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Oscar gifts me a bottle of rhubarb gin. Jack from the Joker gave it to him last summer, but he doesn’t drink at home anymore. Because I am alone at night and I need to be more careful.

I understand that as much as he seemed to understand the glitch in my matrix when the lights went out.

I don’t understand why it’s so hard to walk away from him. Or why I do it anyway.

I’m halfway home before I notice the rest of Porth Luck in total darkness. A power cut—the farm is out too, and it bothers me enough that I don’t go to bed. I light candles and plaster my bedroom walls instead, the way my brother’s friend taught me when Folk was gone and I thought I didn’t want to be a farmer anymore.

Ranger made it look easy.

It takes me all night to cover three walls.

By dawn, I’m knackered, but reasonably confident it’ll stick. Though, contemplating why I’ve gone hell for leather on this room instead of any other is a trip. One that lasts until my new employee shows up for work and I find myself face to face with Dav Bosanko again.

As ever, he waits at the gate, but he seems to gauge the second he lays eyes on me something has shifted since we last spoke. “Someone told you I’m no good, eh?”

Tired, I lean against a fence post, reliving the conversation I had with his son last night. The son Oscar kissed in front of me last night and had me feeling all kinds of things before I got a hold of myself and learned Sol is with Jack. “Not exactly. Your boy vouched for you.”

Dav looks away.

I wait. I don’t mind awkward conversations. Nuance is precious and I have enough to think about to keep myself occupied while Dav works through whatever’s going on behind his flat stare.

Crops.

Oscar.

Vehicle maintenance.

Oscar.

Too late, I notice Dav’s mouth moving again. “…my boy is too good to me.”

Yeah, I got that from everyone else, and my encounter with Sol went exactly as Folk said it would. “I don’t care about the past,” I cut in as Dav takes a breath. “And I don’t have much worth nicking right now. Are you going to rob my tractor?”

“No, lad.”

“My combine?”

“No.”

I stare hard at Dav and he lets me. As though he knows my conscience is at war with common sense. And what do you do to end a war?

Compromise.

“You can work the fields for now. Clear the scrub and the rocks. Gather the old fencing from the boundaries. Stay away from the house.”

I can’t hear my voice, but I see my tone land with Dav, and his wily old mind decipher it.

“Are you one of them?”

“One of who?”

“The Kings.”

“No.” I push off the fence post. “Come find me later and we’ll talk about money. Stay out of the barn too, in case the roof falls on your head.”

If Dav speaks again, I’m not there to see it. I send him to the uppermost field on the farm to start gathering scrub and fallen branches. Then I go back inside and shower a night of plastering from my skin. Shower Oscar from my skin and I don’t like that any more than I liked leaving him last night.

He wanted you to stay.