The alley behind the Rabbit Hole wasn’t a place anyone went on purpose, and Daniel was there at four in the morning because the hum had pulled him there, the particular pull of a counterparty that wanted him to see something.
The body was behind a dumpster.
The body was a man in his forties with a coat that had been bought secondhand and hands that had done physical work, and the description matched a man Daniel had seen at the diner, and the man at the diner had been alive, and the man in the alley wasn’t.
The throat was marked.
Not cut.
Not bruised.
Marked.
A dark thread, thicker than the welcher-threads Daniel saw on Cal Penney and Boyd’s clients, wrapped three times around the throat and pulled tight.
The thread was not Daniel’s.
The thread was a dealer’s thread, a price-magic thread, the particular thread of a counterparty that had collected on a debt in the most final way possible.
The signature was close to Daniel’s own school, the same language of price and payment and collection, written in a crueler hand.
Daniel knelt beside the body.
He did not touch it.
He did not need to touch it.
The hum was reading the thread, cataloguing the signature, filing the data for later use.
The thread was the work of someone who had been doing price-magic for longer than Daniel had been alive, for longer than Storybrooke had been cursed, for longer than the Enchanted Forest had been enchanted.
The thread was the work of a dealer who had been on the path Daniel was walking and had walked it all the way to the end.
The dealer was what Daniel could become.
The dealer was the endpoint of the kit’s grooming.
The dealer was a mirror, and the mirror was showing Daniel’s own future, and the future was a body in an alley with a thread around its throat.
He stood up.
The dawn was coming and the dawn was gray and thin and the grayness made the alley look like a sketch of an alley, the particular sketch of a place where bad things happened and weren’t remembered.
He walked away before anyone saw him.
He walked a different route home, a longer route, a route that didn’t pass the pawnshop or the diner or the laundromat or any place where he might be recognized.
He was afraid in a new shape.
He had been afraid of the kit, afraid of the prices, afraid of the tightening behind his ribs.
Now he was afraid of something worse.
There was another dealer in Storybrooke, a dealer who was further along the path, and the dealer was killing people, and the killing wasn’t random, and the killing wasn’t senseless, and the killing was the price of debts that had been incurred in a language Daniel was still learning to read.
The dealer was what the kit wanted Daniel to become.
The kit had shown him the body for a reason.
The reason was: this is the path.
This is where the path ends.
Walk faster.
He did not sleep.
He sat on the floor of the apartment with the coat pulled tight and the hum humming a quiet note, a patient note, the particular note of a counterparty that had shown him the future and was waiting for him to accept it.
In the morning he went to the diner and told Mrs.
Hennessey what he had found.
He did not tell her everything.
He told her a body had been found behind the Rabbit Hole and the body had been killed in a way that wasn’t natural and the killing was connected to the man with the clipboard.
“Boyd?” she asked, and her voice was sharp, the particular sharp of an old woman who had suspected something about Boyd for a long time.
“I told you to stay away from Boyd.
Boyd is not your kind of trouble.” “Boyd is exactly my kind of trouble,” Daniel said.
“Boyd is farming welched prices onto cursed townspeople.
He’s making deals they don’t understand and collecting debts they can’t pay.
But the body in the alley — that’s not Boyd.
That’s someone worse.
Someone who’s been doing this longer than me and longer than Boyd and longer than anyone in this town except maybe Gold.
Someone who collects debts permanently.” Mrs.
Hennessey was quiet for a moment.
Her tea was cold and her hip cushion was flat and her eyes were the eyes of a woman who had been alive long enough to know when trouble was real.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“I’m going to find him,” Daniel said.
“The dark dealer.
I’m going to find him and I’m going to stop him.
I don’t know how yet.
I don’t know if I can.
But he’s killing people and the killing is my business because the magic he’s using is the same magic I’m using.
He’s what I could become.
He’s the end of the path.
And I need to see the end of the path so I can decide whether to keep walking.” Mrs.
Hennessey reached across the table and took his hand.
Her hand was old and thin and the skin was paper and the paper was warm.
“You’re a good man, Daniel Ashford,” she said.
“Whatever you’ve done.
Whatever you’re going to do.
You’re a good man trying to do a good thing with a bad tool.
The tool doesn’t define you.
The trying does.” She let go of his hand.
“Find him.
Stop him.
And come back.
I’ll save you a booth.” He walked out of the diner and the bell was too loud and the morning was too bright and the body was still in the alley and the dark dealer was still in town and the kit was still humming its patient note.
The dealer was what the kit wanted Daniel to become, and the showing of the body was the kit’s way of saying: this is what happens when you master the craft.
This is what you become when you stop fighting the magic and let the magic become you.
The kit was not threatening him.
The kit was recruiting him.
And the recruitment was working.
He was afraid in a new shape, and the shape was the shape of a man who was running toward the thing he was afraid of because running away was no longer an option.
He did not sleep.
He sat on the floor of the apartment with the coat pulled tight and the hum humming a quiet note, a patient note, the particular note of a counterparty that had shown him the future and was waiting for him to accept it.
The dealer was in town.
The dealer was going to kill again.
The dealer was going to force Daniel to confront him, eventually, because the kit didn’t like competition, and the kit had invested in Daniel, and the kit was going to want a return on its investment.
He thought about the thread on the body’s throat.
Three wraps.
Tight.
Final.
The signature was elegant, deliberate, the work of someone who had been doing price-magic for longer than Daniel had been alive.
The dealer was what the kit wanted Daniel to become — and the showing of the body was the kit’s message.
This is the path.
This is where the path ends.
Walk faster.
He lay on the floor and closed his eyes and the hum was a steady note, a coaching note, the particular note of a counterparty that was training its dealer to be the thing that the dealer was most afraid of becoming.