Additional support. Cass had seen people receive additional support. They came back calmer. More settled. More aligned. They smiled more easily and asked fewer questions and never seemed to struggle with anything ever again.
They also never seemed to be quite...there.
“Two weeks,” he repeated, forcing his voice steady. “I can do that.”
I can’t do that.
Brother Matthias released his hands and stood. “I have faith in you, Brother Cassiopeia. Remember, you’re not trying to force anyone into anything. You’re offering them freedom from suffering. The gift of never having to figure everything out alone.” He paused. “May your path lead toward harmony.”
“May harmony guide your steps,” Cass responded automatically. He watched Brother Matthias leave and then he sat very still for a long time, breathing through the tightness in his chest.
Today will be different, he told himself again, and if the words felt more desperate than hopeful, he ignored it.Someone will listen. Someone has to.
There wasn’t any other option.
The first potential recruit told him to fuck off before Cass even finished his opening sentence. It made him flinch, even after all this time. People didn’t use disharmonious language back home, but he was certain he heard even children say foul things out here.
This wasn’t unusual. Cass had learned to identify people likely to respond with immediate hostility and was better at avoiding them, but he’d also gotten more desperate, and desperate people made mistakes.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” he tried again. “I just wanted to offer—”
“I know what you’re offering.” The man’s lip curled. “I’ve seen your type before I got out of New St. Louis. All smiles and community belonging, and then suddenly everyone’s trapped in contracts they can’t escape.”
“We don’t use contracts,” Cass insisted, which was technically true. “We just—”
“Save it.” The man shouldered past him hard enough to make Cass stumble. “Tell your handlers their recruitment tactics are getting old.”
Cass caught himself on a nearby wall. He could feel people watching with the usual mixture of indifference and contempt that followed him everywhere here.
It’s not me they hate, he reminded himself.It’s what they think I represent. If they understood what we were really offering—
The second potential recruit was a family huddled in an alcove between two crumbling buildings. Cass had been watching them for several minutes, drawn by the sound of a child’s cough that made his soul ache. The parents were too thin, the little boy too quiet.
He’d approached families like this before. It never went well. But the boy’s cough was getting worse, and Cass had medicine in his bag.
“Excuse me,” he said softly, crouching down. “I couldn’t help noticing your son’s cough. I have some medicine that might help, if you’d like it.”
The mother’s arms tightened around the boy. “We don’t want anything from you.”
“I’m not asking for anything in return. No strings.”
The parents exchanged a look. Cass had seen that look hundreds of times, the desperate calculation of people who wanted to believe him, but think they knew better.
“Please,” he said. “He sounds really sick. You don’t have to take anything else from me. Just... let me help him.”
The boy coughed again, and the mother’s resolve wavered. “Fine. Just the medicine. Nothing else.”
Cass’s heart lifted as he fumbled the fever reducer out of his bag, measured the proper dose, and handed it over.
“This should help bring down his fever,” he explained. “If he’s not improving in a few days, he really should see a doctor.”
“We know what he needs. We also know what it costs.”
“My community has medical facilities. Really good ones. If you wanted to bring him for treatment, there wouldn’t be any cost—”
The mother’s expression slammed shut. “There it is. I knew there was a catch.”
“There’s no catch—”
