Scotty joined the caravan in his own vehicle. It had similar protections and looked the same as the car Wade and Jasque were using. It also had a driver who was pretending to be just another bane traveling through the area.

  Wade sat in the back with his friend while Jasque continued working with the guards.

  The grey-eyed bane slid into the back seat of the new car and started to greet his buddy. Before a proper hello came out, Scotty scrambled over him, hauled the door shut with a slam, and made a cross with his fingers that he pointed at Jasque while hissing.

  The were shook his head, "You know, a less secure person might think that you like spitting at Jasque more than being with me."

  "The bonds of brotherhood go deep, but an asshole of that magnitude has depths that no undersea trench can match."

  "Weird combination of descriptors."

  "Stinky, shity, entitled, controlling depths. Can you imagine the first growth redwood that must be stuck up there to make him so uptight?"

  "Enough talking about Jasque's great brown depths!"

  Scotty turned around with a huge smile. From a secret place near the car door, he produced a large glass bottle of fancy cream soda and a tin of cookies.

  "Surprise!"

  Wade's return smile was a bit brittle. "Thank you, but I don't think I can."

  "Why not?" I mean, I also have savory stuff in here too, if that's it."

  "I appreciate the gesture, but I need to mind my diet."

  "You're already plenty fit."

  Wade sighed. He wanted to say it was about feeling good, or that it helped him sleep better. Unfortunately, this was Scotty. He did not lie to Scotty.

  "Jasque brought tracking equipment."

  "Like, GPS, or…" The skinny man's eyebrows came together. "He has no right, Wade."

  "Eh, it's part of my training."

  "He's your bodyguard, not your trainer. No one has any right to your body."

  "I mean, I think we could argue that my literally agreeing to a job where I put my body in danger contradicts that. But that's besides the point; he helps me stay stable. Exercise is like the number one suggestion people give for mental health."

  "No, Wade. His job wasn't to keep you stable. His job was to monitor and protect you. Then you, being a smart young rookie, asked for advice from a more experienced person and elected voluntarily to take it. You're not a rookie anymore, and you're not a teenager navigating a fresh and profound trauma. You don't need to do what he says."

  It was an old argument, and honestly, it was part of their routine. There were plenty of debates that got rehashed, and none really mattered. Like Jasque said, Scotty was a bad influence. They argued, they indulged, they competed to train hard enough to make up for the indulgence. That was the process.

  Still, the arguing was part of it. And the process helped, even if the motions were made meaningless by repetition. It shook Wade out of his pattern. It also helped that Scotty, while he was talking, made an irrefutable sort of sense. After he left, it was hard to restate the arguments in a way that didn't sound dumb. But while in his presence, it all fit together perfectly.

  More than once, he had shown up with a three-ring binder full of highlighted and summarized health research that somehow turned into them fasting for twenty hours just to see how much food it took to get kicked out of an all-you-can-eat buffet.

  Then, once his friend left, Wade would see the effortless way Jasque excelled and let himself be caught back up in the other man's cadence. The other bane's reality-suspension arguments. He'd be hungry for the training, remember the indulgence fondly, and let himself get carried away making the next big push towards self-improvement.

  "I mean, one soda wouldn't hurt," Wade hemmed.

  "Thank you! And this time I won't need to keep fighting you the whole trip?"

  "I mean, I don't want to lose all my progress."

  "Seriously? Dude, think about how I feel. Each time we talk through this, you agree with me. Each time we say, you'll push back more on Jasque. Then we part ways, meet again, and how much of an impact have my points actually made?"

  "That's not fair," he said, trying not to think about how he had literally just been planning to let the argument work as an excuse before ignoring them once Scotty left. "There has been progress. He listened really well when I said I needed more breaks."

  The look he received could only be described as scathingly neutral, like the only option was to cut off all nerves leading to his face or scream.

  "More does not equal enough."

  "Listen, do you want to eat a family-sized pack of cookies, or do you want to spend the whole time shitting on Jasque?"

  “Por que no los dos?”

  Wade threw up his hands, and Scotty perfectly matched his every cadence as Wade cried, "Why does everyone always choose both!"

  They ended up laughing.

  "Oh, yeah, that reminds me. Did you meet the two women I sent your way?"

  "The one with superb book taste and Shilloh?" his friend asked, tossing him his favorite cookies from a bakery in Scotty's town.

  "Yes. Did they successfully cajole you into training Shilloh?"

  "Sorta. I decided to hold off on a new DnD campaign with some of the guys in the caravan till I talked to you."

  Wade nodded, twisted off the bottle top, and savored the first taste of his cream soda. It. Was. Amazing.

  Though he had told himself he would not be taking processed sugars from Scotty, he had also skipped breakfast this morning and gone on an extra-long run, so that if he might have his will break, it would be okay. All of that exercise and hunger, combined with the first taste of a well-crafted soda after months of abstinence, conspired to give it a flavor that could not be matched.

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  He sat back and groaned. He could taste the cane sugar. The flowery taste of high-quality vanilla, the slightly thick feel of a drink with the perfect amount of perfectly viscous simple syrups. All the subtle favors hit him with so much intensity that he could all but see fireworks behind his eyes.

  "Holy shit," he breathed, holding up the glass to stare at it.

  "Yesss," his friend hissed in the nasally voice of a cartoon villain. "It remembers the dark side. It loves the dark side. It drinks of the dark side and repeats after me. 'Chicken should be fried. Fuck kale. Chicken should be deep-fried."

  Wade didn't respond. Just clinked the drink Scotty had gotten out for himself.

  His friend took a sip, shook his head, and made a passably accurate R2D2 scream.

  "Huh?"

  "This ginger beer just hit me like a can of mace in the sinuses."

  "Oh? Color me intrigued."

  They swapped sodas. Pretended they knew a damn thing about tasting notes, and Scotty continued to bring out 'just one more thing to try' until Wade was forced to cover his mouth with his hands to stop the onslaught of sugar, grease, and carbs.

  "Stop. I don't even want to know how many calories that was."

  Scotty nodded sagely, "That reminds me. We should try pemmican sometime."

  "No!" Wade laughed. "Bad enough that you had me try deep-fried butter last year."

  Scotty shrugged and sipped at the insanely strong ginger beer, "When in a state fair."

  There was nothing to do but shake his head. "Fine. But you really aren't going to do a D&D campaign so you can train Shilloh?"

  "I don't know. She's nice, and Birch is hilarious. The calmer I am, the wilder she gets. It's great. But I figured that I would still do some sessions. It's not like Shilloh will need anything super serious. Why? How bad does she need to learn?"

  Wade put his drink down. "She saw me using my abilities, but she was already listed as a high-value potential recruit. So recruitment was selected as a preferred means of maintaining silence. The NDA is signed, and we're taking her to Thresher to see where she'll fit into the program."

  The other man's glasses flashed, and he completely forgot the drink in his hands, letting it list to the side until it threatened to spill. "Like, support roles or something?"

  "At absolute worst, she'll be scouting. She's a cartographer and a dryad."

  Wade shared everything he had been told by Sam, and his friend was just as shocked as he had been to hear the potential value ascribed to her. He also talked about his time together with Shilloh in the forests, her ideas about buffer species, and gave a complete retelling of what he had seen her do.

  "Oh, man," Scotty smiled," I wish I could have seen the look on Jacque's face when all this came out. Someone at that tier of power, with crypto sympathies, who had been alone with the two of you in the woods for days? He must have shit a brick."

  The skinny bane laughed uproariously.

  Wade just shook his head. "He definitely was not a fan. But Sam said how useful she could be, and now Jasque is all about steering her to the program while wasting minimum training time."

  "Obviously. That's classic Jasque. Manipulate her into his worldview, but don't sacrifice the 'important' people. The interesting thing is, if she's that much of an asset to the program, then she can't be just a dryad."

  "Exactly," Wade said, ignoring the barbs, but reflexively glancing out the window to see where Jacque's car was. "I cannot for the life of me figure out what else she's hiding that could make her so useful."

  Scotty frowned and picked at he label of his drink, "Sam said the circumstances that made her useful couldn't be artificial?"

  "More or less."

  The two of them sat in silence for a bit, both lost in their own thoughts.

  Finally, his buddy broke the ice. "You said the two of you went out to get good southern food?"

  "It was amazing," he said with a fond grin.

  "Like amazing 'cause you were leaving Jasque's No-Fun Land,' or properly good?"

  "Properly good. The kind of food that fills you up all day."

  "And she went for it? Wasn't dainty?"

  He chuckled, remembering her pointing her fork at his eyes and threatening him with murderous finality when he had pretended like he was going to grab something off her plate. "No, she definitely carried her own weight."

  "Fine," the fussy bane sighed," I'll make sure she's as ready as she can be for Thresher. You think she'll be alright physically?"

  He waved that off, utterly unconcerned. "The lady is a fucking cartographer and field guide in the Croatan. And, from what I gathered, she did most of that without magic. No, the real thing for her will be the mindset and fit."

  "Yeah. She saw me with a sentient crypto and looked ready to fight me to protect it. Seemed surprised when I was also on its side. I don't think he has a glowing opinion of the Blightbanes."

  "She doesn't. Jasque wants to get her to read The Art of War and thinks he can get her sucked into training with us so she'll pick up the mindset."

  Scotty snorted, "Yeah, and I'll also decide to sell all my books and take on a life of minimalism. He thinks enough time training with him will make anyone see the light. I think we could be twice as charming, three times as rich, and still not change that woman's mind a damn bit if she didn't want it changed."

  That was true. Shilloh was not someone to be moved idly by the shifting winds of social pressure. He lifted his drink in acknowledgment of the point and took another sugary sip.

  "What I'll do," Scotty said, "is go hard on some training, but not like, break your spirit hard. Just like, build some pride, get stronger, and make her less likely to accidentally get shot during the trip, level of hard."

  "Okay. And?"

  "And I'll talk with her."

  He frowned, "Like, try to convince her about the mission?"

  "No dude, that's weird. I'll just talk with her and respect her opinions. You know, like an adult. If the opportunity comes up, I might ask if she knows anything about Godkiller and what her thoughts are."

  "I'm not sure that just listening will help?"

  "It won't necessarily. Thing is, if she's not a good fit, then she's not a good fit. Even if I could change her whole value system in four weeks, I wouldn't. That's not my right. Maybe she's on the fence, though. If she is, then I suspect talking to a bane who is more…"

  He trailed off, circling his drink in the air vaguely.

  "Moderate?" Wade asked.

  "More of a well-rounded human and less of an entitled, superior, extinction-machine who thinks only about his weird antihero roleplaying fettish."

  "Chill out, man. You're going unusually hard on the guy. It's not fair."

  "It's not?"

  "No. Slayers are Slayers. They can't help their focus."

  "No, Wade," the other man said, jabbing an emphatic finger towards him." That's an excuse. He has plenty of choices left about his behavior, just like other Slayers. He has leaned into the way his magic impacts his mind, and I will absolutely hold him accountable for that."

  "But—"

  "No. Seriously, have you stopped to consider how fucked up it is that someone who acts that anti-social because of 'his magic' is the one who decided how likely it is that your magic will impact your mind? It seems like projection and needing someone else to justify his own shitty mistakes might color his judgment."

  Wade just shook his head, not wanting to dive into it. "Whatever. But, you'll talk to her about Godkiller?"

  Scotty's mouth tightened, and his brows lowered. But he let it drop. "If it comes up, I will."

  Wade nodded, "Good. I can never tell what she'll say. But I think she'll understand."

  "If not, then there's nothing much we can do about it."

  The idea of her not being okay with the mask and mission briefly soured his stomach. It was painful to think about those two things excluding each other.

  However, he did not let himself think about what exactly made that thought so painful. Now was not the time for it. Wade took the concerns and all the imaginary talks with an imaginary Shilloh that he was having in his head and shoved them away.

  "No. I suppose not. Nothing to do but spend more time with the good stuff. Did you bring it?"

  Scotty snorted and pulled a carefully padded case out of his bag. "Pfft, did I bring it he asks. Who do you think I am?"

  The other man carefully opened up the case and pulled out a small field laptop. It had a near comical amount of casing, padding, and magical insulation around it.

  The two of them spent the rest of the day watching downloaded internet videos of people making above- and below-ground structures with not quite adequate tools. Scotty liked the off-grid stuff that was mostly power tools, chainsaws, and solar panels. Wade liked seeing the stuff you could do with a shovel, mud, a hand axe, and as few hand tools as possible.

  Putting the issue of recruits, Godkiller, bodyguards, and diets behind them, the two clinked fancy sodas and proceeded to critique things they knew nothing about.

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