One did not get to be Selia’s age easily in Tibbet’s Brook. Life in the Brook was hard; only the sharpest, most cunning and capable folk survived to see full gray, and the rest treated them accordingly. When she was younger, Selia had been forceful. Now she was a Power unto herself.

Only Raddock stood his ground. He had ousted Selia as Town Speaker more than once over the years, and if age was power in Tibbet’s Brook, he was stronger, if not by much.

“Coline, Harral, Rusco, Raddock, and I will need to go in and see her,” Selia told Jeph. It wasn’t a request. The five of them were half the town council, and he could only nod and stand aside, allowing them entrance.

“I’m going, too!” Garric growled. The crowd of Fishers, his kith and kin, gathered angrily around him, nodding.

“No, you’re not,” Selia said, fixing them all with a steely glare. “Your blood is up and none can blame you, but we ’re here to learn what happened, not stake the girl without a trial.”

Raddock put a hand on Garric’s shoulder. “She ent getting away, Gar, I promise you that,” he said. Garric gritted his teeth, but he nodded and stepped back as they went inside.

Renna was still lying in the same position they had placed her in the night before, staring at the ceiling. She blinked occasionally. Coline went right to her.

“Oh, dear,” Selia said, spotting the bloody knife on the night table. Jeph cursed silently. Why had he left it there? He should have thrown it down the well the moment he saw it.

“Creator,” Harral breathed, and drew a ward in the air.

“And here,” Raddock grunted, kicking a basin by the door. Renna’s dress was soaking within, the water pink with blood. “Still think we’re just here to ask a few questions, Tender?”

Coline looked over the bruises on Renna’s face with a concerned eye and a firm hand, then turned to the others and cleared her throat loudly. The men stared dully for a moment, then gave a start and turned their backs as she drew back the covers.

“Nothing’s broken,” Coline said, coming over to Selia when her inspection was complete, “but she’s taken quite a beating, and there are bruises around her throat like she was choked.”

Selia went and sat down on the bed beside Renna. She reached out gently, brushing the hair from Renna’s sweating face. “Renna, dear, can you hear me?” The girl didn’t react at all.

“Been like this all night?” Selia asked, frowning.

“Ay,” Jeph said.

Selia sighed and put her hands on her knees, pushing to her feet. She took the knife, and then turned and ushered everyone out of the room, closing the door.

“Seen this before, after demon attacks, mostly,” she said, with Coline nodding along. “Survivors get more of a fright than they can handle, and are left staring off into the air.”

“Will she get better?” Ilain asked.

“Sometimes they snap out of it in a few days,” Selia said. “Sometimes…” She shrugged. “Won’t lie to you, Ilain Bales. This is the worst thing ever happened in Tibbet’s Brook as far back as I can recall. I’ve been Speaker on and off for thirty years, and seen a great many folk die before their time, but there ent never been one killed in anger. That kind of thing may happen in the Free Cities, but not here.”

“Renna couldn’t have…!” Ilain choked, and Selia took her shoulders, gentling her.

“That’s why I was hoping to talk to her first, dear, and get the story from her lips.” She glanced at Raddock. “The Fishers have come looking for blood, and they won’t be satisfied without it, or a good explanation.”

“We got reason,” Raddock growled. “It’s our kin dead.”

“Case you ent noticed, my kin’s dead, too,” Ilain said, glaring at him.

“All the more reason to want justice,” Raddock said.

Selia hissed, and everyone fell silent. She held the bloody knife out to Tender Harral.

“Tender, if you’d be so kind as to wrap this and hide it in your robes till we get to town, I’d be grateful.” Harral nodded, reaching for it.

“What in the Core you think you’re doing?” Raddock shouted, snatching the knife before the Tender could take it. “The whole town’s got a right to see this!” he said, waving it around.

Selia grabbed his wrist, and Raddock, outweighing her twice over, laughed until she drove her heel down on his instep. He howled in pain, letting go of the knife to clutch his foot. Selia caught it before it could hit the floor.

“Use your head, Lawry!” she snapped. “That knife’s evidence and all have a right to see it, but not with two dozen men outside with spears and a defenseless girl numb with fright. The Tender ent gonna steal it.”

Ilain fetched a cloth, and Selia wrapped the knife, giving it to the Tender, who stowed it safely in his robes. She gathered her skirts and strode outside, back arched and head up high as she faced the gathered men in the yard, who grumbled angrily and fingered their spears.

“She’s in no condition to talk,” Selia said.

“We ’re not looking to talk!” Garric shouted, and the Fishers all nodded their assent.

“I don’t care what you’re looking to do,” Selia said. “No one’s doing anything until the town council meets on this.”

“The council?” Garric asked. “This ent some coreling attack! She murdered my son!”

“You don’t know that, Garric,” Harral said. “Could be he and Harl killed each other.”

“Even if she didn’t hold the knife, she done it,” Garric said, “witchin’ my son into sin and shamin’ her da!”

“The law is the law, Garric,” Selia said. “She gets a council meeting, where you can make your accusations and she can say her piece, before we name her guilty. Bad enough we’ve had two killings, I won’t have your mob doing a third because you can’t wait on justice.”

Garric looked to Raddock for support, but the Speaker for Fishing Hole was silent, edging toward Harral. Suddenly he shoved the Tender against the wall, reaching into his robes.

“She ent tellin’ you all!” Raddock shouted. “The girl had a red dress soaking!” He held Harl’s knife up for all to see. “And a bloody knife!”

The Fishers gripped their spears and shouted in outrage, ready to push right into the house. “The Core with your law,” Garric told Selia, “if it means I can’t avenge my son.”

“You’ll murder that poor girl over my dead body,” Selia said, moving to stand directly in front of the door with the rest of the council and Jeph’s family. “That what you want?” she called. “To be named murderers yourselves? Every Fisher?”

“Bah, you can’t hang us all,” Raddock scoffed. “We’re taking the girl, and that’s that. Stand aside, or we’ll go clean through you.”

Hands in the air, Rusco stepped aside. Selia glared at him. “Traitor!”

But Rusco just smiled. “I’m no traitor, ma’am. Just a visiting businessman, and it isn’t my place to take sides in this kind of dispute.”

“You’re as much a part of this town as anyone!” Selia shouted. “You’ve been in Town Square twenty years, and on the council near all of ’em! If you’ve a place that’s more home than this, maybe it’s time you went back to it!”

Rusco just smiled again. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I got to be fair to all. Standing against a whole borough is just bad business.”

“Once a year at least, half the town comes to me, ready to run you out for a cheat, like they did to you in Miln and Angiers and Creator knows where else,” Selia said, “and every year, I talk them out of it. Remind them what a benefit your store is, and how things were before you came. But you stand aside now, and I’ll see to it no decent person sets foot in your shop again.”

“You can’t do that!” Hog cried.

“Oh, yes I can, Rusco,” Selia said. “Just you try me if you think it ent so.” Raddock scowled, and it turned venomous when Hog went back to stand with Selia in the doorway.

Hog met his eyes. “I don’t want to hear it, Raddock. We can wait a day or two. Any man puts hands on Renna Tanner before the council meets is banned from the store.”