[Carillon]

The smell of blood hung in the air. It assaulted her nostrils as soon as they turned the corner, and for a moment Jaelle thought she would retch. Normally the scent didn't bother her, but she knew too well whose blood this might be.

When they saw the butcher, she relaxed for a moment, able to rationalize the source of the smell and connect it to the neat sides of meat hung on the iron hooks of his wheeled cart. The moment lasted as long as it took her to notice the watchful demeanor of the man, and the way he scanned the crowd. The second his expression changed as his eyes touched Connor's blue coat and she realized he was waiting for them, all her calm dissipated.

She heard the words he spoke to them, and she didn't. Her mind was already racing as the butcher stepped forward and greeted Connor. Her eyes were on the package in his outstretched hands, the offering ... if questioned later, she would not have been able to say what had passed between them.

Her stomach twisted and she thought seriously about being ill right there on the cobblestones. She could feel the tension in the air. Watched Connor open the box. Heard the deafening drum of her own pulse in her head as he revealed three neat packages of flesh, and the butcher wheeled his cart away, task completed.

She stood and stared, her expression frozen. This was not the time. Later, when they were alone. Later, when her temper would not jeopardize the last living child he had taken. She tried to silently recite the entire scrying ritual that she had been practicing to keep her calm—backwards. It wasn't working.

And then he stepped out from behind a building, laughing at them. “Forgive my little joke, but you should have seen the looks on your faces!” She wanted to punch him. She wanted to kill him. She wanted to unman him. Unable to do any of these things, she ignored him and focused instead on the child beside him.

If it were possible to communicate through one's thoughts alone, Jaelle still believes that she would have done it that day. She worked on making her gaze gentle and reassuring. Everything about her body was meant to calm the frightened girl—her smile, the way she held her hands, the way she held the girl's gaze. She tried very hard not to notice the half-orc's touch on her fair skin, or when he bent his nose to her golden hair and sniffed, as if catching the bouquet of a delicate perfume. She knew he was taunting them. She still wanted to kill him for it.

And then it mattered not at all, for he was letting go and sending her over to them. The terrified seven-year-old fairly flew across the gap between them, and buried her head into Jaelle's skirts, shaking. Jaelle's arms were around her, and her voice whispered in her ear. Dully, she knew that Connor and the monster were still talking, were beginning the dance of bargaining that would secure the life of the youngest boy, or declare it forfeit. Lissa trembled and clung to her, and Jaelle tried to make a shield of her arms, and to block out for the child what the half-orc was saying about the fate that might await the boy, or how he had forced Lissa to cut out Liam's eye herself.

She would snap if she stayed. In a moment's certainty, she knew this. Connor was there, and Anna, and Argali and all the others. Someone would finish the negotiations. She trusted Connor's control far more than she did her own. In a flash, she scooped the little golden child up into her arms. She was seven, and no longer light, but she found the strength. She murmured a meeting place to Connor and saw him nod out of the corner of her eye. She didn't wait for him to reply. She was already turning, carrying the child away from the docks and from the monster she already knew would haunt her nightmares.