Pact

I hated doing nothing, being stalled like this. It was in the quiet moments that I felt like trouble would start breathing down my neck.

It wasn’t that he was being hurtful. He was, but it was the kind of hurt I had to trust to those close to me to provide. That any of us did. The sort of truth that one didn’t want to hear. The sort of truth, even, that one might not immediately appreciate, that could test the friendship.

“So,” I said, “Alexis, Ty, maybe even Tiff, this might a moment that your entire life has been leading up to.”
“All moments are moments our entire life has been leading up to,” Ty said.
“I know,” I said. I had to suppress a sigh. “But I wanted to be dramatic and clever, and there aren’t many ways to do that without lying.”

“We should meet up with Maggie, then start working on the plan to free up your ability to use magic,” Rose said. “If we can’t come up with a plan A, we’re going to have to go with her plan B.”
“You know a plan sucks when it’s the plan B before you even have a plan A,” Alexis said.

Even something so small as a rat can bite, when sufficiently cornered.

“It’s a simple choice. Family or power?”
“Family is power,” Laird said.

“I thought I might save it for a really bad situation.”
“As opposed to being on the brink of death, surrounded by enemies, people you cherish dying?”

In the movies and on TV, being aware of imminent harm is a good thing. You can brace yourself, dodge, do little things to minimize the impact of it.
In the movies and on TV, being in shock bought you time to function before the pain kicked in.
Wrong and wrong.

"Negotiation has to be possible between us, or you wouldn’t have agreed to hear us out.”
“Agree to give me the territory, and I won’t kill you right now. There. Negotiations done.”

Once upon a time, when humans weren’t much more than animals, we relied on our dogs to scare off the Others who wanted to prey on us and do mischief. Cats hunted and fought with the lesser Goblins, returning to owners with torn ears or small injuries. They still have those instincts. To destroy things of darkness, foulness and blight, before rot can set in.