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\epigraph{``How many Praesi does it take to change a lantern's wick?

A legion to conquer all the candlemakers, a High Lord to sell the wicks
down south and then we're taxed for being in the dark.''}{Overheard in a Laure tavern}



The punch landed right in my eye, rocking me back.

I cursed and took a few steps back, ignoring the smug smile on my
opponent's face as the crowd went wild. \emph{Shit. That's turning into
a black eye for sure.} I'd need to shell out some of my winnings to get
it fixed if I didn't want to spend a few hours lectured by the Matron
again. And that was assuming I won -- if I lost, I was going to be short
on funds for a while. The man started circling me like a murder of crows
around a rotting carcass, unhurried but intent, and I brought up my
fists. The bandages wrapped around my fingers were still flecked with
blood from the few hits I'd landed earlier in the fight, but the
ridiculously large fighter going by ``Fenn'' had shrugged those off too
easily for comfort. If this turned into an endurance slugging match, I
wasn't going to win: the man had at least fifty pounds on me and he
looked like he'd been carved out of a slab of solid muscle. I was faster
than him, but he knew that -- it was the reason he stayed on the
defensive, letting me land hits in exchange for getting in one of his
own. \emph{And his hurt me a lot more than mine hurt him.} ``Come on,
Foundling,'' a woman in the back yelled. ``Wreck the bastard!''

I spat out a mouthful of the blood pooling in my mouth and moved
forward: the longer this went on, the larger his advantage got. I needed
to end it quick if I was going to have even a slight shot at winning.
Added a little spring to my step to see if it would make him flinch, but
the big bastard was serene as a pond. It was a shame groin shots were
illegal, since one of those would have gotten him moving for sure. I
flicked a jab at his jaw but Fenn let it pass, pivoting to get a little
closer. \emph{Got you.} My fist buried itself in his stomach viciously,
drawing a strangled grasp as I danced away back out of his reach. The
part of the crowd that had put money on my victory cheered while from
the rest came a cacophony of jeers: I let the sounds wash over me,
refusing to pay attention. I'd been too aware of my surroundings when
starting out at this and it had cost me some easy victories, but I'd
learned from my mistakes. ``Saw your last fight, Foundling,'' Fenn
grunted as he tried to close the distance. ``You sure you don't wanna
throw this one too?''

If that was his idea of trash talk, then he was swinging a stick at
steel. I feinted a jab to his ribs to keep him on his feet and circled
to get a better angle. I \emph{had} thrown the last fight, as it
happened. I'd been winning too much lately, which made for bad odds when
betting on myself. After taking a beating from a no-name newcomer,
though, the balance had swung the other way: I was going to make a
killing if I managed to beat Fenn today. Enough to pay tuition at the
College, even after the organizers got their cut and another lump sum
was set aside to keep the city guard looking away.

``You afraid of a girl half your size, Fenn?'' I smiled back, pushing a
sweat-drenched lock of hair out of my field of vision. ``You should slip
the healers a few coppers so they can fix up your manhood.''

Now \emph{that} got a reaction. The stocky man's eyes narrowed and he
grit his teeth. It was funny, the way most of the fighters who tried to
bait me were so easy to bait themselves. He wasn't stupid enough to up
and charge me -- he wouldn't have the reputation he did if he lost his
head this easily -- but he went on the offensive the moment I have him
an opening. I guess it didn't matter how predictable you were when you
hit like a horse's kick. Apparently my little comment had gotten a fire
going in Fenn, because when he swung at me it was the fastest he'd been
so far: I barely managed to slap away his fist at the last moment and he
still grazed my jaw. \emph{If that had landed, I'd be out cold on the
ground.} I got in close enough that I could smell the sweat of him and
threw a haymaker, but it didn't even faze him: not enough force behind
it. He took the hit and tried to wrestle me down, much to my panic.
Getting into a grapple with a man that size would be\ldots{} bad.
\emph{Shit shit shit.} I landed a desperate uppercut right in his chin
and felt a few teeth come loose, which bought me a moment. I got in a
kick on the side of his knee and it gave. He dropped into a half-kneel
and that was my in.

I'd done this before and it would be brutal but Radiant Heavens I was
not going to \emph{lose} -- I rammed my knee into his gut and Fenn
dropped. Another kick sent him sprawling to the ground, and now the
fight was as good as won: I stomped down on his ankle and it broke with
a sickening crack. Fenn let out a hoarse scream and I felt a twinge of
guilt but mercy was the kind of thing the Pit beat out of you. I was
about to cave in a few ribs with another stomp when he raised his hand
and panted out his surrender. For a moment all I heard was the sound of
blood pounding in my ears but it passed and the numbness turned into the
clamor of the masses going wild. I wiped the blood dripping off the
corner of my mouth with the bandages around my hand and made my way out
of the earthen pit where I'd just broken a man's bones for gold. Well,
gold in a manner of speaking: they usually paid me in Imperial silver
denarii, which somehow made the whole thing feel even more wretched. The
fatigue settling into my bones left me disinclined to mingle with the
gamblers who'd struck good betting on me, though I forced a smile
anyway.

A tall orc pushed his way through the crowd to slap me on the back, the
double row of pristine fangs inside his mouth turning what was supposed
to be a grin into a horrifying display. It was rare to see orcs at
fights like these: the only greenskins in Laure were part of the Legions
and they tended to steer clear of the illegal stuff. Not to mention that
even two decades after the Conquest legionaries were far from popular in
the city -- the kind of people that the Pit attracted was the kind that
wouldn't think twice about slipping a knife in a legionary's back in a
dark alley. \emph{Good luck with that}, I thought as I extricated myself
from the greenskin's enthusiastic congratulations. The orcs were taller
and more broadly built than humans, generally speaking, and their thick
greenish skin made them damnably hard to put down. Anybody stupid enough
to tangle with three hundred pounds of trained killer deserved whatever
was coming to them.

Booker was in the back of the warehouse, set up at her usual table.
There were no windows in the Pit -- glass had gotten even more expensive
since the latest tax hitch -- and the handful of oil lamps spread over
the place cast more shadows than light over the corner of the place
she'd claimed as her own. People gave her a wide berth, in part because
she had a thoroughly nasty reputation and in part because of the pair of
grim-looking bodyguards standing behind her. I'd thought Booker was a
Name when I'd first heard it, but it was just an affectation: she
couldn't even do magic, as far as I knew. Her only power was having a
large amount of thugs on payroll, which in her line of business was
admittedly more useful. She smiled when she saw me coming, light
catching on her handful of gold teeth. ``Good show today, Foundling,''
she said. ``Way to make the old country proud.''

I snorted at that. Booker's skin and hair were as dark as mine: we both
had Deoraithe blood running through our veins. Still, I was an orphan
and she was Laure born and raised -- neither of us had ever set foot in
the northern duchy or spoke even a word of the old tongue. Not that I
was complaining about the misplaced sense of kinship: fifteen year old
girls like me didn't usually get to compete in the Pit. I'd gotten my
foot in by playing on the Deoraithe reputation of being solid in a
fight. \emph{They held the Wall for five hundred years, before the
Conquest.} Even now the duchy most of them lived in was the only part of
Callow without Imperial governors. I'd read about some kind of deal
being cut with the Empress, though I couldn't remember specifics.

``I try,'' I grunted. ``You got my winnings?''

Booker chuckled and slid the denarii across the table. I counted them --
the only time I'd made the mistake not to she'd short-changed me -- and
frowned when I realized there were only twenty-one.

``We're missing four,'' I told her flatly. ``I'm not going to fall for
that twice, Booker.''

Her bodyguards pushed off the wall and started looming in response to
the hostility in tone, but the dark-skinned woman grimaced and flicked a
hand to dismiss them.

``Mazus upped the prices again,'' she explained. ``Everybody's cut is
smaller, even mine.''

While I didn't believe for a moment that Booker's profits had seen any
change, I had no problem at all believing that the Governor had decided
to squeeze out a little more gold from the Pit. The Imperial Governor
for Laure had begun his third term of service by announcing that all the
temporary taxes of his last terms were now permanent, after all, and
there wasn't a single pie in the city where he wasn't shoving in his
fingers. I nodded, disgruntled, and slipped the silvers in the leather
bag where I kept my change of clothes. ``Zacharis is in the back, if you
want to get your eye fixed,'' Booker told me. ``You know the drill.''

She'd already stopped paying me attention before she finished speaking
the sentence, not that I was going to complain. Booker wasn't exactly
the kind of company I cared to keep, not that I kept much to start with.
I slipped past the bodyguards without bothering to glance at them,
heading through the threshold into the dingy little backroom where the
Pit's mage plied his trade. Zacharis was a man in his twenties, his skin
pale and constantly flushed. The half-empty bottle of wine next to the
armchair where he was snoring was the reason the man was associated with
an illegal fighting ring at all: he was a drinker, and in exchange for
the better part of the money he made fixing up fighters Booker let him
go through as many bottles as he wanted. He reeked of wine again, I
noted as I got close enough to shake him awake, but at least this time
there was no stench of vomit lurking behind it. Zacharis blearily opened
his eyes, running a fat red tongue against his lips.

``Catherine?'' he croaked out. ``I thought your fight was tomorrow.''

I resented the fact that he insisted on calling me by my first name
instead of Foundling, but not enough to make a scene. I could have gone
to the House of Light for healing -- and gotten it for free, too -- if I
had the stomach to wait through the lines but the priests there had this
unfortunate tendency to ask \emph{questions}. Better to suffer through a
few minutes of the drunk's company and his sloppier healing than have a
sister showing up at the orphanage to tell the Matron I was getting into
fights again. ``Tomorrow's now,'' I told him with a sigh. ``Are you
sober enough to cast?''

He muttered a reply I couldn't quite hear and rolled up his sleeves,
which I took as agreement. His eyes flicked to the bottle but when he
risked a glance at me whatever he must have seen on my face was enough
to convince him to put the idea aside. He gestured for me to sit down on
a wooden stool and pushed himself up. From the way he grimaced at that,
he must have had the beginning of a pounding headache on his hands.

``So why is it that priests heal better than mages, anyway?'' I asked
him, trying to force him to focus on the here and now.

The look he shot me was fairly condescending. Zacharis uttered a few
strange syllables and his hand was wreathed in yellow light -- he kept
it hovering an inch over my black eye, letting the spell sink in.

``Priests cheat, Catherine,'' he informed me. ``They just pray to the
Heavens and power goes through them, fixes whatever's broke. No real
cleverness needed. Mages have to understand what they're doing -- throw
magic around someone's body without a plan and healing's the last thing
you'll get.''

That was\ldots{} not as reassuring as I'd thought it would be. Trusting
that Zacharis knew what he was doing became something of an uphill
battle, after actually meeting the man. \emph{Still, if he was a
complete screwup Booker wouldn't keep him around.} Gods knew he had to
cost her a fortune in liquor, however cheap the swill he drank was.

``There,'' he said after a moment, taking away his hand. ``As pretty as
I can make it. Don't get punched again, the flesh is more fragile than
usual.''

I nodded my thanks, picking out seven coppers from my bag and dropping
them into his open palm. He hesitated, then fished out a pair and handed
them back to me. I shot him a surprised look.

``You're getting close to sixteen, right?'' Zacharis said. ``Can't have
much more than a few months left before the orphanage puts you out. Keep
those, every coin will count when you're on your own.''

That was oddly touching, coming from a man I could barely stomach on the
best of days.

``Thanks,'' I muttered, abashed at the sudden generosity.

The pale mage smiled bitterly. ``Go home, Catherine. Pick up a trade
instead of getting mixed up in messes like this. There's a reason they
call it the \emph{Pit}, you know.''

He reached for the bottle and popped the cork, taking a swallow as he
turned his back to me. I fled the room and then the warehouse itself:
the less time I spent here the better. Besides, we were getting close to
the evening bell and I had a real job to get to.

I was already Lakeside so it was a short walk to the Rat's Nest.

The quarter looked worse by daylight than it did at night: no darkness
to hide the dirt and the misery, I supposed. The streets down here were
tight and cramped, unlike the wide paved avenues of Fairway where all
the richer sort lived. Even when Laure had been the capital of the
Kingdom of Callow instead of just another governorship the Lakeside
Quarter had been a dump. Or so I'd been told -- the Conquest had
happened over two decades ago, a few years before I'd been born, so I
had to take it on faith. Still, I had a feeling it was worse than it
used to be. The Guilds might have been raking in gold since they'd
fallen into Governor Mazus' pocket but everybody else was feeling the
weight of the ever-increasing taxes: once-abandoned warehouses were now
filled with people who'd had their homes and shops seized because they
couldn't pay on time, little more than refugees in their own city of
birth. \emph{If he keeps strangling trade the whole city might end up
scrabbling in the dirt down here}, I reflected as I tiptoed around a
small pool of mud. My boots were old enough as it was, they might not
survive being another cleaning in one piece.

Besides, Harrion wouldn't let me barmaid if I was going to track dirt
all over his floor. He already disapproved of my fighting in the Pit,
not that he'd ever said anything: he just had a way of sending me home
early whenever I showed up with bruises that were too obvious. Hopefully
I'd have time to rinse off in the back before he could see the blood
still on my lip: the end of the month was never busy at the Rat's Nest,
so he might be napping in the rooms upstairs instead of keeping an eye
on the common room. \emph{Which means I might have Leyran for only
company tonight}, I frowned. Harrion's son was a few years older than me
and convinced he was the most charming man since the Shining Prince. Bit
of a layabout, and he had a way of spending more time talking with the
patrons than actually getting them their drinks -- especially whenever
by some miracle an attractive woman ended up at the Nest. He was
harmless, as far as idiots went, but if he ended up inheriting the
tavern he'd likely run it into the ground. I took a shortcut through
Tanner Tom's backyard to shave a few minutes off of my walk, if only so
the sweat I was still drenched in didn't have too much time to settle.

I didn't have a key to the back door, but it was unlocked. I wiped my
boots on the already dirty rug I was pretty sure had been stolen from a
merchant down by the harbour and dropped my bag on the dirt floor and
headed for the bowl of water by the table in the corner. The background
noise filtering in from the door to the common room made it clear there
were already a handful of patrons, though the song the minstrel was
playing was even louder. I winced when she bawled out a particularly
off-key couplet, picking up the rag inside the bowl and wiping my face
clean. I used the polished copper plate hung up on the wall to make sure
there was no blood showing on my face, cursing under my breath when I
realized that the blood clot on my lip wasn't going anywhere. The
dark-skinned girl looking back at me from the surface looked like she'd
seen better days, I had to admit.

I'd never been what you would call pretty -- chin too strong, cheekbones
too angular -- but the way my dark locks stuck to the top of my head had
me looking like a drenched urchin girl. A few strands of hair had come
loose from the ponytail I kept them in so I shook loose the wooden clip
that kept it together and shoved it in my pocket. The water had the rag
cool and pleasant, so I rubbed it along my neck and collarbones just for
the refreshing feeling. The woollen shirt I'd worn in the pit was
flecked with blood so I took it off and shoved it back in the bag,
slipping on my only good clothes: the dyed cotton blouse was a pleasant
blue, the symbol of the Laure House for Tragically Orphaned Girls sown
over the heart. I'd have to be careful not to spill any beer on it:
laundry day at the orphanage wasn't for a few days yet and the Matron
checked out clothes every morning. Nudging my bag into the corner, I
pushed the door and entered the Rat's Nest proper.

The tavern's common room was exactly as pretty as the place's name
implied: rickety wooden walls salvaged from wrecked ships and a dirt
floor that turned into mud wherever drinks got spilled too often. There
was a wide fire pit circled by stones in the middle of it, surrounded by
a ring of tables where half a dozen patrons were chatting quietly over
drinks. Only two humans, I saw. Three orcs still in legionary armour
were sharing a table with a yellow-eyed goblin sporting officer's
stripes on her shoulders. Or at least I thought it was a her: it was
hard to tell the gender under all that green wrinkled skin. The sight of
the three big orcs standing at least three feet taller than the scrawny
goblin yet hanging on her every word drew a small smile out of me,
though my attention shifted as soon as our minstrel began a new song.

``\emph{Boot goes up and boot goes down:}

\emph{There goes their callow crown}

\emph{And no matter how high the walls}

\emph{We're all gonna make them fall-''}

There was a small cheer from the table full of soldiers. Ellerna had
decided to pander to her audience tonight, it seemed. The Legionary Song
wasn't exactly a popular ditty in Callow. Not that it was surprising,
considering it referred heavily to the Conquest. There was no sign of
Harrion anywhere but Leyran was lounging in one of the corner tables,
smirking at Ellerna whenever she glanced in his direction. \emph{Ugh.}
He'd been trying to talk her into sharing one of the upstairs beds since
Harrion had first hired her, and while she'd been lukewarm at the
prospect at first these days she seemed inclined to give in. \emph{Bad
call, Ellerna. He's not looking to marry, no matter what his father
wants.} The man in question noticed I'd come in a moment after and
gestured for me to come closer. I crossed the room, throwing a smile at
the pair of women I passed by on my way through. Leyran offered me the
closest thing to a roguish smile he could manage, passing a hand through
his short-cropped hair as I claimed the seat across from him.

``Catherine,'' he greeted me. ``Punctual as always.''

\emph{How you manage to come in late for work when you live in the same
building is beyond me}, I refrained from saying.

``Leyran,'' I replied instead. ``My apron's still under the counter?''

He shrugged. ``Right next to the cudgel. Dad wants to talk to you first,
though. He's in his room upstairs.''

Huh. I grunted in acknowledgement and pushed myself up. It was still a
few days early for Harrion to need my help with the accounts, so it
couldn't be that. Might just be he needed me to work some numbers for
him -- half the reason I'd been hired at the Nest was that I knew my
letters and numbers. The benefits of being raised in an Imperial-funded
institution, I supposed. The stairs creaked under my feet and led me
right to the corridor where four doors stood closed: two for the family,
two up for renting. Harrion's own room was where he kept all of his
papers, so I'd been there before. Rapping my knuckles against the door,
I waited for a moment before pushing it open. A pair of candles was the
only source of light in the cramped room: a bed and dresser were wedged
in the left corner, with the bare skeleton of a wooden desk facing them.
Harrion himself was seated on a stool at the desk and the old man
gestured for me to come in without turning.

``Catherine,'' he grunted. ``I need you to read something for me.''

The owner of the Rat's Nest was a skinny man with a balding crown of
hair, dressed in plain brown wool -- he was looking at a piece of
parchment I couldn't quite make out, glaring at the letters like they'd
personally offended him. I'm not sure he'd have been able to make them
out even if he could read: his eyes weren't what they used to be, and
he'd always balked at the cost of getting a pair of spectacles made.
Used to Harrion's gruff manners by now, I leaned over his shoulder and
took a closer look at the parchment. It was an official document, I saw
quickly enough: there was a golden wax seal on it that bore Laure's coat
of arms. I skimmed the first few lines, since they were mostly
ceremonial claptrap, and got to the meat of the matter: the Governor's
office was sending an official notice by that the end of next month all
establishments serving liquor would need to be affiliated with the
proper guild or face additional taxes.

``They want to fold you into the Brewer's Guild,'' I voiced. ``Otherwise
you get another tax hitch -- though they don't say how large.''

``Fucking Mazus,'' Harrion cursed. ``Fucking Praesi and fucking
Empire,'' he added after a moment.

I'd heard a lot worse -- and more inventive -- serving drinks
downstairs, so the language hardly fazed me. I could see where he was
coming from, too. I'd been told the Guilds had once been a boon, when
Callow had still existed, but since Laure had gotten an Imperial
governor they'd become little more than a polite protection racket. They
collected membership fees every month and required a certain amount of
product to be delivered at the guildhall for ``quality control'' -- in
exchange for which they were supposed to protect the interests of their
members and regulate the trade. The Governor had flipped the situation
around by buying out the Guildmasters he could and arranging accidents
for those he couldn't, making them just another finger in the Imperial
hand that was choking out Laure.

``The tax might end less costly than a membership,'' I said after a
moment, at loss for what else to say.

Harrion let out a derisive snort. ``They're greedy, not dumb,'' he
replied. ``The taxes are going to be savage, girl, you can count on
it.''

I threaded my fingers through my hair, letting out a sigh. ``You won't
be able to afford keeping me on, will you?''

The balding man had the grace to look embarrassed. ``Maybe on the busy
nights, but not as often as now,'' he admitted.

I would have liked to blame him, but it wouldn't have been right. It
wasn't his fault, was it? He wasn't any happier about the situation than
I was, and it wasn't like there was anyone to appeal to. Governors
answered directly to the Dread Empress, and I doubted that Malicia gave
a shit about the fact that her buddy Mazus was being a robber lord all
the way out here. As long as the tributes came on time, what did she
care? \emph{It's not fair, but you don't get fair when you lose wars}, I
thought. I felt my fist clench, though I forced it to loosen after a
moment. Things like this were exactly why I needed to go to the College.
If I got high enough in the ranks of the Legion, if I amassed enough
power and influence, one day I'd be in a position to fix this. To send
fuckers like Mazus to the gallows instead of watching them throw banquet
after banquet up in the palace.

``Should I stay until the end of the month, at least?'' I asked.

Harrion nodded tiredly. ``I'll try figure something out, Catherine,'' he
said. ``I know you've been saving up for something.''

I smiled but we were both aware the words were an empty gesture. I'd
been running the Nest's numbers for a year now, and there was only so
much gold flowing through the place. I went back down the stairs, trying
to figure out a way out of this mess. I might be able to scrape enough
together if I started fighting in the Pits more often, but that carried
risks of its own: losing was always a possibility, and the more I won
the harder it would get to make good betting on myself. Booker had
implied once or twice that she'd be willing to take me on as an
enforcer, but that was a slippery slope. \emph{I'll sleep on it}, I
decided, putting on my apron. I still had a job, for now, and I wasn't
one to shirk honest work when I could get it.

On calm nights like this one I spent as much time cleaning as I did
actually getting patrons their drinks. The larder had remained more or
less in order since the last time I'd taken the time to arrange it,
though, and none of the beer barrels were leaking. I found myself idly
passing a rag on the counter for at least a quarter bell before
something caught my interest. There were a handful of regulars I was on
friendly terms with but my clear favourite among them was Sergeant Ebele
-- I couldn't help but smile when she came in. She was tall, taller than
most orcs even, and her skin was even darker than mine. In the hotter
parts of summer I could almost pass as just particularly tanned, but she
was black as charcoal in that way only northern Praesi could be. There
was a little scar by the side of her mouth that kept her lips in a
perpetual half-smile, which turned into a broad grin when she saw me.
I'd already filled her tankard by the time she'd claimed a table, and I
wasted no time in bringing it to her.

``You, my sweet,'' Ebele said after taking a long pull from her beer,
``are a true delight. This place would go to the dogs without you to
keep it going.''

A shadow passed on my face at the thought that soon enough that would be
the case, but I pushed through.

``Just finished your watch, then?'' I asked eagerly.

The sergeant had a friendly disposition that I rather liked, but what I
enjoyed the most about her was that after a few drinks she took little
prodding to start telling stories about her service with the Legion. She
was a veteran of the Conquest, one who'd been on the front lines at the
Fields of Streges and the Siege of Summerholm -- as well as part of the
quick but brutal civil war inside the Empire that had preceded their
invasion of Callow. She talked about that part less, though. I got the
impression it had been a pretty brutal affair. \emph{And if someone who
was at the Fields thinks of something as brutal, I'm inclined to take
her word for it.}

``Oh yes,'' Ebele muttered. ``Hence why I'm here drinking away my
sorrows. If I have to hear Goren snicker one more time, I'll have to
strangle the idiot. Be a dear and get me a pitcher, will you? I don't
intend to be able to walk out of here on my own.''

I snorted and disappeared into the larder, filling a clay pitcher to the
brim at the tap. One of the few things that redeemed the Rat's Nest from
all the other hole-in-the-ground taverns was that the Harrion didn't
water the beer. It tasted like dead vermin, sure, but at least it didn't
taste like dead vermin marinated in water. Half of Ebele's tankard was
already gone by the time I returned, which boded well for getting
stories out of her -- though hopefully she wouldn't keep going at this
rate, because her sing-song accent got harder to decipher when she
slurred her words.

``Come sit with me, lovely Catherine,'' the sergeant grinned when I set
the pitcher down. ``This place is as dead as can be.''

A quick glance around confirmed as much. Besides the patrons who'd
already been there when I came in -- and who were already topped off --
there was no one else. Including, I noted wearily, Leyran and Ellerna. I
tried not to think too much about that. ``It's still pretty early,'' I
agreed.

The Nest would get busier the closer we got to the midnight bell, but
that wouldn't be for a while yet. Ebele suddenly leaned forward, taking
a closer look at my face.

``You were mage-touched, and recently at that,'' she observed, tone
surprised.

I blinked. Had Zacharis messed up his spell? There shouldn't be any
visible marks.

``I got into a fight,'' I admitted. ``How can you tell?''

The dark-haired sergeant's smile turned rueful. ``When you see enough
mage-healing you learn to pick up on the signs. Whoever did yours was a
little rough around the edges, but it's good work.''

Huh. Point for Zacharis, I supposed. If he could cast that well
hungover, he must have been a fairly good sorcerer when sober. \emph{If
he was ever sober.} Ebele paused, appearing to consider her next words,
and I prepared to swallow a sigh. People really needed to stop telling
me not to get into fights -- now more than ever, considering I wasn't
going to be making much of anything from the Rat's Nest.

``Did you win?'' the scarred woman asked.

I grinned. ``Beat his ass into the ground,'' I replied.

``Good girl,'' Ebele chuckled approvingly. ``You should consider the
Legions, if you want to get into real scraps.''

``I'm saving up for the College,'' I admitted. ``Hoping to make it there
by next summer.''

The sergeant's hairless brows rose. ``The War College? Ambitious of you,
though I suppose it's less expensive since Lord Black pushed the reforms
through.''

I'd been born before the reforms -- they preceded the Conquest -- so I
only had a vague sense of what she was talking about. I'd never gotten
any real details out of someone about what the reforms actually were,
though everyone agreed that they'd radically changed the Legions of
Terror. The name she'd dropped caught my attention, though. Well the
\emph{Name} if you wanted to be accurate:Black Knight\emph{.} The man
who'd led the Calamities in the destruction of the Kingdom of Callow,
over twenty years ago. I knew he was still alive and up to no good
somewhere in the Empire, but the existence of people with Names had
never felt quite real to me. Heroes and their darker counterparts were
the kind of people that lived in legends, not in my reality of pit
fights and serving drinks.

``You ever meet any of them?'' I asked. ``The Calamities, I mean.''

Ebele's half-smile twitched in amusement.

``In person? Only the one,'' she said. ``Before the Conquest I was part
of the Second, when it moved to kick in High Lord Duma's door.''

The sergeant took a long pull from her tankard.

``My company ran into some of his personal household troops during our
push to his demesne -- nasty fuckers, with mages and a dug-in position.
Could have wasted three hundred people easily to crack that nut, and we
couldn't just leave them sitting on top of our supply lines.''

I leaned forward. Which one of them had it been? Probably not the Black
Knight, or she would have mentioned it earlier, and since Captain was
famously never far behind him she was probably out too. I doubted
Assassin would have stopped for a chat, but maybe Ranger? I hoped it had
been Ranger. I'd always liked the stories about her best.

``So we're starting to set up a palisade around them,'' Ebele continued.
``Waiting for reinforcements and all that -- then out of nowhere, this
man strolls up to us. Claps our captain on the back, tells her to get
the company ready because they'll be moving again soon.''

A man? That meant\ldots{}

``So the captain asks him who the Gods Below he thinks he is, and he
gives her this shit-eating grin. `Call me Warlock. That scheming bastard
sent me to clear you a way,' and off he goes.''

Warlock. They called him the `Sovereign of the Red Skies', whatever that
was supposed to mean -- Praesi liked to tack on fancy titles to
everything, it was like a cultural compulsion. Came from the centuries
of unrepentant villainy, probably.

Ebele's tone suddenly turned serious, the mirth in her eyes snuffed out
and replaced by awe and just the tiniest smidgeon of fear. ``We never
got close enough to see exactly what he did,'' she murmured. ``But not
even a quarter bell after he disappeared the whole enemy garrison went
up in a column of red flames. When we marched through later that night,
the whole place was intact. Not a stone or tent out of place, but all
the armours were empty. Like the people had just\ldots{} disappeared.''

I felt a shiver go up my spine. It was one thing for a mage to make fire
-- it was one of the easiest spells to manage -- but what she'd
described? That was a different matter entirely. \emph{You don't get a
Name like Warlock by learning the nice sort of spells, I guess.}

``I'll say this about the Legions, sweet girl,'' the sergeant murmured.
``The constant drills are a bitch, but at least you know whenever you
step on a battlefield that all the scariest fuckers are on your side.''

I nodded slowly, but before I could say anything a group of patrons
walked in. I gave Ebele an apologetic shrug and got back to work.

The walk back to the orphanage was always the worst part of the night.

There were risks to bar tending in the bad part of Laure, I knew, but it
wasn't like taverns in the Merchant Quarter were lining up to hire
sixteen year old orphans. I'd tried my luck more than once and been
shown the door before deciding that the Rat's Nest my golden chance.
Besides, eavesdropping on drunken veterans reminiscing was more
interesting than doing the same on pretentious guild members. Once in a
while a patron would get grabby, true enough, but that was why we had a
cudgel under the counter. They rarely needed to be told to lay off
twice, and those that did limped home with a few broken fingers for
their trouble. The matron back at the Laure House for Tragically
Orphaned Girls was deeply offended I'd do anything as uncouth as serving
drinks to ruffians, but I only had to suffer her lectures for another
year before I was free. I was perfectly willing to spend half a bell in
the old woman's office getting upbraided for ``consorting with unsavoury
elements'' if it meant that by the time I was sixteen I'd have enough to
cover my tuition. Not that I'd told her that was what I was saving for:
if her feathers were ruffled by my serving drinks Lakeside, she'd have a
fit at learning I wanted to enrol in the officer's school for the
Legions of Terror. It wasn't too far past the midnight bell when I
finally headed out home, and making my way back to the House after dark
wasn't as dangerous as one would think, anyway: the city guard was
hopelessly corrupt and in the Governor's pocket to boot, but they were
well aware that if they failed to keep order in the city then the
Legions would step in.

There were a lot of people who wanted that to happen, funnily enough:
the Legions were a little heavy on the hangings, they said, but at least
when Laure had been under martial law everything ran smoothly. Still, as
long as Mazus remained in bed with the Guilds and kept the guards on his
payroll there was nothing anyone could do about any of this. Rioting
would just mean a lot of spiked heads over the city gates when the
legionaries were done clearing the crowd: the Dread Empire of Praes did
not brook dissent, much less open one.

That said, there was a reason the Lakeside was known as the rough part
of town and I had no intention of lingering in the darkened streets. I
wished I had a knife on me, honestly, but the only time I'd tried that
the matron had confiscated it when one of the girls in my dormitory
ratted me out. I'd never been popular with the others, and they weren't
above getting back at me in petty ways when they could. I was about
halfway back when a shriek followed by the sound of struggling drew me
out of my thoughts -- it was coming from a side-alley, one of the myriad
of dead-ends that filled this part of town.

I peeked around the corner and felt my blood rise when I saw the
silhouette of a guard pushing a girl down. Her blouse was already ripped
open, but she seemed more intent on begging the man to leave her alone
than fighting back. \emph{Shit.} This was the kind of thing a reasonable
girl would walk away from, ugly as that reality was.

\emph{Why couldn't I have been born a reasonable girl?}

I had no intention of scrapping with a man in armour at least a foot
taller than me, but I might be able to get the other girl and run if I
played this right. Unlike the guard I didn't carry a weapon, but if I
hit him hard and fast I might knock him out before it ever turned into a
struggle. Reckless, maybe, but what was I supposed to do -- just cover
my ears and go on my merry way? I stepped into the alley as silently as
I could, catching sight of a ramshackle crate full of rotting cabbage as
I did. My fingers closed against the edge of it and I closed the
remaining distance separating me from the guard in a handful of steps,
swinging the crate into the back of his head. It broke with a satisfying
crunch, putting him down as the girl he'd been pushing himself onto let
out a fresh new shriek of terror. I kicked the guard in the chin to make
sure he wouldn't get back up. The girl in the ripped-up blouse was
backing away from me, apparently as scared of me as she was of her
tormentor. A pointless gesture, that: the alley ended in a wooden wall,
there was nowhere to go but through me.

``I'm here to help,'' I told her soothingly. ``Come with me, we need to
get out of here before-''

I never got to finish the sentence, as a vicious hit to the temple
sending me tumbling to the ground. The world spun but I tried to push
myself up only to come face to face with a bared blade. I looked up into
the eyes of a second guard, this one wearing sergeant stripes on his
shoulders. His face was grim as he kept the tip of his short sword less
than an inch away from my throat.

``Joseph,'' he said calmly, ``are you all right?''

The man I'd hit with the crate rolled over with a groan, getting back on
his feet gingerly.

``The bitch did a number on me,'' he spat. ``That's going to leave a
bruise for sure.''

``Be glad she wasn't carrying a knife, you idiot,'' he retorted.

``He was trying to rape the girl,'' I wheezed. ``Why the Hells am I the
one getting hit?''

A flash of disgust went through the sergeant's face, but he refused to
meet my eyes.

``You said you'd stop doing shit like this,'' he spoke, ignoring me in
favour of staring down his colleague. ``You promised, Joseph.''

`Joseph' waved him off.

``No one would have cared if she hadn't run into me, Allen,'' he
replied. ``We can just break a few fingers to teach them manners and go
home, our patrol is almost done.''

The sergeant -- Allen, apparently -- sighed.

``Look at her blouse, Joseph. That's the heraldry for the Imperial
orphanage sewed up over her chest. She shows up home with broken fingers
and people are going to ask questions,'' he said.

The would-be rapist's eyes widened in fear.

``Fuck,'' he cursed again. ``What do we do? I can't go to jail, who's
going to feed my kids? Bessie doesn't even have a job.''

I snuck a glance towards the girl. She was huddled in a corner, shaking
life a leaf and trying to hold her ripped clothes together. There was an
absent look in her eyes, like she was there but not really \emph{there}.
No help coming from that direction, then. This\ldots{} wasn't looking
too good.

``We'll have to kill them,'' the sergeant said flatly. ``No blades, that
would lead to too many questions. We came across their bodies during
patrol, no witnesses and no suspects.''

And the Hells with that. I moved fast, slapping away the hand that held
the sword as I tried to hoist myself back up to my feet. It loosened his
grip but he rammed the cross guard of the sword into my shoulder -- I
was already halfway up by then so it staggered me back a step, screwing
up my footing. I tried to push down the panic welling up in my chest,
but the awareness that I was stuck in a dead-end alley with two armed
men larger and stronger than me wasn't exactly helping. I scratched the
sergeant's face as he tried to wrestle me down, my nails drawing blood
on his face and a hiss of pain from his lips. It wasn't enough: he'd
dropped his sword at some point and he slammed me against the wall,
forcing down my struggling hands and moving his legs so that I couldn't
get a decent angle to kick him.

``Joseph,'' the man said in strained voice. ``Get the other one. But
first promise me this is the last time. We can't keep on doing this.''

Joseph licked his lips, nodding nervously.

``Yeah, it's the last time,'' he muttered. ``I mean, I didn't want
anyone to get \emph{killed} over this.''

A moment later the sergeant's hand settled on my throat and started to
squeeze. I tried to punch him and wrestle away his hand, but he was
stronger than me and I was trying to breathe but-

``Should never have stepped into the alley, girl,'' Allen said. ``These
aren't days for playing hero.''

``Always a mistake, gloating before the business is done,'' a voice
commented mildly.

There was a streak of movement and an enormous silhouette moved out of
the dark, slapping down Allen effortlessly and picking up the other man
by the scruff of the neck. I gulped in a mouthful of air greedily,
coughing a handful of times before I was finally self-possessed enough
to look around me. The girl was still cowering in a corner, looking
catatonic, and a man was kneeling next to her. He wrapped a thick dark
cloak around her shoulders before rising back to his feet, eerie pale
green eyes meeting my own. He was pale-skinned and decked in plain steel
plate, though he'd moved as if the pounds of metal he was wearing were
light as a silk shirt. My eyes flicked to the sword at his side before
turning to the other new presence in the alley. It was a woman, or at
least vaguely shaped like one: she stood at least three feet taller than
I and twice as wide, keeping the struggling Joseph up in their air by
the scruff of the neck without any visible strain. I couldn't see
whether she was armed: her cloak covered her body up to her neck. I
pushed myself up, forcing down a cough and uncomfortably aware that the
green-eyed man was staring at me. Allen looked like he was about to
crawl back to his knees, so I kicked him in the chin with a twinge of
vicious satisfaction.

``Staying down would be the wiser choice, sergeant'' the man said. ``You
might find the consequences of further resistance unpleasant.''

``Thank you,'' I croaked out at the strangers. ``I thought I was done
for.''

The man dipped his head in acknowledgment.

``Captain,'' he spoke up without even looking at the gargantuan woman,
``if you would silence our other friend?''

She drove her fist in Joseph's stomach faster than my eye could follow,
getting a gasp out of him that was almost a retch, and then knocked him
hard enough on the temple that he slumped. She'd never stopped holding
him up during any of this, and still didn't seem particularly
inconvenienced when she slung his unconscious body over her shoulder.
Allen let out a strangled noise.

``I know who you are,'' he wheezed out. ``You're the Black Knight. Sir,
\emph{we're on your side}!''

I took half a step back, feeling my stomach twist up in unashamed fear.
Hitting a guard from behind had been something, but if the sergeant was
right then I was less than ten feet away from the godsdamned boogeyman.
\emph{Shit, of all the people who could have walked into the alley.} The
green-eyed man had a body count that would make most butchers retch --
there wasn't a man or woman in Callow that didn't know the Name. And if
that was really \emph{the} Captain holding up the other guard, then I
was all sorts of screwed: the stories said she'd once killed an ogre
with a single hammer stroke. Gods, looking at her now she had to be at
least eight feet tall.

``No,'' the Knight murmured. ``You really aren't.''

An armoured foot whipped out and the sergeant joined his accomplice in
the realm of dreams.

``If memory serves we have a safe house a few blocks down, Sabah,'' he
added after a moment. ``Let's keep them there for the moment.''

Captain raised an eyebrow.

``We're not taking them to the guard?''

``Mazus would hear of it before the hour was done,'' the Knight replied.
``No need to give him any advance warning.''

``And the girl?''

They both glanced at the victim, still huddled in her corner and shaking
like a leaf under the Black Knight's cloak.

``Have one of the men bring her home,'' he decided. ``She's had quite
enough excitement for the night, I think.''

The behemoth of a woman saluted, the would-be rapist still slung over
her shoulder, and picked up the sergeant's foot. She dragged him across
the ground none too gently and crossed the corner.

``Are you-'' I croaked out, throat still sore from the choking, ``are
you really him?''

The dark-haired man smiled, though it did not reach his eyes. They were
cold as ice, their eerie shade of green sending a shiver down my spine
-- I knew people with green eyes, but none quite as pale as his. They
looked the way I imagined a fey's would, and there was no denying the
touch of strangeness there was to him. He hadn't even replied but just
the weight of his attention made me feel like a rabbit in front of a
wolf, like my life could be snatched right out of me in the blink of an
eye. I guess some people would be cowed by that, but I've always
\emph{hated} feeling afraid. The other girls at the orphanage had never
understood why I kept going up to the roof and standing on the edge when
everybody knew I was afraid of heights, but they were missing the point.
I'd kept going \emph{because} I was afraid, and I'd refused to stop even
when they'd started whispering to each other about how I was going to
turn into a gargoyle if I kept standing there glaring at the ground. I
wasn't fool enough to think that fighting through a childish fear of
heights and staring down the smiling monster in front of me was the
same, but the principle was the same. My fear did not own me -- I owned
it. I met the Black Knight's eyes, refusing to flinch even as his smile
stretched wider. \emph{You might be a wolf, but I am no rabbit.}

``Am I the Black Knight?'' he murmured. ``Yes, among other things.''

The weight I'd been feeling disappeared as swiftly as it had come into
existence and I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. Had he
been doing it on purpose, or had all of that just been in my head? The
fear hadn't felt natural, even less now that it wasn't choking me up.I
was wary of giving the man many name but it would have been rude not to,
after the way he'd just saved my hide.

``I'm-''

``Catherine Foundling, of the Imperial orphanage,'' he finished, and my
blood ran cold.

How did he know my name? Had I been marked for death for some
inscrutable reason? I hadn't done anything illegal, as far as I knew, or
associated with anyone stupid enough to go against Imperial authority.
No, I reassured myself, if he wanted me dead he wouldn't have intervened
when the sergeant was choking me. Then how-

``Haven't you heard, my dear?'' he spoke with a sardonic twist of the
lips, ``I know everything.''

I knew on an intellectual level that what he said was impossible but
right now, standing in the dark alley by the unconscious bodies of two
men who'd been slapped down effortlessly, I could almost believe it.
``You're not in any trouble, regardless.''

``Gotta say, you're not selling that impression very well,'' I replied
before I could help myself.

I winced as soon as I processed the words that had come out of my mouth.
\emph{Splendid notion, Catherine, let's mouth off to the guy who could
run you through and not even be questioned about it. I need to get
punched in the head less often.} To my relief, he chuckled.

``You'll have to take my word for it, I suppose,'' he replied.

I wasn't sure exactly what that was worth, but I wasn't in a position to
argue.

``I'll require your company for a little while still, I'm afraid,'' he
continued.

I frowned.

``What for? You told\ldots{} \emph{her},'' I said, hesitant to actually
use Captain's Name, ``that you weren't handing them to the city guard
yet.''

I couldn't imagine what use he could have for me aside from a witness,
and even then he hardly needed that. If the Empress' right hand thought
some people needed killing, they died. It was as simple as that, and
anybody fool enough to protest was likely headed in the same direction.
Black smiled, and not for the first time that night a shiver went up my
spine.

``I've come to believe, over the years, that those who are wronged
should have a say in how that wrong is redressed.''

With a last glance towards the girl whose name I had never even learned,
who was already being helped up by a silent silhouette in a dark cloak,
I followed him out of the alley.

The place was as close as he'd said, not even long enough of a walk for
me to start thinking about anything but how nervous I was feeling.There
was nothing distinguishing the safe house from any actual house in the
neighbourhood, except of course for the dozen of armoured soldiers in
heavy plate standing in front of it silently. So much for subtlety,
then. Not that I was complaining: not even a full patrol of the city
guard would feel up to tangling with those guys. Or girls, maybe? It was
hard to tell with the way the helmet's visor covered their faces and the
plate obscured their body shape. I knew who they were, anyway.

They were called the Blackguards, because Praesi had this strange
fixation with shoving the word black into everything. They were the
Knight's elite bodyguards and the veterans from the Fields of Streges
I'd eavesdropped on said every one was supposed to be the match of ten
fighting men. They said that about a lot of people, though. The Conquest
had been so overwhelmingly one-sided of a war that I thought one of the
ways Callowans dealt with the trauma was by putting the conquerors on a
pedestal. He went through the door after affording them a nod and I
followed him without a word.

Captain -- who was nowhere in sight -- or one of the faceless soldiers
I'd seen standing outside must have lit the candles inside, because
there was a handful of them dispersed around the room. There was a ratty
bed in the corner and a table flanked by a pair of chairs, but besides
that the furniture was sparse. Nothing worth robbing unless you were
truly desperate. The guards had been tied up and gagged, propped up
against the wall in the back. Both were awake now, and neither of them
was doing all that good of a job at hiding their terror.

The Black Knight ignored them and I followed suit, taking the other
chair after he seated himself. The candlelight allowed me my first clear
look at the man and I took the opportunity shamelessly. How many
occasions to see the man up close was I going to get? He had one of
those ageless faces that could put him anywhere from his mid-twenties to
his mid-thirties, which was a pretty spry look for him considering word
had it he was nearing sixty. Roles did that sometimes, slowed aging or
kept you looking the same. I still wasn't all that clear on what he
wanted, but if he wasn't going to say anything then I had a few
questions of my own.

``So, what will happen to them?''

Black drummed his fingers on the table, the shadows cast by the candles
on his face twisting about as if they'd come to life.

``They'll be handed to the city guard for trial and punishment. Since
Laure is no longer under the authority of the Legions, Imperial law
takes precedence. Attempted rape should fetch them a minimum of five
years in a cell -- less for the good sergeant, given that he was only an
accomplice.''

Five years. That was\ldots{} They'd tried to \emph{rape} her, and when
I'd stopped them they'd tried to kill me so they'd get away with it.

``That's it?'' I said. ``After all they did, they spend five years in a
prison eating badly and then they're back on the streets?''

He raised an eyebrow.

``You underestimate the unpleasantness of Laure's penitentiaries, but in
essence you are correct.''

``It's not enough, for what they tried to do -- for what they would have
done, if we hadn't been lucky enough for you to show up,'' I growled.

The pale-skinned man I'd heard so much about growing up eyed me in
silence, his face unreadable. The stories simmered in the back of my
head, each less believable than the last. \emph{He once rode a dragon.
His sword feeds on the souls of the innocent and that's why he never
lost a duel. He sees the future and reads the minds of his enemies. He
conquered Callow in a month by turning his entire army into werewolves.
The orcs worship him like a god and he's king of the goblins.} There'd
been a story about how he had the blood of giants running in his veins,
but given that he fell way short of six feet tall I felt safe dismissing
that one. Hopefully the mind-reading was the same kind of deal, because
as far as I was concerned no one belonged inside my head but me.

``There's another way,'' he finally said.

Slowly, carefully, he unsheathed the knife hanging at his belt and put
it down on the table. I eyed the blade warily, the edge of it looking
wicked sharp even from where I was sitting.

``Do you know what separates people who have a Role from people who
don't, Catherine?'' Black asked.

I shook my head.

``Will,'' he said. ``The belief, deep down, that they know what is right
and that they'll see it done.''

My throat caught. Was he implying what I thought he was?

``So tell me, Catherine Foundling,'' he murmured, his voice smooth as
velvet. ``What do you think is right?''

He spun the knife so that the handle faced me, the touch of his
fingertips deft and light.

``How far are you willing to go, to see it done?''

I could feel the eyes of the two gagged guards on me, but I ignored
them. I met the Knight's stare squarely, my heart thundering in my
chest. The lives of those two men had just been dropped in the palm of
my hand, and if I wanted to snuff out the light in their eyes all I had
to do was squeeze. Could I really do that? Did I have the right to take
justice into my own hands? It would be murder to kill them, every moment
I'd ever spent in the House of Light told me as much. \emph{Five years},
I remembered. \emph{Five years, and then they'll be out there again}.

My fingers closed around the knife.

I rose to my feet and Joseph's eyes widened in fear when I knelt in
front of him. There was nothing in the room, nothing in the world
besides the two of us. My palm felt clammy against the knife's leather
wrap, but I tightened my hand and pushed down his gag. If I did this, if
I was really going to do this, I had to know. I could feel the Knight's
gaze on me but this wasn't about him. It was about me, about the
decision I had to make. All my life I'd told myself I would somehow
manage to get power and that I'd used it to \emph{fix} things. To make
it all better. And now here I was, gifted the power of life and death
over two men in the form of a few inches of cold steel.

``You've done this before,'' I half-asked, half-stated.

He looked ashamed for a moment, but there was something in his eyes that
caused disgust to well up in me. Like he didn't understand how foul what
he'd wanted to do was.

``Look,'' he said, ``I didn't meant to. It was just, the way she was
dressed\ldots{} I mean, what kind of a decent woman goes about at
night-''

I slit his throat.

It wasn't a conscious decision. For what he said and what he'd done, I'd
decided he deserved to die -- my hand had done the rest without any need
for prompting. Edge parallel to the ground, slicing across the major
arteries just like the butcher did it to pigs in the marketplace. Maybe
if I'd gone at the House of Light more often I would have let him go to
prison, but all I could think was -- what would happen, when he got out?
The next time he cornered a girl in the middle of the night, I wouldn't
be there. I watched as the blood gurgled out out of his throat and he
looked at me like I'd somehow betrayed him. I wondered if I should be
feeling anything. Sadness, regret, maybe just nausea at the sight of
death unfolding. \emph{He probably wouldn't have made it as quick for
her}, I thought. The sergeant looked resigned when I turned towards him.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

My cut was cleaner the second time.

I stayed there kneeling for a while, blood dripping off the blade. Funny
thing, killing someone. You'd expect there to be more of a fanfare to
it, thunder in the distance or the weight of the disapproving Heavens
pushing down on your shoulders. All I felt was a little numb. The palm
of my hand was a little bruised from the way the knife's handle had
pushed back when slicing through, and there was blood spray on my
blouse. \emph{So I'm a murderer now. Not how I saw my evening going,
I'll admit.} The jest was tasteless but I smiled anyway, because feeling
like a heartless bitch was still better than this\ldots{} apathy that
had taken me.

``Is this how it always is?'' I asked, eyes still on the cooling corpse
of the sergeant and the red smile I'd etched across his throat.

``When you make the decision cold?'' I heard the Knight speak from just
behind me. ``Yes.''

I nodded and a moment later didn't resist when he helped me get up to my
feet.

``They deserved it,'' I told the man, looking into his eyes.

He did not disagree.

``They deserved it,'' I whispered to myself.

He steered me towards the door and I could have cared less about our
destination as long as it got me away from that house. The night air
felt cool against my face and I heard one of the Blackguards enter into
the house but I refused to pay any attention to it.

``I have a question for you, Lord,'' I said after a moment, my voice
feeling like it was a stranger's, coming out of a stranger's body.

``Call me Black.''

``I have a question for you, Black.''

``I'm listening.''

``You're a monster, aren't you?'' I spoke softly into the night, looking
at him from the corner of my eye.

He smiled. ``The very worst kind,'' he replied.

I don't know what it says about me, but for the first time since I'd
walked into the alley I felt safe.