For half a second, there was only silence.
Then the walls rattled. The furious fiend, unable, by its summoning rules, to penetrate an area enclosed by walls and ceiling, bounced off the walls with howls and snarls. Probably trying to shake it loose, hoping it was too flimsy a barrier.
But the walls held firm while it avoided the door, also by summoning rules.
The Amicus leaned on the door just hard enough to keep it from shaking open, feeling around until she found a rope latch and tied it closed. With a sigh, she dropped both hands to hang loosely at her sides.
Six started laughing.
“You-you actually faced that thing!”
“And you could've freed and taken care of yourself,” the Amicus snapped, stuffing her weapons back in their sheaths. “What in Providence do you think you were doing?”
“I was ensuring no one saw me make an escape.”
She held up her hands and squeezed her fingers, like she was imagining a neck between them. What a wrongblood twit she was! She should’ve just let him deal with the consequences of playing games with criminals.
As she was fuming, he was sitting up with playful grunts and groans.
“Ahh, that’s going to hurt tomorrow.”
The Amicus rubbed her forehead. “What the tears were you doing? Trying to get yourself killed by the biggest criminal syndicate in the city?”
“Is that who they were?” was his offhand, irritatingly cheerful reply.
“You really are a spill brain.”
With a sigh, the Amicus turned her back to the door and lowered herself to the ground. Even with the creature growling outside, she felt the old lethargy beginning to hover at the edges of her being.
“Thank you. I try.”
His barely discernible shadow moved to another wall, and for a second, neither of them spoke, listening as one howling and frustrated fiend was joined by at least two others. All of them prowling around their flimsy building.
“How did you know there was a refuge shed here?”
The Amicus shrugged, remembered he couldn’t see her, and replied gruffly, “Ally.”
That was true enough. They were her master's allies. Not that they’d be happy to have the Amicus as a guest, but they wouldn’t turn her away either.
“I see. Well, there was one good thing about tonight.”
The Amicus grunted, too annoyed to ask directly but acknowledging just the same. She should have just watched. Or left. No good ever came from getting involved without orders.
“I got to meet the most charming woman in the city.”
For a second, the Amicus just blinked. Then the meaning of his words penetrated, and she sputtered. “Excuse me?”
“I think a woman with a pair of knives and an attitude is rather sexy.”
Lethargy completely banished, she gaped at her unwanted companion. Then her mouth snapped shut, and she touched the raised bumps on her cheek and chin.
He really hadn’t seen. Had he?
No, there was no way. Even her master treated her with wary respect, aware that at any second something could set her off and he’d have to engage recovery protocol to reclaim her senses. It hadn’t happened in a long time, but people don’t forget.
She supposed it would be hard to forget facing death or the possibility of death. If you even survived an encounter with her in that state.
Depression replaced her incredulity.
After a protracted second, she said quietly, “There’s nothing charming about me.”
“Why?”
“I’m ugly.”
“So?”
“I have a horrible personality.”
Then privately, she added, I’m an ugly, scary, unwanted amicus. She continued to finger her scarified cheek.
“So do I,” was the cheerful reply. She tensed as he scooted closer to her, close enough that their knees bumped. “I’m obnoxious. I stick my nose into places it doesn’t belong. Oh, and I have a tendency to take things lightly.”
“Obnoxious is correct.”
He laughed. “My name’s Eblin. And yours?”
She didn’t reply, tensing further and physically cringing away from him. The attention made her lungs stick. He waited, but she didn't reply.
Instead of discouraging him, he changed tack.
“You know, most rescuers introduce themselves. Or at least tell the helpless man how breathtaking they are.”
She coughed in a way that was almost a laugh, but she was too stunned and flustered to react fully with any one emotion. “Didn’t we just establish that you’re not helpless?”
“Ah, a smart woman as well. You know some pretty fancy words, and you’re endangering me into disbelieving that you’re anything but beautiful.”
She stared at him.
No, gaped at him, completely lost in his banter.
What in all the tears and pitts was he going on about? Even worse, she felt a sort of loosening in her chest and a strange fluttering feeling. Defensively, she pulled her knees to her chest.
Was he… flirting with her?
“You don’t sound like a gutter tripe yourself.”
“Unfortunately, my education has ruined me. “ He sounded playfully mournful now as he banged his head back.
The creatures outside, who had gone quiet for a moment, responded to the bang with sudden growls and snuffles right behind their heads. They both jumped.
Despite herself, she laughed. Not a belly laugh, but a genuine one, her muscles unconsciously loosening.
What a ridiculous situation.
“There we go. Even the prickliest plant has a few tender spots. Do you always save men in distress? Or am I just lucky?”
“I was bored, that’s all.”
“Then I’m eternally grateful for your boredom, my dear rescuer. May I have your name?” His tone had remained flirtatious, even playful, but it dropped to gentle as well.
Prodding without pressure.
My name.
She pondered for a second. If she told him what everyone called her, then she was certain he’d become stiff. Maybe not afraid—he was, after all, a mage willing to attack a fiend dog when pushed—but it wouldn’t be the same.
The idea that his attitude would change made her breath catch. She couldn't let that happen.
“Zanie.” It slipped out unexpectedly, and she flinched.
“Zanie.” She flinched again after he gently repeated it. “That’s a beautiful name, befitting a princess of blades. It sounds familiar… isn’t it the name of a foreign flower? One used in high-end potions?”
She blinked. “How did you know that? That's not the name used in the Empire.”
“As I said, my education has ruined me. I’m the keeper of all sorts of useless information.”
She laughed again, still tense but feeling the thrill of this scary new experience.
“Now, Miss Zanie, what should we talk about for the next few hours? Or perhaps there’s a game you like? I’d suggest other interesting activities, but I like to know my date a bit first.”
Zanie.
Her stomach fluttered.
When was the last time she’d heard that name spoken aloud? She wasn’t even sure why she bothered to remember it. Maybe she should have said Chloe… no, no, that would have been too close to home. Still, there were any number of other feminine names she could have chosen.
She squeezed her legs.
“If you’re implying what I’m thinking you are,” she said dryly, “I’d insist on a certificate first.”
He laughed. “I’ll remember that.”
For most of the night, long after the fiends lost interest and ran off to find food before their allotted time was over, the two chatted. Not about anything substantial. The annoying bustle of the marketplace, the different gangs in the area (and how much trouble Master Eblin got himself into, resulting in the first belly laughs the Amicus had had since she was a child), house politics that were affecting the middle class, that sort of thing.
The Amicus hadn’t realized how much of this had been in her head. Or perhaps her temporary companion was just good at rooting out her experience.
It was strange… and frightening.
More than once, she had to pause and breathe through a rising, unnamed panic that twisted her chest after unexpectedly laughing.
At one point, she dozed but couldn’t sleep.
Not with a strange man so close by, someone she didn’t trust and who scared her in ways that didn’t make sense to her. No, there was no real sleep.
When the bells sounded, letting everyone know that the Cleansing was now done, she was the first to jump to her feet.
“Leaving so soon?” her companion asked groggily.
“I have to get home,” she replied, returning to her clipped tone as she fumbled for the rope.
There was a small tug on her pants. “You’re already out. Can’t it wait until morning? It’s only a few more hours.”
A few more hours. That’s when he’ll be able to see her face, when he’ll recoil once he realizes what he’d talked to and spent the night with. The thought made her gasp shallowly as she tried to expand her lungs.
“Zanie? Are you alright?”
Suddenly, he was serious, rolling to his knees.
“I’m fine.” She tried to open the door, but he reached out to push it closed. “Get out of the way.”
“Meet me again? At The Lion on Terrace Street?”
“I can’t.”
“Please?”
Her hand shook against the door. Now something was trying to come up her throat and she almost gagged. Swallowing hard, she whispered, “I’ll think about it.”
“Carry a yellow daffodil, Wednesday, noon.”
He didn’t stop her again as she opened the door and fled.
***
Amicus: 18 Years Old
Some days it was too much, and the Amicus had to wander.
As soon as she closed her door, aware that the lock on the other side didn’t click tonight as it would have a few months ago, she beelined for the window.
Climbing down was easy. Getting out was easy.
Calming the discord and distress was not.
For several hours today, all she did was prove to her tutor that she could read just fine. She’d sat behind a partial partition set up on the table, where he couldn’t see her face properly but could watch her hands move. He passed book after book through the partition, making her read passages aloud.
The partition was so he wouldn’t freeze up and quit—like the last three tutors before him. Unfortunately, this man was insufferable, insisting that she was somehow cheating.
She kicked a pebble, watching it hit a nearby wall with a clatter.
No, I don’t know why I learned so quickly. I just did!
It had taken her only a month to pick it up almost fluently, and she wouldn’t have thought it abnormal except for the reactions of others. In the Pitts, if you didn’t learn quickly, you died. And now the tutor was convinced that she’d somehow memorized the shape of the words themselves rather than sounding them out and understanding them phonetically.
Did it matter as long as she understood the content?
He had to be one of those people who insisted you do it their way or not at all.
Out of frustration, she’d finally stood up, totally forgetting she was supposed to wait for him to leave first so he didn’t see her face. The instant she saw his eyes widen and the way he stumbled back, she knew she’d messed up. This man would never return.
She didn’t care. Honestly, if her new master hadn’t wanted her to learn something, she wouldn’t have bothered. But she didn’t want to see his disappointment again.
She kicked another pebble. This time, it flew down a side alley, and she heard someone breathe in sharply, followed by a sniffling sound.
Horse crap!
For a long second, she listened to the sniffling, torn between running away as fast as she could and peeking into the alley to see how much damage she’d done. It was only a little pebble. It wasn’t as though she’d shot it at high, magical speed, either.
With a sigh, forehead wrinkled, she reluctantly stepped into the alley.
The monthly Cleansing was supposedly to keep the alleys clear. Yet, in between Cleansings, the dregs of society found their way back into the dark corners. How they lived, she didn’t know, since begging was practically outlawed by unspoken rule. She also didn’t know where they went on Cleansing nights. Maybe they spent it outside the city walls, huddled under trees and hopefully out of the worst of the elements?
Today, she found three of those outcast souls huddled out of sight of the street. Two of them looked like a mother and daughter pair, with the little five or six-year-old girl dozing against her mother’s shoulder. The woman breathed in sharply and scrambled back, but didn’t stand.
Then the Amicus’s sweep of the alley landed on the third.
This one was the sniffler.

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