Chapter Text
Connor points at the strange artifact that Washington holds, its golden shell emitting heat like the last huff a breath from a hunted deer. Almost in response to his movement, a flash of light bursts from the Apple and blinds him. It takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the bright midday sun; he finds himself on a riverbank, cloaked in animal pelts, and his mother alive in front of him. Later, the confusion, doubt, and tentative excitement settles down — another thought rolls to the front of Ratonhnhaké:ton’s mind.
You could meet her.
Sometime in between him killing Charles Lee and when Washington found Ratonhnhaké:ton in the forest, he had pursued a relationship with you. The time together had been short but blissful, filled with warmth and passions that Ratonhnhaké:ton thought could only exist for other people. It had already turned the man that he was before loving you into a stranger. Though this year had been filled with ache and hardship for himself and the Colonial Assassins, your company in his life has shone a bright spot unto his soul. Your love was the lighthouse guiding him away from dark storms onwards. If he sought you out and introduced the two of you, she would see the life he had built for himself even with the hardships he had faced. She would see the future that he has with the amazing woman that he had met.
But as he learns about King Washington rising to power he understands that the world he now finds himself in is different from the one he knows you in. If Ratonhnhaké:ton had never become Connor Kenway nor an Assassin, there is no chance that he has ever met you. The enthusiasm morphs into concern and fear as his mother explains that she is on the run from King Washington’s forces.
Like a stone cutting through a pond, his stomach drops, for both your safety and his mother’s. What would your life look like without him? Ratonhnhaké:ton told you before that you brought joy to this darkened time, but you had responded that he had saved you. After he had assassinated some Redcoats who were harassing the paupers around Boston, he had caught your eye. So did you catch his — he had never seen a woman wear pants before, nor such an obviously stolen outfit of a sailor’s uniform trousers, silk bodice embroidered with sparrows, and dark blue travelling cloak with subtle gold trim. The versatility of your outfit, especially with your collection of bonnets, helped you camouflage into any group of people.
The other street orphans who had survived to adulthood spoke of you like a leader for your sharp wit, speed climbing up the walls of buildings, and skill with all small blades. The initial relationship between the two of you was all business: you had helped him gather information, he had helped your community get rid of a few pests. But in the process he had observed that your enmity against the Redcoats could be directed to the Templars, your street-forged skills could be smithed to an Assassin-worthy level. After a month of investigation and incidentally getting to know each other, the two of you tracked down the British Captain who was embezzling money meant for poor relief.
The kill belonged to you. And the wealth that he had been stealing belonged to your community. That night, back at the Cortland Inn—your chosen meeting place with him—as you had washed your hands, Ratonhnhaké:ton had revealed his allegiances to you and asked you to join. Your agreement came as sure and as easy as the sun rose. Thus you transformed from a local community icon to a pillar of the Colonial Assassins and Ratonhnhaké:ton’s most loved one, later down the line.
Would you have been able to find that leader without him? Ratonhnhaké:ton thinks back to your patience, your sensitivity to any change in peace, and your ability to blend in with the crowd, practiced from years scoping out the streetscape for unsecured pockets and purses to rummage through. He considers your skill and does not doubt that you would have been able to find the embezzler. But he worries that without the assassins pulling back the curtain to reveal the Templars that your community would have continued to suffer, constantly working to trim down outside threats. In this much grimmer landscape would you have remained the same person? Would those keen eyes still look at him with appreciation and mischief and love? Or would they be tired of fighting, rageful sans purpose, or would they be closed forever? After Concord is meaninglessly brutalized, Ratonhnhaké:ton worries more for your future — it seems that no one survives King Washington’s tyranny. What were your chances on the Boston streets?
He must speculate longer. He and his mother return to Kanatahséton to warn the village of Washington’s impending attack. It is there where Ratonhnhaké:ton learns of the tea of the Great Willow and is given his father’s hidden blades by Kaniehtí:io. It is a strange feeling — nostalgia and melancholy at what is and what could have been between his father and himself. His mother watches his familiarity with the weapons and is bewildered.
“How would you feel if I were in love with a woman from Boston?” Ratonhnhaké:ton blurts, getting the feeling that it is now or never.
Confusion passes like clouds over Kaniehtí:io’s face. “You’ve never spoken to me of love, Ratonhnhaké:ton,” she says, then her expression softens. “But I fell in love with your father, different as we were. Who would I be to forbid the union? I would be happy for you no matter whom you choose. What do you wish to tell me?”
Ratonhnhaké:ton is just about to explain the strangeness of this world when Benedict Arnold, Israel Putnam, and Washington and his army attack. Regardless of his learned skills as an adult and an Assassin, Kaniehtí:io dies again at Washington’s hand. A scream of grief rips out of his throat before he is shot by a musket and swept away to dream.
Five months pass before he resurfaces in a cave with the surviving villagers. The combination being wholly powerless against his mother being murdered as well as all of the time that he had spent healing—and in his mind, useless—melts away his hesitation in imbibing in the Red Willow tea. Kaniehtí:io had warned him of the risks, how even the strongest man is turned into an unthinking beast the second he lifts a finger off of his composure. But what other choice does he have? How else can he fight against the might of Washington’s sceptre?
The tea is like liquid glass in his stomach, cutting and burning away his physical human body until he is spirit alone. The journey to obtain the skill of the wolf is difficult, testing him in ways wholly different from his assassin training. But the Spirit World accepts him and gives him a piece of their skills. It helps him kill Arnold, but it is not enough. The rest of the Kanien’kehá:ka are slaughtered and Ratonhnhaké:ton is imprisoned.
This cell that he finds himself in is just as filthy and cramped as the one that he had been stuck in for months after being framed for conspiring to murder Washington. This time, he will not have to be contained within these walls for long. This time, he cannot afford to stay.
Washington comes to review his gifts, Benjamin Franklin and Putnam following behind. As Putnam and Washington gloat, Franklin chimes in with a reminder of the two he had captured: a savage rebel who joined Sam Adams and a woman who had committed a salacious murder. Ratonhnhaké:ton’s interests are piqued — he is well to assume that the savage rebel is a friend. But what of the woman? Who could that be? After the three leave, it is easy to trick the Bluecoats into opening his cell door. Ratonhnhaké:ton makes quick work of the guards, switches their places with his, and slips out of his cell to find Kanen’tó:kon in the cell behind him. As they reunite, Ratonhnhaké:ton suddenly wants to commiserate about how their friendship ended and must bite back that desire. By now, he thinks that he has accepted that this world is a completely different one; no one but himself has memories of the true world.
The cell key is not with the few pieces of his equipment. As he turns his head to look for it, he stops dead in his tracks. His borrowed animal senses are directing him to a faint scent at the end of the hall. The familiarity is burning his heart. It is nothing like the air of the prison and warehouse, nothing like the gunpowder and damp wood panels.
It is comforting after hardship like the first breeze of spring, soothing like the sun-warm bay, strong like the brickwork walls of the city, and teasing with a hint of stolen castile soap. He knows that smell — he knows it as deeply and familiarly as his own skin. Ratonhnhaké:ton has mentored it, scouted with it, climbed buildings with it. He has woken with that smell beside him, gone to sleep with it wrapped around his body. His legs push him to the darkened cell door, hoping desperately that the figure shrinking in the corner isn’t you.
At the noise of feet shuffling, you raise your head, locking eyes with a strange man standing outside of your cell door, broad as a bear. The torchlight behind him barely illuminates the grim expression on his face. Dread rises like the tide inside of him, bursting your name from his lips, the word rattling his chest like an autumn breeze shaking leaves from a tree. In response, your posture straightens, like that of a corpse stiffening.
“Are you going to kill me?” You ask, voice sharp yet emotionless. “Is it for the Bluecoats or someone else?”
There is no spark of recognition in your eyes. There is nothing at all. He wants to wrench open the cell door and have you in his arms again, as if his embrace can release you from your change in demeanour.
“No,” he says slowly, trying to not let you hear his alarm lest it scare you further. “I am not here to kill you. I have not been sent by anyone.”
Your morbid acceptance grows an edge of suspicion. “Then why’d you speak my name?” The words come swiftly.
“I — ” He stops. I know your name because you have given it to me, I know your name because it is one of my favourite words in the world. The sweetness in my mouth is beyond anything I have ever tasted before.
“I have heard about you,” he says, then quickly spins a tale; he is the spider, your belief is the fly. “From the orphans. They have told me that you are a good person. They have told me that you do not deserve to rot in jail.”
With that, you just stare at him, perfectly unreadable. Do you appreciate the fact that he is talking with the other street kids? Are you relieved that someone has come to save you? If his words delight, offend, or stupify you, he could not tell. A pair of eyes once bright with hope, thoughtfulness, and affection as soft as velvet, look into his own. No longer — they are as void and withdrawn as the sky of a new moon.
And then he notices how much weight you’ve lost, visible through the thick prison dress you are wearing. Ratonhnhaké:ton had not considered that seeing you in a state like this would be possible, how unbearable it would be. Out of everyone that he has lost already, your sunlight being dampened is a wound on his very soul. You imprisoned in this state is a fear that he did not know he had. Washington will pay for this.
He quietly unlocks your cell door. Tentatively, you walk forwards, like a stray dog approaching a hot meal. Ratonhnhaké:ton can tell by the shift of your eyes that you are suspicious of his help, that you are thinking that there must be a poisonous bite to this gift. In the original world, you were initially apprehensive to accept a stranger’s help but quickly warmed up to him — what would have become of that wariness these past bleak few months? Only looking at you does Ratonhnhaké:ton have his answer. It has thrived, eating up all of your kindness and hope.
Stupidly and perhaps selfishly, Ratonhnhaké:ton expects you to rush into his arms, to sigh gratefully, to let his strong frame welcome you back to freedom. But that is not the person you are to him right now. Instead of presenting him with your relief, you keep the face of your suspicion up like a shield; you stand a couple paces away from him, seemingly safe from any trap he would potentially unleash.
“I saw Putnam drag you in. No way you risk your freedom to break a murderer out of jail for some street kids.”
Ratonhnhaké:ton hides his shock well; the only tension you saw from him was his twitching brow. The first time you had taken a life, Ratonhnhaké:ton had demonstrated how necessary it was for the flame to be extinguished. You didn’t see yourself as a murderer, only an Assassin. You had no pleasure nor grief in the act, only courage. Now, you sling the word out so easily that it frightens him.
“And no way you do this for free,” you say, narrowing your eyes slightly. “What do you want from the Corties?”
Questions want to burst from his lips. He bites them all back, taking half of a heartbeat before he replies and sells the illusion. “I am in need of information. King Washington must die. I must know everything about him and his army.”
There is no reaction to his words. The statement doesn’t seem to move you. If you are used to hearing someone wanting to assassinate the king, you do not show it. Perhaps you think that he is crazy, perhaps you think that he will fail and that you will not need to repay your debt to him.
Even so, you agree. Without needing so much as a beat to think about it, you nod. It was done lacking despair, amusement, annoyance — you just agree. Ratonhnhaké:ton doesn’t know what to make of it; how much should he be concerned? He doesn’t express it, instead informing you of his and Kanen’tó:kon’s plan for escape. The three of you move like specters into the warehouse where the Bluecoats had stored the rest of Ratonhnhaké:ton’s gear after he uses the power of the Wolf to sweep the room clean.
You are astounded after watching a man turn invisible but only allow your eyes to widen. Curiosity should be biting at you—of which he would be happy to indulge you—but you ask nothing and he does not wish to test your limits. He dismisses you to meet him at the Cortland Inn.
Your beloved Cortland — he remembers the first time you had met him there; the words that were exchanged became more and more relaxed, more personable, more flirty. Now, the dulled stare of his lover bores into his own, cold as marble. Back when Achilles was mentoring Ratonhnhaké:ton, he would occasionally tell him stories from across the world. You remind him of the Greek myth of Medusa wherein those who gazed upon her were turned to stone. Here is where he gains his strength, here is where he lets his heart become unbreakable so that it does not hurt him if there is no romance to be found with you in this universe.
Relief twitches in your face when you are to be gone from the supernatural man. In the blink of an eye, you scramble up the wall and out of a broken window. Wistfully, Ratonhnhaké:ton watches you leave, your form getting harder and harder to make out as it retreats on the rooftops.
Kanen’tó:kon suddenly grabs Ratonhnhaké:ton’s shoulder. “Don’t you know who that was?” He asks in Kanien’kéha, words hissing together.
Ratonhnhaké:ton does, saying your name in confirmation.
“The Bluebird Ripper,” Kanen’tó:kon says. “Sam Adams and the Second Rebellion used to work with her and her gang until she was arrested. She killed five Bluecoats in the alleyway behind the Cortland Inn. Bit the manhood off of one of them.”
Later, Ratonhnhaké:ton would feel his jaw ache from how long and hard he had been clenching it. More and more questions come with every mention of you. The one that rises above them all is the reason for your crime. It is impossible for him to imagine you killing five men sans purpose. But what about you maiming one one of your attackers? How much rage or desperation pushed you into it? Which is worse?
Either option fills him with dread, heavy enough to break the floor beneath him. This world is more cruel than he expected; if someone as unshakably kind as you could be changed like this, he must rely more on the help of animal spirits. After his five-month coma, Ratonhnhaké:ton drank the Red Willow tea—directly disobeying his mother’s wishes—to bring peace to the chaotic world that he found himself in, yet it wasn’t enough. And now he must do so again. How many times must he desecrate her grave, her last wishes to save the people under Washington’s boot?
His second visit to the Sky World gives him the aid of the eagle; his new abilities and Kanen’tó:kon by his side are a force that let them leave the warehouse undetected and nearly slay Franklin. Yet just as Franklin voices his confusion, Washington rips them away; the power of the Apple is more than Ratonhnhaké:ton could ever imagine. A small part of him understands why he has clung to the Apple, even as Ratonhnhaké:ton is being tormented by the giant phantom of his mother. The guilt that tears at him is almost as painful as the effect of the tea.
Kanen’tó:kon wakes him in a different alley than the one he attacked Franklin in. He reintroduces him to Sam Adams, now the leader of the Second Rebellion in Boston, and all left for the safehouse. The cobblestone streets of Boston are an ever evolving tapestry of the King’s cruelty: civilians rush as if hunted, hanged bodies rot in their nooses, and every Bluecoat is raring to attack him for the crime of existing.
Ratonhnhaké:ton keeps to the skies; he does not want to give them the chance. Though a primal, red voice inside of him tells him to snarl at the Bluecoats who dare look his way, to drop down from the rooftops he soars over upon and take his prey. The thought startles him when it boils to life; the longer he is in the reality that the Apple created, the more he forgets himself. In the few moments where he transforms back into a human, he runs his fingers over the scar where the Bluecoats shot him, just as he lost his mother and before he disobeyed her.
Time is running out. The Red Willow tea is slowly crushing his soul, loosening his grip on his humanity, sinking him into a world of pure power and senseless violence.
He reaches the mildewy, cramped basement Kanen’tó:kon calls a safehouse and balks at the size of the Second Rebellion. Half of a dozen weary British soldiers stare at him with all the hope they can muster; they look at him like he is a cup of water in a bucket of black ink.
Adams explains that they were planning to leave Boston for New York, lest his rebels be crushed. Ratonhnhaké:ton considers your safety as Adams speaks about the prisoners that he wants to rescue.
“We used to get information from the Bluecoats in the Cortland Inn,” Adams says. “This was before the Bluebird Ripper—”
“Do not speak of her with that title,” Ratonhnhaké:ton hisses. The sudden outburst instantly quiets the other rebels in the room, like a cold snap freezing the last green of fall.
Kanen’tó:kon frowns in confusion while Sam Adams clears his throat, careful when he continues. “—Before your friend was arrested. Now, the Bluecoats stay clear of it. They scatter to smaller taverns around the harborfront.” Adams points to the map.
“Your friend told us this,” Kanen’tó:kon says, trying to hide the suspicion in his tone. “She is determined to repay her debt.”
“Your appearance draws attention,” Adams says. “But she said that she could help take care of that particular issue. Nevertheless, you should be able to find some information as to Franklin’s movements.”
Before Ratonhnhaké:ton leaves for the Cortland Inn, Kanen’tó:kon stops him. “I do not fully understand the way that you know the Bluebird — er, you know who I mean. But I ask you as a friend to be careful around her. Before her arrest, Adams and I saw her work sometimes. She is like a bobcat, unpredictable up until the kill. I do not know if it is worse now.”
Ratonhnhaké:ton wants to say that he knows you better than Kanen’tó:kon does, but he stops himself, smugness dying like the embers of a campfire. Does Ratonhnhaké:ton really know you better than Kanen’tó:kon? Perhaps not in this life. In the other, Ratonhnhaké:ton would be sure that he knew you better than his childhood friend, especially after Kanen’tó:kon’s betrayal. The remembrance is like a shot of ice in his heart.
“I will be alright,” he says simply, and goes before another word is spoken.
If Ratonhnhaké:ton were to be completely honest with himself, he had not expected that you would show up. As Kanen’tó:kon had reminded him, he does not know you as well in this reality. Caginess has a habit of encouraging people to run, to sneak aboard onto the next ship out of America. Despite his uncertainty, he made his way to the Cortland Inn as the sun crawled to its summit, recognizing it by the red front door with a streak of living vines across the paint. There was much more he was familiar with from the inside — the same exposed brickwork, faded wooden paneling, and mismatched bar furniture. The air is hazy from a well-maintained fireplace, the tang of different liquors, and cooking spices wafted through the inn.
When he walks closer to the barkeep, no one harasses him, no one mutters insults under their breath, no one is unhappy he is here. The men inside only nod at him in acknowledgement. It feels like a piece of his world, like the original Cortland Inn he knows by way of you. He even sees some of Faulkner’s crew. How could it have been this untouched over the months that Washington has been king?
A lot is the same, but not everything. There is a current of danger in the air, like a cold riptide. He can smell different tea leaves, a man who reeks of spices, the smoke from a pair of Havana cigars. Another man swirls red wine in a glass, gesturing to the Spanish label to the other sitting in front of him. So many golden teeth and silver pocketwatches catch the light. This is not just a place of community, this is a place of business.
The barkeep is grinning warmly soon before surprisingly, Ratonhnhaké:ton smells you—albeit less strong and coated with soap—from where you hid in the shadows.
“Hello, fella,” the barkeep says kindly. “She’s in the corner over there. On the house.” A well-used earthenware mug filled with fizzing apple cider is pushed in front of him.
As he strolls over to you, Ratonhnhaké:ton turns the heads of the inn in respect. He is pleased that you still have your community, yet one thing he can’t help recognizing is the lack of women around. Back in his world, there would be women milling about, in the band, drinking alongside the men, laughing and dancing freely. Growing up on the unforgiving streets would forge its own equality, mirrored through your Cortland Inn. At this moment the women are few and far between.
One is speaking frantically with you, obviously on the verge of tears. He watches as you nod sympathetically and speak comforting words to her, him hanging back as you take care of the situation. After handing her an embroidered coin purse—obviously nicked from a Bluecoat captain—and sending her off, you motion him over by locking eyes with him and a flick of your head.
You have shed your prison uniform for a baggier, duller version of what you usually wear; you have turned into a cloth suggestion of a person, something easier to disappear into.
Ratonhnhaké:ton slides into the seat in front of you, it’s leather creaking softly under his weight. If this were his world, he would have put a gentle hand on your shoulder to greet you, later sneaking a peck if the spot that you had picked was secluded enough. Hello, darling, you would have said, beaming at him from across the table. Now he finds no friendliness from you, only dark caution in your eyes, shielded like the sky during a storm.
“Can’t believe you haven’t skipped town,” you say, taking a sip from your own mug of ale. From the lack of burn to his nostrils, he could tell that it wasn’t strong at all — did you want to stay sharp for your conversation with him or did you want clean water after who knows how long in prison?
“I am needed here,” he says. “I will not abandon my duty.”
You scoff, staring at him without suspicion but without approval either. “You sound like Adams. I asked about you, the man with the wolf-hood, when I got in contact with him. Said you ain’t talked to him yet. Couldn’t believe you weren’t already a member of his merry band of rebels when you freed me.”
“But you passed information on the Bluecoats to him anyway?” He asks. “Why take the chance if neither of us are acquainted yet?”
“In the warehouse, Kanen’tó:kon was with you as a friend. I know that he’s a part of Adams’ rebellion. Keep up, would you?”
Ratonhnhaké:ton presses his lips together to suppress his smile. Although he is glad that you still have your wit and sass—what he had first liked about you—he is unsure of if you were actually insulting him. Even though your tone was dull and your face flat, there was a shade of humor on your face.
“Tell me, why does Franklin still live?” you ask.
“Washington interfered when I tried to kill him,” he says. “With the power of his sceptre.”
“I see. Then how’d you hope to defeat ol’ Georgie?”
“I have the power of animal spirits on my side. They are the only thing that can challenge his power. No one else can do what I do; it will be me or nobody.”
Intrigue alights in your eyes, as brief as the striking-flint of a rifle — there and quickly gone again. The words he spoke stunned you; your eyebrow was slightly raised as you realized that the man sitting in front of you had a virtuous heart beating away in his chest. He had not said it boastfully nor naively idealistic or with a clear desire for praise; Ratonhnhaké:ton had said it with all the melancholic conviction that his life demanded.
He could see the gears turning and turning in your head, your gaze down and darting across the table as you consider what his desire for justice means for you and the favour you owe him. Your help must be worth the life you paid for it.
“Uh huh,” you say. “I — haven’t heard that one before. I see why you’ve joined Sammy Adams.”
It takes only a moment for you to collect yourself again. “Now, I don’t doubt that you’re a powerful man, but I think that you’re walking into death with the Second Rebellion.”
You lean forwards slightly, resting on your forearms. He waits for your gaze to melt his heart, but it remains steely cold and discerning.
“Listen,” your voice is low and warm, “No one’ll recognize you in Canada or England. With our beloved king shipping off so many people to New York, it’s unbelievably easy to slip away from all of this. I get you anywhere you wanna go and we’ll call it even, hm?”
He shakes his head. “I have told you that I will free these lands from Washington. It is a responsibility I do not take lightly.”
As you sit back up, he sees that you are not taken aback at his answer yet somewhat satisfied. Ratonhnhaké:ton feels like he has just been tested. “Mm — I suppose anyone who escapes a warehouse crawling with Bluecoats has a chance. What do you need?”
“Adams told me that you know where the Bluecoats gather for a drink. I must discover Franklin’s movements, but I cannot be in multiple places at once. I need men who can eavesdrop and relay information back to me.”
Interestingly, the men you call on for the mission are his Boston assassin recruits; Stephane Chapheau, Clipper Wilkinson, and Duncan Little are now part of the Corties. If someone could train you, if Achilles were around or if he himself had more time, Ratonhnhaké:ton is sure that you would be able to stoke the flames of the Colonial Assassins. But you are not part of the Second Rebellion, you only work with them to benefit your needs. Adams must have never explained the larger picture to you.
While the three men go to their duties, you and him make your way into the last of the taverns, the busiest option where two more bodies slinking to the back of the room would not be noticed. You nod to the bartender who nods back, then gestures to the band. They play a merrier, dancing tune to drown out the sound of discreetness — Ratonhnhaké:ton suddenly feels a bit more safe amongst the booze-stoked aggressive hate of the Bluecoats. As the two of you sit at a board game, he manages to overhear a soldier complaining about a letter he had to deliver from Franklin to Putnam. He uses his eyes to gesture to the man and you nod back. As you both follow the soldier outside, you get to work creating a distraction.
Your work is masterful; he knows you would do it in either life. He watched as you gathered up the young street kids—although they rushed with you questions about where you had been, you quickly led them to the task at hand—and paid them to put on a show in front of the soldier, attracting a crowd which the soldier tried to shove his way through. No one noticed a hand straying to a pocket when the children turned into a human ladder.
The letter stated that Franklin would meet Putnam at the docks. In this world, Ratonhnhaké:ton is unsure as if you are ready for a mission like this — to assassinate soldiers undetected with no one but the moon to shield your actions. Discreetly, the letter is returned to the messenger while you praise the children, and Ratonhnhaké:ton realizes that you will have to repay his favour in installments. This world is too complicated for such simplicity.
“I will go to the docks and await Franklin,” he says, and with that you also realize that the repayment will not come all at once.
Over the few hours that you have worked together, you and Ratonhnhaké:ton grew closer for you to be able to read him better. It has been the smallest step forwards, like the size that the heart grows when it beats. Irritation buzzes across your face that you are not done with your favour. It is chased away by unwilling tolerance — one distraction and one letter is not worth him breaking you out of jail. Even though you could so easily refuse him.
But that is not the person you are or will ever be. When Ratonhnhaké:ton uses the power of the eagle in the city, he flies high enough that the stench of decay dissipates. There, the atmosphere is cold yet slightly sweet and clear: a mark of winter, which has not yet collided with the city. In spite of the risk that the snow brings, it will be a marvelous wonderland if one knows how to navigate the terrible coldness. The version of you within this universe is exactly like that. And is there not something refreshing about the cold?
“You know where to meet me,” you say neutrally, and vanish into a mob of people.
Franklin is easy to isolate and nearly assassinate — but like at the warehouse, severe pain breaks the glassy spell over him. He is suddenly clear-minded enough for regret, just as Arnold was in his last moments. It is like fog clinging to the mountaintop that begins to dissipate; Ratonhnhaké:ton’s arrows are the beams of morning sun. But through all his work, he has barely affected you. There have been minor changes in your demeanor but not enough for a difference.
Ratonhnhaké:ton thinks about the way you looked at him throughout this mission — the way your eyes move in this world, what he has seen from only the most broken of men. If eyes are windows to the soul, yours have the curtains drawn, shutters closed, and he can only see small traces of a flame passing.
What has caused this? Has it been Washington’s rule or your time imprisoned? What could have led you to killing five Bluecoats and mutilating one?
If Franklin had brought you to Washington as a gift, he must know more. It is a rare fortune for Ratonhnhaké:ton that Franklin remembers your information well; one of his generals had overseen your arrest and thought that you would make a great addition to the King’s collection of degenerates. The general was looking for ways to ship you to the King when Franklin had learned of his underling’s ambitions, ordered the man tied to a horse and dragged through town before a public beheading, and moved you from your jail to the warehouse with Kanen’tó:kon and Ratonhnhaké:ton. Shame moves through Franklin as he explains the events, going overboard with the general’s punishment and being prepared to give an innocent man to Washington to do whatever he likes with him.
“But you feel no guilt over her imprisonment?” Ratonhnhaké:ton asks.
Franklin’s jaw clenches. “She killed five men and bit off the manhood—”
“—the manhood of one, I know,” he cuts him off. “What do you think Washington would have done with her? Let her explain her actions? His punishment of her would make what you did to your general look like a mercy in comparison.”
“I do not believe the Bluebird Ripper deserves mercy.”
The rage that strikes Ratonhnhaké:ton is like lightning; it wants to jump to Franklin’s conductive words and shove them back into his mouth.
“How dare you speak of her like that?” Ratonhnhaké:ton asks, growling a bit due to his lowered voice. He raises his fist close enough for Franklin to see and unsheathes his hidden blade. “Have I not granted you more than you deserve? Have I not shown you mercy? I know that you believe that you are worth more than your worst moments. I beseech you to apply your logic to others.”
Franklin has been backed into the wall, his trembling fear the only emotion he allows himself to show. The intellectual inside him being threatened wants to be defensive — in the original world, he would debate Ratonhnhaké:ton until he turned blue in the face, but he is smart enough to know when to not speak up.
“Where was she initially imprisoned?” Ratonhnhaké:ton asks, sheathing his blade and ire.
“The penitentiary on Newbury Street; it’s beneath the Office of the Duke of Boston,” Franklin says. As Ratonhnhaké:ton turns to leave, he can hear Franklin calling after him. “Even if you burn the entire building down, it doesn’t change what she’s done.”
For such a grand name, the Office of the Duke of Boston is an unassuming timber-framed building that sits half a story shorter than the others it is sandwiched by. The exterior is so dark that it is nearly invisible against the evening smog. It is almost embarrassingly easy to break inside; the administrative floor is too confused by Franklin’s sudden disappearance to notice a gust of wind floating to the basement where the penitentiary sits.
Two bored guards have been assigned to the fifty or so men all crammed into the six parallel cells; Ratonhnhaké:ton knocks them both unconscious and ties them to the bars before scowling at the state of the basement. A sour rot makes him gag and cover his mouth.
No men cry out when they witness him take out two guards; they look right through him even when he is visible. The penitentiary he went to after being framed for conspiring to murder Washington was rowdy, all the men violently exhibiting the unspent energy festering inside them. How can the men not even flinch? This prison is muffled by a heavy silence, as if the men inside are already dead. More likely is that they’ve had the fight beaten out of them.
By the entrance sits a bottom-heavy mahogany desk that is filled with the latest arrest records. Ratonhnhaké:ton rolls open the drawers, searching the leather spines for the correct date. When he finds the register from three and a half months ago, he pours through the entries for your name. The records are extremely sloppy; crucial details are left out — first names, ages, even reasons for arrest.
All but one, halfway through the book. Your full name, scrawled in the neat cursive of a learned man with all the body information an officer would need to recognize you. It jumps out of the page amongst the messier writing of the other arrests. Kanen’tó:kon had spoken true; you were found untangling yourself from the limbs of a dead Bluecoat officer, four others littered through the dark alleyway, blood dripping from your mouth and onto your chest, an unmistakable flesh appendage sitting at spitting distance from your victim.
Disbelief pushes him into a moment of unreality. The room tilts and he tilts with it. Your words ring true. You are a murderer. You maimed a man before killing him.
But why? He snaps back down to the thought that there must be more. The prisoners know nothing about you; there is a high turnover rate to execution or enslavement in New York. As he goes to ask the guard, stirring in his restraints, he stares at the cramped men and despairs that it is unlikely that you were separated by gender. Ironically, the reputation gained from your crime must have protected you.
“The Bluebird Ripper,” Ratonhnhaké:ton says, pulling the guard’s head up by his hair, straining his body against the bounds of the rope. “Tell me what you know.”
“She was here for nearly four months,” he says, voice squeaking. “The general wanted a worse punishment for her than death. He kept her here to lure in some of her friends, beat them around in front of her. Then Franklin heard of it, killed ’im and took her somewhere else. I dunno where she is now, I swear.”
“Why did she do it?”
“What — I dunno, she’s crazy.”
“Not good enough.” Ratonhnhaké:ton twists the man’s head up, placing his hidden blade to the bulb of his neck.
“Okay, okay. Uh, John, one of the men she killed, would come back from the Cortland with his buds and talk about a birdie they’d saw around for a while. She avoided them real well and they ain’t used to that, you know? They got fed up.”
The noise that escapes Ratonhnhaké:ton’s throat is more of a wolf’s snarl than anything human. But wolves hunt in packs. Among the reek of the prison is a short current of hatred, sparked to life when he restrained the guards.
“This is the man who has kept you here,” Ratonhnhaké:ton says to the cells. “Listen to what he says. This is the morally corrupt army that has promised you freedom and has instead put you in chains. There is nothing they will not devour. I have seen it just as you have. Concord has been burnt to the ground, everyone in my village has been killed, and you are all in line to be executed for nearly nothing. Is this the life you prefer over British rule?”
His words are precise, landing like arrows in their target. It whips up the latent anger of the prisoners, a whirlpool bringing a shipwreck up from the bottom of the ocean.
“Ignore this savage,” the guard says. “King Washington has been instructed by God and holds His power in his sceptre. If you refuse him, you refuse God.”
“Is that not the exact argument King George had made when he declared war on us?”
Ratonhnhaké:ton rips the keys to the cells from the guard’s belt and throws it to the men behind him, it jingling between the desperate palms. Now the anger has turned into a mumbling, restrained wrath as the doors unlock with a heavy click, one after the other. All of the men have been freed — they crowd around Ratonhnhaké:ton and the two guards, waiting to see what he will say or do next.
This kill does not belong to him, Ratonhnhaké:ton knows it does not. So he makes no effort to stop the frenzied men from creeping forwards. At the mercy of so many, the guard is still fiercely loyal to a man who would not care if he lived or died. Ratonhnhaké:ton looks into his eyes and cannot tell if it is the power of the sceptre still influencing him or if he really believes what he is saying.
“We will not give up one tyrant for another,” Ratonhnhaké:ton says.
The hidden blade shallowly cuts his neck, drawing enough blood to inflame the men around him.
“Hail King Washington,” the guard screeches as the swarm of prisoners rip their way to freedom, back into the core of their fury and get their will to resist back. The building is torn apart in a flurry of clawing hands and impromptu weapons. The only thing he saves is your jail register, safely tucked under his arm when the prisoners create a pile of books in the centre of the Office.
He leaves for the Second Rebellion hideout before they light their bonfire; Adams still will not accept Franklin’s help but allows him to tell Ratonhnhaké:ton about the key to Washington’s castle. Even at the metalsmith that Franklin mentioned was loyal to him, your actions are swirling in his mind. Unprecedented amounts of rage and fear and desperation have pushed you into such a crime. Yet the way you admitted to your deeds, the way you wear your title is like it was a shameful thing you were born with and not what you were entirely justified for. You must learn to live with it, to not let these deaths weigh upon you, to swim rather than sink or this world loses another good soul.