Nobody had told Felicity that the end of the world would involve this much sitting around a fire eating stew, and she was choosing to consider that a win.
It was not a formal gathering, just a loose sprawl of bodies around heat and food, exhaustion settling deep into muscle and bone, and Felicity sat shoulder to shoulder with Snow Team with her knees brushing boots and her tail tucked close and her bowl of thick salty stew in her hands, eating the same food from the same battered plates, and she had the quiet pleased awareness of someone who had earned their spot at a table and knew it.
Someone had found actual dried herbs. Someone else had burned the bread slightly and apologised as it mattered. Victor sat at her back like an anchor, not hovering, not crowding, just there, his hand brushing her shoulder every so often as he shifted, checking she was steady without looking, and she thought very seriously of her very serious backpack, fondly, for the second time.
Tommy slurped loudly from across the fire and sighed with the satisfaction of a man reviewing a five-star meal. "I would like it on record," he announced, "that this is the best thing I've eaten since the world ended."
Kai glanced at him sideways. "You ate a battery yesterday."
"I said best," Tommy replied, completely unbothered, and Kai smirked and nudged his bowl toward Felicity. "You want more? I don't need it."
She blinked. "Oh, um."
"She's fine," Victor said, calm and final, and Kai lifted both hands in immediate surrender, and Felicity caught the look Victor sent him, not hostile, not warm, just a reminder, and she swallowed and focused on her food and felt the particular pleased embarrassment of someone being looked after in a way they weren't entirely sure they deserved yet.
Across the circle Rose sat with her back straight and her eyes sharp and her posture relaxed in a way that meant she was anything but, and Finch sat beside her without touching her and without looking at her directly and yet every member of Snow Team had clocked it within thirty seconds because the way Finch's scent wrapped around Rose like a second skin and the way her tail flicked once whenever he shifted too far were not subtle to a group of people with animal instincts and nothing better to do than notice things.
Tommy leaned toward Ash and whispered, far too loudly, "Oh. Ohhh."
Ash looked, then immediately looked away. "Do not comment."
"I am commenting internally," Tommy whispered back. "Very respectfully."
Sarge cleared his throat with the energy of a man who had decided that was sufficient, and Snow Team collectively and silently agreed to mind their own business, and Felicity decided she liked them very much.
She had just finished her bowl when the alert came.
"Movement. Group approaching from the east."
Conversation died. Lanterns dimmed. Bodies rose, and weapons didn't come out but magic did, and the change in Victor was immediate, something colder settling into his posture, something heavier pressing quietly against the air, and he said "positions" without raising his voice and Snow Team simply adjusted, Kai's outline slipping wrong as shadows bent around him, Sarge's fingers already crackling softly with lightning, Voss stepping slightly ahead of Felicity without looking at her, his stance loose in the way that meant he was seconds from violence.
The newcomers stepped into the dim spill of lantern light, and they did not move like travellers. They moved like scavengers, a loose cluster of rat beastmen with long tails dragging across the pavement and noses lifting as they scented the camp, their eyes moving constantly from supply piles to weapons to bodies, calculating and testing, and at their centre a hawk, taller than the rest, gray feathers folded along his arms and wings tucked tight like coiled blades, his gaze sweeping Snow Team with predatory curiosity and no fear at all.
He lifted one taloned hand in a lazy imitation of a greeting. "Well now," he drawled. "Looks like someone's nesting in our hunting grounds."
Victor crossed the space between them until he stood at the invisible line where territory was decided, and the hawk's pupils tightened slightly, and Victor's wings shifted once behind him, controlled and unmistakable. "Not anymore," he said calmly. "Snow Team runs the vault now."
The rat men exchanged quick glances, and then one of them let his gaze crawl slowly across the group and stop on Felicity, and the air changed in that specific way that made every member of Snow Team go very still and very quiet, and the rat's lip curled to show long, yellowed incisors.
"You boys collecting pets now?" he said, and the hawk chuckled softly and added, "a bit greedy, isn't it, all that territory and the only female in sight tucked nice and safe in the middle," and his gaze slid to Felicity, slow and assessing, like inventory, and she felt the weight of it land on her stomach like something cold.
Behind her, a growl started, low and thick with teeth.
Voss.
The distortion of his magic was visible in the faint ripple of air around his shoulders, and his jaw had tightened hard enough to show the shape of it through his cheek. "Careful," he said quietly.
The rat didn't look away from Felicity. "Why? She yours?"
Another rat stepped forward with the boldness of someone who had just decided the line was already crossed. "Your group needs to share," he sneered, jerking his chin at Felicity. "It's not right, hoarding when everyone's starving."
Kai moved, not fully, just enough that the space beside the rat shifted, and when he reappeared, he was three steps closer than before, and the rat flinched, and Sarge's knuckles crackled, and the scent of metal spread through the air, and Victor lifted one hand, and everything stopped.
The hawk's wings flexed, feathers lifting along the edges as tension finally arrived in his posture, and Victor took one more step forward, close enough now that the difference between them was obvious, not size, not species, just authority, sitting on him like something he had been born wearing.
"Leave your loot," Victor said, quietly enough that everyone had to listen. "And leave the block."
The rat scoffed. "Or what?"
Voss laughed, and it was not a pleasant sound, and he stepped up beside Victor and rolled his shoulders with the ease of a man warming up for something he was looking forward to. "I start with the eyes," he said conversationally, "and work my way down."
The hawk was finally reading the room properly, the way Kai flickered in and out of the shadows, the way Sarge's lightning was already coiling, the way the others stood loose and quiet like predators who had already decided the outcome, and something mean surfaced in his face as he looked back at Felicity, spite finding its target.
"Pretty thing like you," he said, voice sharpening, "shouldn't trust animals like this. Predators don't protect. They consume."
Silence settled over the street, and old instinct tried to creep back in, the part of Felicity that would have shrunk and stayed quiet and stayed small, and it didn't win, and she lifted her chin and met the hawk's gaze and her tail flicked once behind her, not nervous, just alert.
"I'm not useful," she said softly, and the hawk blinked, and she held his gaze and said, "I'm dangerous," and the words came out steadier than she expected and felt true in a way that was new and not entirely small.
Victor moved then, not fast, just one step, but the shift in pressure hit like a physical force, and the hawk's wings snapped open on pure survival instinct, and he launched skyward with a startled screech, the rats scattering after him down alleyways and rooftops like fleeing shadows, and the street went quiet again.
Snow Team relaxed by fractions. Magic faded. Victor turned toward Felicity and cupped her face between his hands, thumbs brushing lightly along her cheeks like he was grounding himself as much as her, and said "you did good" in a voice that was just for her, and Voss stepped in close from the other side, shoulder brushing hers, claiming the space beside her the way he claimed most things, without asking and without apologising.
"She always does," Voss muttered.
Victor didn't remove his hands, and Voss didn't move away, and Felicity felt warmth bloom quietly in her chest that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with the very specific realisation that they weren't just protecting her.
They were drawing a line around her, and tonight, the whole street had learned exactly where it sat.