cross my palm with silver (line your pockets with good fortune)

.

I. Hail Mary

.

Ki Shan I Romani
Adoi san' I chov'hani.

Wherever Gypsies go,
There the witches are, we know.

.

.

.

"I'm sorry," murmured Thomas Shelby, lifting his revolver to the horse's head. He pulled back the hammer, his teeth clenched painfully. He stood there for a moment, bracing himself, and then—

There was a scream; a girl suddenly tore out from the pile of hay behind him. "NO!" she cried, slipping on the mound of straw. "Don't shoot, don't shoot!"

Tommy turned, alarmed. The nozzle of his gun moved immediately towards the new threat, but the girl dove at him without any sense of caution at all, throwing herself around his outstretched arm and pinning it against the front of her body. Her hands slid down his sleeve, locked together around his wrist, and when his finger instinctively pulled the trigger, the bullet was sent harmlessly into an empty patch of floor near their feet.

The report of the gun thundered around them. Through the sharp ringing that followed, Tommy could only hear the harsh rasp of his own throat, the throb of his pulse against his eardrums. He stared in disbelief at the girl clinging onto his arm, unsettled by this bewildering new development. She stared fiercely back, her chest shuddering against him with short, quick pants of exertion.

The girl's black hair was a riot of straw and tumultuous curls. Her lips were the blood red of a flush, but her skin was ashen. Dirt dotted across her face like stark freckles. Her eyes were blown wide, and they burned darkly against the unnaturally pale cast of her face. Her every breath caused a diaphanous white cloud to swell up between them and caress their cheeks, as if there were endless plumes of smoke kept hidden in her lungs. Shadows fell across her body in strange patterns, distorting her shape until she seemed more like a phantasm than a human.

Tommy had never seen such a girl before in his life; not her, and not anyone like her. She looked like she could pluck out the bones of men and carve the marks of her teeth into them. She looked like a wild thing.

The white horse whinnied, breaking the tense, electric charge that had riveted them both. The steady beat of the pouring rain rushed back into his ears. Before Tommy could shove her off, or say anything, or even allow himself to blink, the girl sprang away from him and hurried away to the beast's side.

"Shh," said the girl, smoothing a hand under the horse's jaw. The horse was tossing its head about and shuffling back and forth as best it could on three legs, still startled by the loud crack of the gun. At the touch of the girl's cheek against its muzzle, it calmed almost immediately. The girl smiled and kissed the horse's satiny nose. "That's it. It's okay, ves'tacha. I'm here now."

Ves'tacha. My beloved. Tommy pulled a hand over his face and grit his teeth again. The girl was a fucking gypsy.

What the hell was she doing here? Was she a Lee? With the bullet still burning a hole in his pocket and his new horse cursed into an irremediable state, Tommy was not feeling particularly amenable towards having any member of the Lee clan lurking in his stables, doing… whatever it was that she had been doing. Cosseting his horse, cursing his horse, stealing his horse, it didn't matter. She was an intruder, and she needed to be gone.

Tommy lifted his revolver again and pointed it at the back of the girl's head. Perhaps she could feel the gaze of the gun on her, because she spun on her heel to face him, her bright, patterned skirt twisting out with her and revealing her bare ankles. "Stop, don't shoot him!" the girl yelped, striding forward and fully stretching out her arms to either side. Her shawl fell down her shoulders into the crooks of her elbows. She stood in front of the horse with her chin set stubbornly, as if her small, bird-boned body could serve as an infrangible shield against all his bullets.

"Give me one bloody good reason why I shouldn't shoot you," Tommy said in a low, strained voice. The muscles in his jaw were bunched up in a way that anyone who knew the Shelby name would recognize as dangerous. His finger was tight on the trigger, ready to dismiss her at a moment's notice.

The girl blinked at him. With the certain tone of someone who already knew the outcome of a bet, she said, "This is your horse now, right? You know that he's sick, cursed by an old baba and infected by a ruinous seed.

"Well, I'm going to cure him."

A beat. Tommy stared at her again, his eyes keen and scrutinizing. She met his gaze boldly, not a lick of fear or doubt in her.

"How," he demanded.

"I'm a witch, and a gifted one," she said, very seriously. "The Lees have found an authentic wise woman to curse him, so it will take effort, but her curse is not irreversible. I can do it."

Tommy considered this. The girl may have lacked modesty, but she lacked pretension as well, and for that he was willing to humour her. Besides, he could not think of any means to fight one witch's curse other than by using another witch. He was about to put the horse out of its misery anyway; it was no real loss for Tommy, even if she failed.

Unless, of course, she was about to use the opportunity to kill a Peaky Blinder. Namely, him.

"Why?" he asked cautiously. Both his gun and his eyes remained steadily trained on her.

"Because… he's my little brother."

Tommy's lashes fluttered. He lowered his arm.

She may have been crazy, but gypsy witches generally were. It was as bloody good a reason as any.

"I got here a couple hours ago, which was a whole day later than I'd hoped," the girl commented, rummaging through the hay and bringing out a bulging leather physician's bag. Tommy watched quietly as she hurried past him and to a darkened corner of the stable. His hands were shoved deep in his coat pockets, his fingers still curled around the handle of the gun.

"Your Curly is right; the curse will hit his heart tomorrow and there will be nothing we can do, then. At least I got here before that." The girl extricated another two large sacks from the shadows underneath some wooden planks, and dragged them over near where the horse had been tied up. With her build, he thought it rather unlikely that she could carry such heavy burdens by herself, but she managed with only a grunt of effort. Tommy, of course, made absolutely no indication of helping, not that it seemed to occur to her to ask.

The girl sat down carelessly onto the pile of hay in front of the horse, and began to dig through the bags around her. "It'll take me all night, but I can stop the infection before it gets to that point, and then I can focus on purging the root of the curse entirely," she continued. From one of the sacks, she found two sets of pestle and mortar, and from the physician's bag she plucked out all sorts of jars, pouches, sleeves and tins, as well as an entire leather case full of glass vials.

It looked like she really was a witch. Even so, that didn't mean he'd trust her.

Tommy pulled over a stool and sat, prepared to stay there all night—or however else long it might take. Sleep was already beyond him at this point.

The girl paused in the midst of pawing through tins of unknown powders to glance at him. "You're going to stay?" she asked, her lips pursed. She looked displeased.

This gratified Tommy, somehow—it felt as if he'd regained some of the ground that he'd lost earlier. Thomas Shelby was not a man used to being bewildered by anything, and the simple fact that she'd done it vexed him to no end. He wouldn't be a Shelby if he didn't vex her back.

"Is that going to be a problem?" he asked lowly. His hand left the gun in his pocket to pull two cartons from his pocket and flick out a cigarette. His lips molded around the filter.

The match box was slightly damp; when he tried to light a matchstick, the flame wouldn't catch. Tommy threw the first wet match into the mud outside and then took out another. The entire time, his skin prickled with an intense awareness of eyes tracking his every movement—it was a hypersensitivity that was not unlike the feeling of clothes brushing against exposed nerves.

Tommy struck the next match but it, too, wouldn't light. The one after that was the same. He felt his mood souring. It seemed he wouldn't even be able to have a smoke until the matches dried.

"Try that one again," said the girl, raising her fingers in front of her mouth. Tommy glanced up at her with a dubious brow, but complied. He struck the match again, and this time the rasping drag of the matchbox was accompanied by a loud snap and an exhalation of breath.

The match head burst to life.

Tommy hummed lowly in acknowledgement and lit the cigarette hanging from his lips. He took a deep drag, appreciating the thick smoke drifting into the corners of his chest and warming him up from the inside. It was bloody cold in here.

The girl sat surrounded by all of her equipment but did not move to touch even a single herb. Her legs were drawn to one side and her skirt had risen up to her knees, exposing her smooth calves and the delicate taper of her ankles. Tommy's hooded eyes swept over the bare, creamy skin of her legs with bald appreciation. Women from Birmingham were not as forward as those from London. Unless they were whores, they did not tend to go around in public view without stockings, which made this somewhat of a rare sight. He could recognize a good thing when it was offered so freely.

Of course, this was another breed of woman altogether. A gypsy, and a fucking witch at that. His eyes drew back up to the girl's profile, an expression of disinterest settling into his features. She was fine to look at, but he had no desire to be cursed by a woman scorned, not when her curses may very well come true.

The girl had long retracted her gaze and was instead contemplating her hands, which were lying very still in her lap. "It is going to be a bit of a problem, because you're carrying something with bad energy—a portent, maybe—and it's going to contaminate the poultice and sour the blessing," she said, not noticing his traveling attention in the least. Her mouth pursed into a moue. "I suppose you wouldn't agree to shifting over to the other side of the threshold for a while?"

"You suppose correctly," Tommy replied dryly, leaning back against the frame of the stable entrance. It was pissing madly outside, and he had no intention of sitting around in that downpour. Nor would he get rid of what he suspected to be the source of the 'bad energy'; he had use for that bullet yet.

It wasn't that Tommy didn't want his horse to be cured, but if the girl was as talented as she claimed, she would find a way around it. As usual, he was proven correct when she turned away with a scowl and rummaged through her bag again, mumbling, "Where's my—ah, found it." She disentangled herself from the depths of her bag with a water jug and a large jar full of white grains. Salt.

Hopping to her feet, the girl approached him with the jug under her arm and a fist full of salt. Tommy watched indolently as she knelt before him and began to spread a thin, solid line in a circle around him, mumbling under her breath the whole time. It took several handfuls, because her hand was rather small, and when she was done she unselfconsciously nudged apart his legs so that they were spread. He allowed it, fag hanging between his lips and eyes fixed to the back of her bowed head.

The girl left to dip the jug into the water trough so that it came out full. This she put under his chair, crawling carefully between his knees to situate it in the center of the salt circle. As she squirmed out, she took care to sprinkle a few drops of water onto the ground between Tommy's feet.

She moved briskly, and did not even seem to realize how suggestive their positions were. Perhaps she was the oblivious sort, he mused.

"You mustn't break the circle or you'll introduce poor fortune into my work," the girl reminded him, straightening up. The stables were dark, but colour seemed to have finally returned to her face—it was flushed a faint pink.

A smirk skimmed across Tommy's mouth and disappeared just as quickly. Perhaps not so oblivious after all.

"Fine," he said to the girl, nodding once. He quelled the instinctual desire to needle her. She was doing her earnest best to be professional, so he would do her a favour and do the same.

As the girl returned to her makeshift workstation, Tommy reflected that this entire encounter had the distinct, hazy quality of a dream. Since when did he do people favours?

It made sense, the more he thought about it. Waking in the middle of the night because the shovels had broken through the wall was routine, something he must have done a thousand times at least. Being called out at night in the midst of a rainstorm, finding that his new horse had been cursed, and having a witch spring from the haystacks and declare that the horse was her brother and that she would cure the horse of its ailment… that was not. Tommy's problems did not tend to have solutions until he forcibly compelled those solutions into existence.

He hadn't even had to shoot the horse. That must have some fortuitous meaning, surely. There were worse dreams to have than one featuring a racehorse and a comely Roma girl. Not that Tommy had known himself to ever be interested enough in a gypsy to dream about one—particularly such a one as her, who did not have a single ounce of civilization in her bones— but he supposed that there was an undeniable charm to the unruly black hair, the bright, spirited eyes, that waifish body. It was the allure of an untamed filly distilled into the form of a woman.

As far as dreams went, this wasn't bad at all. Certainly, it was far better than the godforsaken tunnels.

"I gather you're not from the Lee clan," Tommy prompted idly, lounging on the stool as languorously as if it were a throne. He observed the girl as she threw herbs and powders and other unidentifiable objects into her two mortars, which she had installed into the cradle of her crossed legs.

"You mean the bastards who had little brother cursed? No, definitely not," she replied absently. She picked up both pestles in either hand and began to grind ingredients with precise twists of her wrists, sooty lashes lowered in concentration. "I'm Naomie Young, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Call me Naomie. My father breeds horses, and my grandmother is a talented witch. We're based somewhere southwest of Birmingham. If you want to look into my background, that's probably enough to do it."

"Never said I was going to," Tommy remarked, brow quirked. It was useful information, though. Young was indeed a known gypsy name, though he couldn't immediately recall any particulars about the clan itself. And, the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter—that was a rare and blessed position to have. If true, it explained why she thought she was more powerful than an old wise woman. She probably was.

Naomie Young glanced at Tommy without turning her head, her eyes flickering to him and then away so quickly that he might have missed it had he not been so focused on her. "But you are going to. You look like a busy man, so I thought that I might as well make the process easier for you. Besides, since I don't have a closet, I haven't any skeletons in it."

Tommy supposed it was refreshing, to find someone who offered information so freely and without prompt. All Shelbys tended to hold secrets closely to their chests, and prying information from one of them was often far more difficult than pulling out teeth. This was, in fact, true not just of his family, but for most people that he dealt with on a regular basis.

Consider him refreshed, then. Derisive and disparaging, but refreshed.

"No, you've just buried yours, eh?" he replied sardonically. The girl was not facing him directly, so he couldn't be sure, but he thought that he saw her rolling her eyes.

"You sound like my gran."

"No one's ever accused their grandmother of sounding like me before," replied Tommy. He blinked slowly and considered the claim with more weight than it likely merited. "She must be terrible."

A tiny smile flashed across Naomie's red mouth. She grabbed another tin and began to add its contents to the larger mortar. "I disagree. She's my favourite human and I love her very much," she said, returning to her pestles. "And you're not that bad, either."

"Give it time," he muttered, in a voice like gravel. It was said mostly to himself, but Naomie smiled down at her lap again.

Tommy closed his mouth and breathed out, smoke billowing from his nostrils. It was not dissimilar to the manner in which Naomie had seemed to emit smoke earlier, but she had done so without the help of a cigarette. Maybe she was meant to be some sort of dragon. Maybe they were both dragons.

It was a silly thought, but Tommy found it unusually pleasant for that very reason. He hadn't dreamt of anything so fanciful in a very long time. He hadn't dreamt of anything but gunfire and dirt for a very, very long time.

"You can't be so terrible; little brother likes you, after all. You were kind to him," Naomie said after a long silence, reaching up to brush wisps of hair out of her face.

"And when was that?" Tommy asked dubiously. If she'd just arrived here a few hours ago, she should have only seen him as he was about to shoot the horse in the head. That should hardly have inspired such confidence in his apparent humanity. His suspension of disbelief could only go so far.

Naomie scooped something pale and viscous—honey, it looked like—into the smaller mortar and then stirred it in. Then she reached over to fish out objects from her sack: a pouch of clean white dressings, a round wooden bowl, a flat spoon. "Something about trombones and tubas, I think. Little brother wasn't too clear on the specifics," she hummed, dipping white cloths into the larger mortar.

Tommy turned the words over in his head like a well-worn stone. If this were reality, he might have shot the girl on the spot purely on principle. The only creature to have heard him say this to the horse was the horse itself. If Naomie Young knew even this about him, then what else did she know?

But Miss Young was a witch, and this was just a dream. In a dream, it made perfect sense that a horse and a witch could know each other's experiences. And it was so characteristic of his own bloody brain to mock him for his occasional moments of softness. Tommy settled.

"I wouldn't say a horse is the best judge of character," he said, throwing his long dead cigarette out to the rain. He pinched another between his lips, and then turned to Naomie when he touched the still damp matchbox.

"I would say you're right—horses can't understand things like law or honor or morals. It's enough for them if your voice is soft and your hands are gentle. But, you see, I don't care for those things either. You were kind to little brother, so I will be kind to you," Naomie decreed, looking up at him again. She sat imperiously upon her hill of hay, with straw braided through her curls like gold filaments, two mortars in her lap and her shawl and skirt pooled around her in a wide circle. The lamplight caught against her glossy eyes; her irises glimmered around the black arbor of her pupils like the shining, rippling surface of a lake. She looked fey.

"Would sure be kind of you to help me with this," Tommy drawled irreverently, pinching a match between his long fingers and wagging it at her.

Naomie's lower lip jutted out in a pout, immediately ruining the illusion. "There's no point in being dramatic when you've no appreciation for spectacle," she complained. Nevertheless, she twisted to face him, bringing her hand up to her mouth. When Tommy struck the match, she pursed her lips and blew into her snapping fingers, as if to propel the friction of the click over to him.

The match ignited, and he lit the end of his cigarette. Nodding in thanks, Tommy took a slow drag and closed his eyes.

He was tired. He was so fucking tired. But he couldn't allow himself to sleep. If you fell asleep in a dream, didn't that mean you would wake up in reality?

Tommy didn't want to wake up yet. Here, the hours moved with a lethargic, easy pace. The heavy rain that blanketed the city seemed to insulate the stables so thoroughly that it became its own microcosmic world. There were no ghosts of war stepping quietly in his shadow; no living men lurked on his doorstep with violence folded tightly into their fists. There was no fear, no anger, no vestiges of the war surviving through the masses of shambling, shellshocked veterans. Just a small island of warm light in the vast, dark night. Just him, a horse, and a girl.

Before the war, hadn't that been all he'd really wanted?

Such a time had passed, of course. The bloody war had come and gone, and it would linger in his bones until the day he died. But that just meant that Tommy had to cling to this dream with both hands until it came to its natural conclusion.

"What's his name?" Tommy asked, peeling open his drooping eyelids. Smoke drifted from his mouth in ponderous swells. "The horse. You must know."

"Of course," Naomie said, using the spoon to scrape out the last of the mixture from the small mortar to the wooden bowl. She unfolded to her feet and weaved through the mess of her things with little difficulty. "I named him when he was born. It's Bitti Prala."

"Little Brother," he translated, removing his fag from his mouth. Tommy didn't quite smile, but almost. Amusement was clear in the tilt of his brows, the slope of his mouth. "Right. That's why he's your 'little brother'."

"Well, that among other reasons. I helped his ma give birth to him, you see, and it's been maybe three or four years since then. From the moment of his birth until the day he was sent to the Lees, we never spent a day apart," she chattered, running a hand down the horse's flank and to the tied up leg.

Naomie put the bowl down and began to wrap the cursed foreleg and hoof with some of her anointed dressings. Then she found the other foot where the infection had spread and dressed that too.

When she straightened up again, the horse looked at her with large, adoring eyes and nudged her gently with its head. Naomie leaned in and kissed its cheek, her face the very picture of girlish sweetness. Anyone could see the close bond between them. After a moment, Naomie pulled away and held the bowl under the horse's mouth.

"Ves'tacha, take your medicine."

The horse snorted but obediently began lipping at the mush. Tommy tilted his head, fascinated at the sight. He had never seen a horse take medicine so placidly in his life. Usually, even the stoutest ponies seemed to become giraffes when presented with a medical mixture. What he was seeing now could not be explained as anything but witchcraft.

"I'm the youngest of my family, and I only have older siblings," Naomie continued, petting the horse with her free hand. "Prala was the closest I could get to ever being an older sibling myself, so I've always doted on him just as if he were my real little brother. Or at least," she said, her expression souring, "I did, until father lost a wager to the Lees. I can't believe they took him just to curse him into an early death! Dirty dog fuckers," she swore, slipping into Romany in her rage.

"That's some mouth you've got on you," Tommy replied, almost automatically following her switch in language. At her stunned face, a smirk slipped onto his lips, unbidden.

"You're Roma? I thought you were just an Englishman!" Naomie breathed, utterly floored.

"Being an Englishman is more profitable. The blood is Romany, however."

"What family do you hail from?"

His fingers tingled. The cigarette had burned itself almost to nothingness, and was close to burning him. Tommy tossed the butt out into the rain and took his time in answering.

"Shelby. I'm Thomas Shelby," he finally said, in English. His eyes traveled over her face, searching for recognition, wariness, fear, but found none. Only bright-eyed interest.

He smiled privately, darkly. Of course she would not know. This was supposed to be a precious and hard-begotten good dream, after all. Here, only such pleasant, fanciful ideas should exist.

Here, and only here.

"The Shelby clan? I've heard of the Lees and the Loveridges, the Boswells and the Herons, but I don't think I've heard of the Shelbys. Are you a small clan?"

Tommy nodded slowly, and then thought of something Johnny Dogs had said several days ago, when they had gambled over the horse. On a whim, or perhaps in a lazy attempt to impress this imaginary gypsy girl, he said, "Small, but not without history. It is said that my grandfather was a king, if that means anything at all."

Naomie seemed to consider this, her brows scrunched up in thought. "I think it doesn't really mean much except that he was popular among old people," she said at long last.

Tommy allowed himself a smile at that. "Right. But it also meant that he had power."

"Are you interested in power, then?"

"Everyone is interested in power."

"Not me," Naomie said firmly. She didn't seem to realize she had spoken in English, as involved in their conversation as she was. Her hand had long stilled against the horse's neck.

Tommy glanced at her bags, at all the herbs and amulets and fetishes peering out of them. "That's only because you already have power."

She followed his gaze and nodded. "I have a little sway over the natural world, that's true," she acknowledged, switching back again with the thoughtless ease of a bilingual speaking to a fellow bilingual. "But not over people. I can't make anyone do anything they don't want."

"I hear that that's what love magick is for."

"Love charms and spells are all bogus, cons reserved for sacrilegious frauds," Naomie hissed with surprising vehemence. Her sudden scowl shaped her mouth into something puffed out and childish. Her body came alive with an unexpected burst of passion. "They are simply the tricks of cheats and swindlers on the stupid, the unsuspecting, or the gullible. There exists no such thing as a real love spell amongst true chovhani!"

Tommy did smile a little, then. "Yeah? Prove it," he drawled, tauntingly, carelessly. His eyes glittered with humour. "I'd wager you never even tried." Her mouth opened, closed. "That's right. You're sounding pretty untrustworthy yourself, eh?"

Naomie narrowed her eyes and stomped over to the nook where Tommy was lounged, her angry feet only barely missing the line of salt. Still smiling faintly, he leaned further forward to watch her face, which was aflame with agitation. "You take that back! I'm very trustworthy!" Naomie cried, bending in towards him with her fists on her hips. Her lips were pursed in a manner that was meant to be stern but looked more petulant than anything.

Tommy carefully wiped all humour from his mouth. "All wise women and witches can do love magick, and yet you can't, isn't that what you're saying? I'm starting to doubt if you're a witch after all," he said disparagingly. He couldn't help the amused gleam of his eyes, but Naomie was far too gone to notice.

"Don't you compare me to those—those charlatans who go around posturing—faking—lying—all to make a quick buck! I have some goddamn dignity, and I have self-respect—and—and I would never waste my talent on something so—stupid, all to just—" she sputtered, hands fluttering up into the air like tiny birds. The tassels of her shawl shook and fluttered with her. Tommy let out a quiet wisp of laughter at the sight and earned himself a gimlet eye.

"If it's all smoke and mirrors, what's the harm in trying?" he asked, sending her a provocative smirk. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.

It amused him to see Naomie so riled up. Exasperation suited her, as if she had always been meant to be lively with some strong emotion. Tommy had challenged her without much thought, just to vex her, but now he was committed. Normally, he would never goad any sort of witch without a plan—that invited more danger than it was worth—but teasing Naomie was just too great of a sport. If he thought about it too deeply, thought about schemes and threats and consequences, it would ruin the whole thing.

Indeed, Tommy didn't want to think much at all. He was always fucking thinking. For once in his life, he wanted to just… not. In this rare moment of unrestraint, this rare peace of mind, it had to be fine to indulge himself and fool around with this wild little filly. It was only a dream; it would pose no danger.

"Are you even hearing me at all?" Naomie snapped, crossing her arms.

His grin grew wider. "Can't say I am, no."

"You are such a—a—"

"Yeah? A what?" he prompted, drawing in even closer. There was barely any distance between them, now. When Tommy tilted his head up, a stray lock of her long hair brushed feather-soft against the arch of his cheek. "Let's hear it, then."

Naomie's eyes traveled. Her mouth opened and closed a few times as she grasped desperately for an appropriately scathing word. At last she blurted, "A bloody rantallion!"

Tommy's brows shot up. Naomie's already pink face was immediately suffused with a vibrant red that spread slowly over the rest of her skin. His eyes tracked its progress as it spread lower and lower, down her neck, over her bare shoulders, into the low, wide collar of her bohemian blouse. And, presumably, even lower than that.

"Very hurtful," Tommy chuckled, eyes flicking back up at her disbelieving scoff. "I'm very hurt. No, really."

"You're mocking me," huffed Naomie, crossing her arms and glaring.

"Yeah, I am," he agreed, looking up at her through lowered lashes. From this distance, Tommy could see that underneath the dirt was hidden a faint constellation of real freckles across her nose and cheeks. And her eyes were not black as he'd thought, but a stormy gray. "You going to curse me now?"

Naomie bit her lower lip, looking deeply tempted. Tommy's gaze dropped to her rose-petal mouth and then away.

"No," she said unconvincingly, after a very telling pause. He breathed out another quiet laugh.

"How about something else, then?" Tommy said. Naomie eyed him dubiously and he replied with a grin, a playful flash of his teeth that disappeared in the space of a breath. It was an expression that did not often find itself on his face and did not last long when it did. He'd probably smiled more in the last several minutes than he had throughout the whole week. "A wager. Let's see what this love magick business is all about. You do a little spell on some poor old sod. He falls in love with you, I win. He doesn't, you win. Afterwards, you undo it. Simple and easy."

"I'm not going to cast anything on an unconsenting party just for a wager, no matter how hopeless the charm. My gran would beat me with a broom. She always knows," Naomie informed him, very firmly. Her mouth puckered with a stubborn sullenness.

Tommy nodded thoughtfully. In the dim, soft light of the stables, everything looked hazy and surreal, Naomie most of all. The world was just a collection of blurred lines and soft edges. Like a fantasy, or a daydream.

His eyes dipped again to her lips, traced the sweet, fluid shape of them. It seemed that her mouth had more expression at any given moment than he had ever been capable of. Struck suddenly by the inkling of an impulse, Tommy spread his hands and tilted back his head, his brows arched in challenge. "I'm a consenting party, aren't I?"

Naomie squinted suspiciously at him, drawing up to her full height. She angled her own head back, examined him under her long, dark lashes. "Even so, I still don't see why I should take you up. I'd be using up precious time and supplies. You can't find most of these herbs in any old market, you know."

"Then I'd better make it worth your while, eh? What is it you want?"

"I…" Naomie began, and trailed off. Her eyes slid away from his, and her face turned a little sheepish. "When I realized little brother had been cursed, I didn't think things over very much. I rushed over without making any arrangements. I thought I could hide out in the stables without anyone noticing, but…" She gave Tommy a pointed look. He looked steadily back. "I couldn't take much money; I don't have anywhere to stay while treating him, and I don't know how I'll get back. I need… accommodations. Preferably something respectable and without men, or else it'll be my ma who's got the broom."

It was such a simple request he could have gotten it done in his sleep. Rather, that's exactly what would happen. Small Heath belonged to the Shelbys; no one would dare to deny him anything, even in a dream.

"Right. It'll take some doing, but I'm sure I can figure something out," Tommy said dryly, enjoying the private joke. "As for me…"

Tommy knew instinctively, immediately, the exact thing he wanted. He'd known since the moment he'd become aware of the dream. He'd known long before that.

"If I win the wager," said Tommy. "I want you to stay with me and keep the shovels out."

"The shovels?" Naomie asked, her brows turned up in confusion.

"The nightmares. The bad dreams. I want it all gone. I want to get some bloody sleep without France fucking around in my head every night. Can you do that?"

She nodded slowly. "Well, I can sure do that…" she said, and then trailed off.

Good. He needed to be free of that goddamned tunnel. Opium no longer helped, and the thought of being stuck in that hell every night for the rest of his life drove him mad. He needed the blessed relief of knowing he might be able to have restful sleep and good dreams, just like this, just like before the war. Even just one night a week. Even just one night a month. Even just one more night.

It was a shot in the dark that would require Tommy to fall in love with a figment of a dream—but so what? If it didn't work, it didn't work. Nothing was gained, but nothing was lost either.

But if it did work. If it did work, if he did fall in love, wouldn't that just mean that he would dream of Naomie again? And if he dreamt of her again, wouldn't that mean he wouldn't be dreaming of the shovels breaking through the wall?

Naomie would have his heart, but even if she decided to keep it, she couldn't leave him because of the conditions of the wager. She couldn't hurt him because she wasn't real. And Tommy would finally be able to get some proper fucking sleep. No more tunnels, no more shovels, no more goddamn screaming. He was a gambling man, and he was willing to gamble on this.

"I can do it, but… until when?" Naomie demanded, a frown gradually making its way across her face.

It figured she'd pick that up. No one would ever say that she wasn't born and bred Romany.

"Forever," said Tommy.

Warily, Naomie replied, "Forever is a long time."

He tilted a mocking brow and gave her a smile that he knew to be utterly infuriating. "Sounds to me you aren't as sure about your convictions as you claim."

"I am sure," she snapped. "Love magick isn't bloody real, and that's a fact. It's just… Forever. That's a long time. I don't like how the stakes are so unbalanced. I've got way more to lose than I have to win."

"Alright," Tommy said, evenly. "Then let's balance them. How does this sound—you take the wager, I take care of you while you're in Small Heath, regardless of the result. If you win, I'll give you your little brother back. I'll even get the trailer and drive you two back meself."

Upon hearing this, Naomie's face became impossibly bright, her eyes coruscating with eager hope. "Really?" she asked, beaming.

He nodded. For just a moment, Tommy allowed himself to savour the brilliant, unadulterated joy being shared freely with him. Then he reminded himself that it wasn't real and the soft feeling firmed back into his regular sternness.

"Then we are in agreement as to the terms of the wager," Naomie said, not paying attention to his shift in mood. She spat in her hand and offered it to him. Tommy spat in his own and held it. They shook and she draped the corner of her shawl over their connected hands and bound it once. Quietly, she murmured, "So mote it be."

A thrill ran up Tommy's arm from the point of contact. For a long moment, they stared at each other, their palms remaining clasped. Tommy said nothing, just looked steadily at Naomie until she shifted and simmered and then burst into movement.

"Grass! I need—grass," she said, hastily detaching from him. He allowed it and watched her fly out of the stables into the pouring rain.

After that, Naomie became all business. She returned quickly, dripping wet and a blade of grass between her fingers. This she put in her mouth, and she turned to face the east. "Where the sun goes up, my love shall be by me," she hummed, under her breath. She turned to the west and continued, "Where the sun goes down, there by him I'll be."

Naomie then took the blade of grass from her mouth and tore it into two equal lengths. "Eat this," she said, handing one half over. Tommy raised his brows but obligingly slipped it between his lips. She looked at him until he swallowed it, his adam's apple bobbing. Then she hurried past him to her bags.

"Where's the holy wort?" Naomie muttered, rifling through her collection of things and picking up a labeled tin. She poured some of its contents into a bowl of water, where she also dipped a piece of cloth. Then she returned to the small pile of esoteric objects, mumbling, "I know I've got violets in here… thyme… saffron… yarrow… valerian…"

Upon locating all of her herbs, she turned to one of the sacks, from which she found a thin knife in a leather sheath, a long red ribbon, and a heart-shaped stone the size of a fingernail. Once they were assembled, she dunked both of her hands into the bowl of water. Then she took out the damp cloth, wrung it, and spread it out on her lap.

Naomie took a deep breath and lowered her head, knife ready in hand. Her cheeks were rosy from the cold air. Her breath drifted around her face in soft, thin clouds. Her wild dark hair spilled over her shoulders and down the back of her yellow shawl. A moment frozen in time.

Tommy cleared his throat.

Finally, Naomie began to move.

"Drink to me only with thine eyes, and I will pledge with mine," she hummed, shearing a lock of her hair and allowing it to fall into the cloth. "Or leave a kiss within the cup, and I'll not ask for wine." Swaying in place, Naomie slowly reached out to pluck up the charmed half-blade of grass and add it into her lap. Then the stone, then the holy wort, then the rest of the herbs. All the while she continued to sing, and the more she continued to sing, the more her voice took on a dreamy, liquid quality.

"The thirst that from the soul doth rise
Doth ask a drink divine;
But might I of Jove's nectar sip,
I would not change for thine.
I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
Not so much hon'ring thee
As giving it a hope that there
It could not withered be;
But thou thereon did'st only breathe,
And sent'st it back to me,
Since when it grows and smells, I swear
Not of itself, but thee."

The last note quivered in the air and then faded, the spell complete.

Tommy did not know when he had closed his eyes. He blinked groggily back into attention. A small white pouch that had been tied around with a red ribbon was being extended to him. Fingers brushing against Naomie's cool palm, Tommy took the sachet and held it up to appraise it. Even from half an arm away, it perfumed the air with a smell both sweet and floral. It did not, however, instill any particular feelings within him.

"It's a love sachet," Naomie explained, wiping her damp hands on her skirt. "I hear it's supposed to gradually to increase your affection for me. It's meant to be kept near you, in your pocket in the day and on your pillow at night. Once the smell fades completely, then you know whatever magick was there has run its natural course. If you don't feel any affection towards me through all that time, then I win the wager. If you feel affection for me but it disappears once the sachet has lost its potency, then you do."

So it was temporary. Good. That was good.

"You seem to know a lot for someone who thinks love magick is rubbish," Tommy commented wryly, watching as her face inflamed again.

"Well—the babas at the fairs always do this kind of thing," Naomie said, pursing her lips defensively. "I was just curious… Anyway! You mustn't let anyone else touch it. If the charm actually works, the imprint of their skin may sway your heart. I'm not too sure on this point, but it's simply not a good idea."

"And if I should love you even after the smell fades?" Tommy asked, struck by a sudden morbid curiosity.

She gave him a look as if the answer was obvious. "If your affection remains even after the sachet becomes impotent, then it was not due to a spell. Isn't that my win?"

"Could mean your spell is more powerful than you know. Then it's mine."

Naomie fell quiet and considered this careless remark with more thought than he expected, her brows puckered into a very serious little frown. "If that happens, then… we can go see my gran. She'll know if you're under an enchantment, and she'll be able to fix it."

Naomie was saying this as if it wasn't a new occurrence; overpowering a spell appeared to be an issue she had struggled with in the past. This was not very reassuring.

Tommy stared gravely at the little witch until she began to squirm. "But, you know, that's so very unlikely, you don't have to worry," she babbled, shuffling nervously. "Since love magick isn't real. You just… make sure you don't actually fall in love, then there won't be confusion. If there's ever a problem, I'll find a solution for it, and it won't have been an issue at all. Um, and, so… I'm going to go cleanse little brother now."

Naomie scampered off to the horse, and Tommy let her be. He lifted the sachet again, examining it more closely. It was round and plump, still damp with herbal water. The white cloth was soft and patterned with tiny purple flowers; it looked like it had originally been part of a woman's handkerchief. The top was kept closed by a red ribbon tied into a neat bow. It looked shockingly girlish. Good that it wasn't real, or his brothers would all erupt into paroxysms of laughter and rib him into madness.

He brought it near his face and breathed in. The intense floral scent drifted into the corners of his lungs and seemed to fill him up from within, not unlike the smoke from his cigarettes. It was a pleasant smell, and Tommy could feel his shoulders relaxing. He breathed deep again, and his eyelids drooped. He breathed again, and his hand fell slowly to his lap.

His eyes shivered and blurred; the dream shivered and blurred too.

Everything after that existed to Tommy only in vague impressions and fragmented snapshots:

Naomie hanging a cross around the horse's neck—Naomie sprinkling something on its back—Naomie kneeling in a circle of salt—Naomie bent in supplication. And Naomie's hypnotic, melting voice chanting the same prayer, over and over, chanting over and over, until it lilted into a song that only he and God could hear—

". . . Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord: Be it done unto me according to Thy word. Hail Mary . . ."

Despite his efforts, Tommy could feel himself slipping into a trance. His mind drifted like the tide, lapping against the shore of awareness with only the sound of Naomie's voice to anchor him.

". . . And the Word was made Flesh: And dwelt among us. Hail Mary. Pray for us, O Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ . . .

". . . Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God . . ."

Eventually, Tommy released the anchor. He sank, formless, into the magnetic eddy of his exhaustion.

He slept.

And he did not wake until hours later, still in the stables, a crick in his neck and a shawl over his shoulders, with the slow, dawning realization that perhaps the gypsy witch had not been a dream after all.

.

.

.

.

Notes —

Immovable object Thomas Shelby, meet unstoppable force Naomie Young.

The foreign words are Romany (gypsy language) and their translations are all provided by Tommy in-text. Except maybe chov'hani/chovhani (which means witch in Romany).

Birthday gift for my number one loveliest bun, bri. Cross-posted on AO3.