Chapter 793: Time

Alex returned to Proxima after telling Luna where he was going.

She had wanted Mingyue to sit beside them before anyone left again. Alex waited while Mingyue told her about the woman from the water-control building. Then he explained that people outside needed to know who would help them.

Luna asked how long that would take.

"Until we divide the work," he said.

"That isn’t a time."

Petricia said nothing from beside the chair.

Alex looked at the food someone had brought for their daughter. She had pushed it aside while waiting for Mingyue.

"We’ll come back before your next meal."

Luna made him repeat that both of them were coming. Petricia agreed to stay until the meal and drew her chair beside Luna’s. Only then did their daughter let go of his sleeve.

Now he stood in the room where Thepes remained restrained, looking at the people Dorian had brought together.

The gray-haired loyalist stood nearest the doorway. A stocky vampire with a torn coat had placed himself beside a younger woman from the same group, while Selene stayed close enough to the entrance to see the treatment route.

Dorian had laid a rough map of the surrounding streets on a flat piece of rubble.

Alex wanted the discussion finished before another patient had to wait because two groups were arguing over a cart.

"Everyone fighting in this district answers to Dorian," he said. "Selene handles the wounded and the route to Edonia. Bring your supplies to the receiving ground so we know what we have."

The loyalist bowed his head.

The stocky vampire did not move.

"All our supplies?" he asked.

"The ones we can use here."

"We brought enough for our people to stay alive. Some of us have families who haven’t come out yet."

"Then tell Selene how many."

"And ask her permission before I take our own food back?"

Alex looked at him.

The man kept one hand against his coat, close to a weapon, but his attention stayed on the map rather than Alex’s throat.

He had come ready for a demand he did not intend to accept.

"We can’t defend the place if every group keeps its own store and ignores every order outside its own people," Alex said.

"We kept those stores while no one knew we existed."

"You heard us. You came here."

"For help."

Thepes laughed from the floor.

The sound drew every eye in the room except Mingyue’s. She was still watching Alex.

"You should have told them what answering cost," Thepes said.

Alex turned toward him.

"This isn’t payment for the call."

"Then why are you collecting it now?"

Thepes shifted his left hand. Skin had closed over the wrist again, and his fingers pressed at a different angle beneath the ice. Alex checked the adjoining rune before answering him.

Alex felt his patience shorten. There were people outside who needed food, guards and someone to carry them. Thepes had helped create part of that need by turning the dead against them.

"The people fighting for this camp need supplies," Alex said.

"Then ask who will give them some."

The stocky vampire glanced toward Thepes. He did not seem comfortable finding agreement with the prisoner.

Mingyue stepped beside the map.

"You named one commander for the fighting. Then you put everything these people own under the same order."

"We need to know what is available."

"Available to whom?" she asked.

Alex looked back at the man in the torn coat.

The question had been obvious enough when the pilot refused to surrender his ship. It was less convenient when several groups had arrived on foot and their separate choices were obstructing the work in front of him.

He had meant to find out what they had, then put it where it was needed. Sensible enough, provided Alex was the one deciding what counted as needed. The man in the torn coat plainly had someone else in mind.

Dorian touched the road along the northern edge of the map.

"I need people here before the next watch. I won’t have our return to the surface reduced to a mob running from human troops. Anyone beside my soldiers follows a command."

"That part is reasonable," Mingyue said.

The young woman beside the stocky vampire leaned forward.

"We can hold a street. We’ve been doing it."

"With whose orders?" Dorian asked.

"Mine, when he was asleep."

She pointed to the stocky vampire. His mouth tightened, but he did not contradict her.

Dorian looked at her more closely.

"Can you leave that street if I order a retreat?"

"If my people have somewhere to go."

Selene turned the map so the woman could see the passage leading toward the receiving ground.

"This stays open. If the northern line fails, you come through here."

"What if your wounded fill it?"

"Then I move them before you reach it. That’s why I need to hear Dorian’s order when you do."

The woman studied the two streets.

For the first time since they entered, she seemed to be weighing a place on the line rather than defending her group against a demand.

The loyalist spoke before she answered.

"The heirs shouldn’t have to negotiate every command."

"No," Alex said. "I also shouldn’t have to settle every disagreement over who owns a water container."

He drew his hand back from the streets spread across the map and pointed to the defense line.

"If you take a place on that line, you follow Dorian’s battle orders. You can speak to him about the position before you take it. Once an attack begins, no one starts a second argument in the middle of it."

The young woman nodded slowly.

"And the stores?" the stocky vampire asked.

"Tell Selene what you brought and what your own people need. Tell her what you can contribute. We keep that separate from what belongs to your families."

"What if someone decides my people need less?"

"Then bring that disagreement here before anyone takes it."

Alex disliked how slowly the words came. He could have the cart moved with one order. Then he would need someone he trusted to stand over it after he left, taking another person from the work he was trying to finish.

A soldier at the entrance was trying to catch Selene’s attention without interrupting Alex. She turned toward him.

"What happened?" she asked.

"The second cart at the receiving ground. The men who brought it won’t let our attendants take the folded cloth."