Vishranti said.

"Well they sound like clerics," Cotton countered. "Or parents " she continued. "The devils resided in hell, a paradise fiery though it was where they could work out their own will and decide for themselves what they would be. Until that is the divine grew angry that their angles had abandoned them. And so, as punishment they created a war the devils could not refuse to fight. The divine created the demons, a relentless force of corruption and hunger that would destroy the little haven the devils had created for themselves. So, the devils fought. They organized themselves into ranks and armies. The strongest and best rose in power and authority. But the devil’s numbers weren't enough, and this curse the divine made threatened to tear all of creation, all that the echo of their song resounded in, into the valley and eventually in to silence and nothingness itself."

"Nothingness isn't." Tornas remarked.

"As a mendian perhaps you understand the terrible truth of the demons' ends better than most."

Tornas looked briefly to his wife and nodded.

"The eternal struggle between the Pit and the Valley, between the devils and the demons is one form the very being of creation. And is a fight in which the divine have not seen fit to join themselves. Of course, some mortal souls come to hell. It is a punishment for those that they judge were evil in life and must now atone with service fighting against a more ultimate and destructive evil. Others who they deem beyond redemption they send to the valley to be tormented there. But the divine are foolish if they think only those they sort end up in the Pit or the Valley. The demons drag down those that they destroy with their possession, and the devils recruit the infernal army to fight them.

“My Horse Thief spoke out of turn but he is not wrong. Vishranti, should your husband pact with my mother it would be incorrect to call his soul condemned. He will have a contract, an eternal place, and possibilities in hell for his soul after the terms of his contract are met. He would be choosing this. All you've heard about the torment of souls is both highly exaggerated and reserved for those who did not choose their place."

Vishranti took a deep breath and looked to her husband and then back to Cotton.

"Your telling of the history of the pit and the valley was certainly better performed but it is something we have already heard from your brother."

Cotton took an instant to examine the situation. She remembered her first impression of Vishranti, she was a woman who wanted something.

"Vishranti I pray for a moment that you will allow me to drop the art and ask plainly. What is it in this world or the next that you want? What desire do you have that you believe will be served by holding your husband back from fighting in our cause?"

Cotton looked at her with earnestness. She was being blunt but in dulling her edge she had laid herself bare, she was inviting Vishranti to do the same.

Vishranti bit her lip and looked deeply into Tornas' eyes. Cotton could just hear the jingle of bells under the table as the elf woman fidgeted her foot.

"I want more time." She said. "I want to find a way, is that something you can offer me?"

Cotton had to fight the urge to physically recoil. "No." She said. "Thats not what you want. At least that way is not the way to have it."

"Why not?" Vishranti asked.

"You want his life to match yours right?" Cotton replied

"Yes."

"You won't have it."

"Why not?"

"Because deals for life don't work that way."

"Why not?" Vishranti repeated.

"Because to defy the goddess death requires a high price of magic which you trade with years from your own life. You will want his life to be as long as yours and it will be, but your life will be cut short in the balance, far short."

"How do you know this for certain?" Vishranti asked.

"It is my business to know." Cotton said.

"Devils lie, it is known, how can I trust what you tell me?"

"Because it is the bargain my father struck to bring me into this world."

A silence followed in which Cotton realized the volume of her voice.

"Your father?" Vishranti asked.

"My father" Cotton said, taking great effort to keep her voice from breaking "my father bargained with my mother. He wanted a child. And a child my mother gave him. Nine years his contract was. When the thing you want is to take a life or receive a life the contract is short. That is not what you want Vishranti."

"What do you know of what I want?" She asked.

Cotton saw then, and she cursed herself for not noticing it before. The exactly placed line of Vishranti's skirt. How its pleats hid the slightest swell to her belly and how the thin line of her bare midriff tricked the eye into seeing separate pieces rather than a whole. She was with child.

"You want your husband to live. And you want your child to live also."

Vishranti's hand rested as if by instinct over her belly.

"Then you understand why he cannot why we cannot." Vishranti said.

Cotton scooted closer to her. "No Vishranti, you don't understand you can have what you want. An eternity with your husband and possibly even with your child."

"It’s not possible. I knew what I was doing when I married him. I knew the fate I wrote myself as we conceived our child."

"Vishranti," Cotton said "this life is not the only one. You can be with your love."

"And would you rip me away from my child?"

"No, never. Vishranti, I think you have been told that we are cruel, we are not. We just have a war to win. As it is eternal, we need souls for the fight always both now and in the future."

Vishranti paused a moment. "How far in the future?" She asked.

"We can call it four centuries. It will give you time to consider, once you are alone, if you want to work out your contract on the mortal plane or if you want to come join the infernal army."

"And what of our child, what will become of them?"

"I have some experience with family contracts. But ultimately the choice will be theirs."

"Vishra." Tornas said. "Darling, is this really what you want?"

Vishranti cupped his face in her hand. "I lost our Yohanna far before I thought I would. And you my love, I know you will be gone from me too soon. But this, we would be fighting, but we would be together. We could have in hell the eternity we cannot have here."

Tornas leaned in resting his forehead against hers with his hand at the back of her neck. "You said we were meant to be together, three of us."

"And now we are only two, but it still holds true." Vishranti said.

"And this is what you want? You're sure?" He asked.

"You were sure. Now I am too." She replied

Vishranti took Tornas' hand and kissed him. She turned back to Cotton "what exactly are the terms of this deal, and how do we seal it?"

Her brother walked with her and the Horse Thief back towards her circus.

"Well done Cotton. Never send an academic to do a bard’s job clearly. I’ve had Tornas on the line for months now,” Linnaeus said “I suppose I should have known you would be the one to reel him in little sister."

Cotton shuddered. "Don't call me that." She said.

"Apologies." He said with a casual wave of his hand.

"Besides it was obvious the wife was the main concern. You should have been working on her." Cotton said.

"Yes well clearly you saw it better than I. I owe you Cotton." Linnaeus said.

"You own her ten gold and a bottle of spirit." The Horse Thief said. "I'd even double it, you would not even have gotten him if she didn't make the wife’s pact first."

"Twenty gold and two bottles of spirt? Cotton you are aware I barely get paid."

"Are you going back on a deal Linnaeus?"

"Never, I am merely keeping to the original agreement. You had her sign on first, I owe you ten gold and a bottle of spirit."

"I still say it should be two bottles of spirit." The Horse Thief grumbled.

"Come on, throw him a bone" Cotton said with a shrug.

Linnaeus sighed "I will see what can be done about the additional bottle of spirit."

The Horse Thief rubbed his hands together triumphantly. "I thank you, you have made me very happy."

"And what about you Cotton. Are you happy?" Linnaeus asked.

Cotton thought about her brother showing up unannounced, dragging her out into the city at night and outing her to strangers. And that was putting aside having to talk about her father. Cotton's silence had lasted a beat too long and Linnaeus noticed.

"I am sorry, I know things got a little heavy back there."

"Things got exactly as heavy as you needed them to." Cotton said.

"I admit that I set this evening up once I saw the posters that you were in town. But can you blame me? You were fantastic."

"And you really don't think you could have managed it without me?"

"You find what people want Cotton, and then you make them willing to pay the price and you sell it to them." Linnaeus said.

"It’s what we all do." Cotton said.

"No." Linnaeus said "that skill is particular to you. The mages I broker for aren't paying a price they are just signing on to a fight they wanted anyway. And then Satine does the other projects."

"If by does you mean fails at." Cotton scoffed.

"Which may be why mother just has her commanding in the army rather than brokering now."

Cotton rolled her eyes and shook her head. "It’s just not fair. She fails, utterly, fouls up a plan that mother has been working on for the last three decades and she gets what is effectively a promotion."

"Our sister certainly knows how to fail up."

"I just don't see what she has that I don’t. I don’t understand why what I do is never enough."

"Look Cotton it’s not worth fighting her over." Linnaeus said.

"I don’t fight her!" Cotton snapped. "She fights me. That is the way it has always been. There is nothing I could have that Satine could not take away from me and there has never been anything that I do to receive even a drop of praise from our mother."

"Cotton you have to be exaggerating I know them too, they are not that bad." Linnaeus said.

"You weren't there Linnaeus." Cotton had to keep herself back from shouting. "You got to grow up with your father here on the mortal plane. When my dad died mother took me to hell. I grew up there with her, with Satine."

"I was there too, Cotton. You can't pretend like you were always alone with the two of them." Linnaeus said.

"You visited. You didn't see." Cotton said.

"If it had been as bad as you're making it out to be I would have known. Come on just look where you are now. Would you have been able to get to where you are if they really were as cruel and unloving as you claim?"

Cotton could barely put words to the anger within her.

"Just because I managed to get out and succeed and be good at what I do in spite of them does not mean it didn’t happen." Cotton realized in that moment that her brother would not believe her, that he would not understand her, and that if he were ever going to truly take her side he would have taken it by now. Like so much else any sort of relationship with him was hopeless.

"Good night Linnaeus." She said and began striding quickly away from him.

"Cotton wait!" He called after her and jogged to catch up. "Just let me walk you back."

"I don’t need you for that, it’s why I have my Horse Thief." Cotton felt the Northerner straighten up next to her. She had absolutely no idea of how he would be in an actual fight but he could certainly bluff himself up.

"Cotton you're being ridiculous, just slow down." Linnaeus said.

Cotton turned to face him and the Horse Thief stopped with her. "We'll be in town the next few weeks. Then I expect it will be a year before we are back again so if you have any other difficult cases you need help with plan accordingly." Cotton turned to leave and Linnaeus put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. She flinched. The Horse Thief stepped between them.

"You should go home now." He said.

For all the times Cotton had made fun of his accent, he could sound very intimidating when he wanted to.

Linnaeus took a step back. "Well as I said, pleasure working with you Cotton. I may come to see the show again while you're in town if that's alright."

"That's fine." Cotton said.

"Goodnight, Cotton." Linnaeus gave a nod of his head, turned, and walked away.

"Thank you Horse Thief." Cotton said.

"Family is complicated boss, but I know what side I'm on." He said.

"Good." Cotton said and she turned and continued walking.

"Although I will say if little siblings spat causes the bottles of spirit to not be delivered I will be very upset."

"Don’t worry," cotton said "if absolutely nothing else in our family we keep our promises."