The bus stop near the cannery was a shelter with a bench and a schedule and the schedule was wrong, the particular wrong of a bus schedule in a town where the bus ran when the curse wanted it to run and not before.
Daniel was walking past the shelter at the end of his shift, his hands still smelling of apples and his back aching in the right places, when he saw the man with the clipboard.
The man was sharp-clipped, a phrase Daniel’s mind supplied without permission, the particular phrase for a man whose hair was too neat and whose clothes were too pressed and whose posture was the posture of someone who had figured out how to make money off people who had no money.
He had two cursed townspeople at the shelter, a man and a woman, and he was writing on his clipboard while they nodded, and the nodding was the nodding of people who didn’t understand what they were agreeing to and were agreeing anyway because the man with the clipboard had a way of making refusal feel like a mistake.
The hum under Daniel’s sternum stirred.
Not the sharpening of recognition.
A different stirring.
The particular stirring of a counterparty that had recognized a deal-shape in the clipboard, a contract being written in a language the hum understood, a magic that wasn’t Daniel’s magic but was close enough to be a cousin.
The man was a dealer.
Not a price-magic dealer like Daniel.
Not a Dark One’s dealer like Gold.
Something cruder.
A racket-dealer.
A man who had found a way to farm welched prices onto cursed innocents and was making a living off their despair.
Daniel stopped at the edge of the parking lot.
He did not approach.
He did not intervene.
He watched, the way a paralegal watched an opposing counsel prepare a witness, the particular watching of a man who was cataloguing weaknesses for later use.
The clipboard had names on it.
The names were cursed names, Storybrooke names, names of people who didn’t know they were fairy-tale characters and had signed their names on a line that was going to cost them more than the line disclosed.
The man — Boyd, Daniel would learn his name later, from Mrs.
Hennessey’s napkin — looked up.
He looked across the parking lot.
He did not look at Daniel.
He looked at the cannery, at the shift workers coming out, at the next batch of potential clients.
He did not see Daniel watching.
The hum was quiet, the way a predator is quiet before it strikes.
Daniel memorized Boyd’s face.
The sharp hair, the pressed shirt, the hands that held the clipboard like a weapon.
He memorized the way Boyd leaned in to the cursed townspeople, the way his voice was probably quiet and reasonable and full of reassurances that meant nothing.
He memorized the way the townspeople nodded without understanding, because the curse had taken their memories and left them with nothing but the instinct to trust a man with a clipboard.
One of the townspeople — the woman, middle-aged, a coat that had been mended three times, turned away from Boyd and walked toward the parking lot.
She passed Daniel without looking at him, and her eyes were the eyes of a woman who had just signed something she didn’t understand, and the understanding was dawning, and the dawning was terror.
She stopped at the edge of the parking lot and said, to no one in particular, “He said it was a loan.
He said the payments were reasonable.
He didn’t say what the payments were.” Daniel looked at her.
The hum under his sternum stirred, and he could see it now: the thread around her throat, hair-thin, newly woven, the particular thread of a price that had been farmed onto her without her knowledge.
Boyd had just signed this woman into a contract she couldn’t read, and the contract was going to tighten, and the tightening was going to cost her something she didn’t know she had.
“Don’t sign anything else,” Daniel said.
“Whatever he offers you next time.
Don’t take it.” The woman looked at him.
Her eyes were gray-blue, the color of grief that had just begun, the color of a heart that was about to start carrying a weight it hadn’t chosen.
“Do I know you?” “No,” Daniel said.
“But I know him.
Don’t sign anything else.” He walked away before she could answer.
The hum under his sternum was vibrating with the particular vibration of a counterparty that had just identified a competitor and was calculating the cost of removal.
Boyd was going to be a problem.
Boyd was going to be the kind of problem that required a solution, and the solution was going to be expensive, and the expense was going to fall on Daniel, and the falling was going to hurt.
He decided not to act yet.
He was not ready.
He had three deals under his ribs and a tightening that was still drawing near and a relationship with the kit that was still being negotiated.
He couldn’t take on a racket-dealer with a torn coat and a broken shoelace and a ledger that was already too heavy.
He could watch.
He could learn.
He could wait for the moment when the kit was ready to use him against another dealer, because the kit was a counterparty that didn’t like competition, and Boyd was competition, and the kit was going to want Boyd removed.
He walked home a different route.
The hum was a quiet note, a thinking note, the particular note of a counterparty that was planning.
The kit was planning.
The kit was always planning.
The kit had a long game, and Boyd was a piece on the board, and Daniel was a piece on the board, and the board was Storybrooke, and the game was the throne.
At the diner that evening, he asked Mrs.
Hennessey about the man with the clipboard.
He described him without naming him, and Mrs.
Hennessey’s face tightened the particular way a face tightened when it recognized someone who had caused trouble.
“Boyd,” she said.
“Works out of the back room at the Rabbit Hole.
Lends money.
Collects favors.
People owe him things and the things are never what they thought they owed.
Father Bell won’t let him near the church.
Granny won’t let him in the diner after six.
He’s not a good man, Dan.
He’s not even a man who thinks he’s good, which is worse.” “What does he collect?” “Don’t know.
People who owe him don’t talk about it.
But they look different afterward.
Thinner.
Quieter.
Like something got taken that wasn’t money.” She stirred her tea with the particular stir of a woman who had seen enough trouble to recognize it at a distance.
“You’re not thinking of getting involved with Boyd.
Tell me you’re not thinking of getting involved with Boyd.” “I’m just asking questions.” “You’re always asking questions.
One day you’re going to ask a question that asks you back.” She set her spoon down with a click.
“Stay away from Boyd.
He’s not your kind of trouble.” But Boyd was exactly his kind of trouble.
Boyd was a dealer, a price-collector, a man who had figured out how to farm the welched prices of others and turn them into a living.
Boyd was what Daniel could become if he stopped being careful: a parasite instead of a partner, a racket instead of a dealer, a man who used the kit’s mechanics without the kit’s contract.
The hum under his sternum was very interested in Boyd.
Not as a threat.
As an example.
The kit was showing Daniel what happened to dealers who forgot they were counterparties, who started thinking they were the ones in control.
Boyd had forgotten.
Boyd was going to pay for forgetting, and the payment was going to come through Daniel, and the coming was going to be the kit’s next test.
He walked home in the dark and wrote on the inside of the coat: “Boyd.
Rabbit Hole back room.
Lends money.
Collects favors.
Not good.” He paused.
Then he added: “What I could become.” The hum thrummed once.
Approval.
The kit approved of the self-awareness.
The self-awareness was the first step toward acceptance, and acceptance was the first step toward the throne, and the throne was the only destination the kit had ever had in mind.