All these things were running around in her mind with no apparent pattern, jumping from one to the next. And when she landed on her scrapes with ‘death by discovery,’ she again laughed. And laughed. And laughed… until tears ran unchecked down her face.

The new amicus was utterly unaware of how insane she sounded and looked. How she was neither happy nor sad, but still cried and chortled.

The heavy door creaked open, and she looked up, still half laughing and half crying, body shuddering, as a man stepped through.

It was him.

The elf that must’ve been as insane as she.

He said something to the guard, who hesitated. She didn’t quite understand the elf, but she understood the guard as he said, “Are you sure? She’s dangerous.”

This was so funny! She threw her head back in a renewed guffaw.

The elf waved him away, and he finally, respectfully, backed out. The door thudded closed and locked behind him.

Her laughter died out as the elf approached. He moved cautiously but unthreateningly. Still, she tensed. What was he going to do? Would he hit her? That would be just like all her captors. She was bound to this bed, able to move her arms and legs but unable to stand up.

She watched him dully, waiting.

He pulled over a stool, one of the ones the researchers used when they bent over her and tried spells on her.

She wished they’d leave her alone. Every time they did that, her thoughts became clearer. She didn’t want to think. It was so hard. She just wanted it to end.

More tears dripped off her immobile chin.

The elf sat, holding something that she quickly dismissed as an obvious weapon. For a second, he silently looked her in the eye. Then he held up a hand, and she flinched away, closing her eyes. Waiting for the blow.

Instead, his touch was gentle as he put that frightening hand on top of her head.

“I’m told you’re making a lot of progress,” he said, speaking so slowly that each word had time to penetrate before he said the next. “Do you remember me?”

Did she want to answer?

She was so tired, she really didn’t care either way. It was easier to just… She nodded, eyes still closed.

“Why do you come?” she rasped.

Now that she was thinking about it, this wasn’t the first time. Or even the tenth time. He came so often that she didn’t have to struggle to recognize him or his part in her imprisonment.

“To ensure you know you have a friend.”

“I… don’t have… friends.”

“You do now.”

He took his hand away and adjusted his hold on the object he’d brought. The pages of a storybook fluttered open, and he began to read. Slowly. Softly. His voice took on a gentle cadence that seeped into her bones, causing her muscles to relax.

She closed her eyes and pulled her feet onto her cot, curling into the luxuriously thick and soft blankets and pillow as she settled in to listen. Not understanding everything, but comforted all the same.

The elf didn’t stop reading until she’d fallen asleep.

When she did, he stood up and walked over to a table that was out of her reach. Turning on one of the devices sitting there, the mana core brightening briefly before dulling, he leaned against the table.

One thing to do before he left again.

Pressing a button on the music box, he sang to her. The first device took the song and embedded it into the patient’s sleeping mind. It was the one task he refused to let the researchers do themselves.

To them, the girl was just a test subject, someone to tinker their spells on.

To him, she was a child in desperate need of love and care. Perhaps it was thoughtless. They were doing all the other work of returning her sanity, but he didn’t want the researchers, who didn’t care about her, to be the ones to influence her on such a deep level.

When he was done, he quietly turned off the device and left her to sleep.

***

Present: 20 Years Old

The Amicus never drank. She’d made an exception last night because, after finding some particularly dreadful pictures in one of that man’s drawers, she didn’t particularly care if she lost control of herself.

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately, she hadn’t decided yet—she had left the manor with his heart still beating.

She sat on the floor, a bowl of gruel next to her leg and an arm flung across her eyes. One drink had been enough to make her tipsy. And if this wasn’t a hangover, she didn’t know what a hangover was.

Well, she would be the first to admit she probably didn’t.

The thought of eating made her slightly nauseous, and a headache pressed her skull. Still, if she ever stabilized enough that she wasn’t a danger when drunk, and if this was the only consequence, she might consider drinking more than a glass once in a while.

Maybe with Eblin.

She unknowingly smiled to herself. Yes. She’d watched drunk people before. Eblin might be a fun one to drink with. Maybe.

Of course, Ma’Shite didn’t approve of drinking, so there was that, too. Would that be a reason to engage or a deterrent?

The door banging open caused her to wince and lower her arm just enough to see who’d intruded in her space. Chloe. The girl glared at her, hands on her hips.

The Amicus gave her a wry smile. “Hello.”

Shutting the door behind her, the girl stomped over to the Amicus and practically threw two things to the ground next to her. Then she crossed her arms and glared.

Confused, her headache making it difficult to concentrate, the Amicus picked up the first item. It was a newspaper. “Corruption in the Houses! We Have Proof!”

Other than a lot of pencil marks throughout where the journalist briefly talked about last night’s exploits, there wasn’t anything strange that she could see.

In fact, it looked a lot like the kind of markings Chloe had been making since she started doing research for Ma’Shite. She’d tried to explain once what she was doing, creating connections within patterns, but it was lost on the Amicus.

“Hmm.” She flipped through and smirked. Good job! She knew she could count on them. “Does that surprise you? Really?” she said, carelessly tossing it onto the bed. She’d have to take a closer look when she didn’t feel so dizzy.

In response, Chloe pushed the other object closer to the Amicus’s leg.

Indulgently, the Amicus picked it up. Her mouth dropped, and she shot a guilty look at Chloe.

It was her notebook.

Over the last year and a half, Chloe’s ugly scrawl had turned elegant alongside her growing reading abilities. The Amicus, however, still possessed child-like handwriting that was too big and bold. There was no way to mistake the notebook as belonging to anyone but her.

And this particular notebook was filled with her notes and half-formed plans for last night’s venture.

She winced.

“Where’d did you get this?” she asked weakly, feeling like a child about to be scolded.

Chloe pointed at the end table that stood between their beds, and the Amicus didn’t need further clarification. She’d hidden the notebook right behind it.

“When I saw the paper, I went looking. That,” Chloe pointed at the newspaper, “was you, wasn’t it?”

The Amicus, uncomfortable with her own emotions, bristled defensively as she moved the notebook to her other side. “And if it was?”

“Do you realize you could have gotten hurt? Killed? Imprisoned?”

The Amicus shrugged. Of course she knew all of that. Chloe sighed, dropping her forehead into her hand as she bent over. Shifting uneasily, the Amicus watched her friend warily.

“Did you tell Ma’Shite?”

“I should tell him.”

“Please don’t.”

Chloe had been signing with her head down. Now she looked up, eyes narrowed. “And why shouldn’t I?”

“Because I’m trying to help him. And he’ll stop me if he finds out.”

“Excuse me?!”

“If I wasn’t there, the orphanage would be gone.”

Chloe stilled. “Are you sure?”

The Amicus leaned her head against the bed. It was aching more, but now she wasn’t sure if it was entirely because of her one drink. “That demon was set to take the whole building. I don’t know what else it was doing. Maybe it was just looking for the right place to do its job. But if I hadn’t been there, no one would have survived it.”

Slowly, Chloe sat down, pulling her knees to her chest as she thought.

“Why the man last night?”

The Amicus closed her eyes, squeezing them shut. “I’ve been remembering more and more of the pitt years,” she admitted, her insides twisting. She didn’t want to remember. “He came with the Regent all the time. And… It’s hard to explain.”

Frustrated, she pinched her forehead in a tight crease, trying to put into words what she knew. The body language, the way they spoke together in low tones as they inspected the holding cells and training rooms, the Regent’s flat gaze and attitude.

“When things went wrong, when people disappeared, when… when prized slaves making lots of money for them suddenly lost, it was always the two of them. It was always the Regent’s orders, because… because the other man, Lord Calvin, didn’t give orders to the Regent, he followed them.”

Why was this so hard!?

Chloe tapped the Amicus’s arm to get her attention. “This is the city, not the pitts,” her friend signed carefully. “Why do you think it’s still the Regent?”

The Amicus squeezed her fingers in her shirt as she pulled her legs into a cross.

Why?

She couldn’t articulate it. It just felt the same. Like smelling mana from a specific person, or reading the body language of a particular opponent in the dark. The cover-up and movements felt the same. As she thought it, it sounded dumb, even to her.

She really didn’t have a solid answer for her friend, and her shoulders drooped.

“I… just know it's him.”

Chloe sighed and signed again. “Alright, putting aside no proof and no motive, let’s say that it is him. What are you trying to accomplish?”

That was a spillbrain question. “I want to stop him.”

“Yes, but how? What is your goal?”

“I…” Her voice trailed off. “He hides in the shadows and lets other people take the fall when it comes. I want to expose him and see him punished instead.”

Chloe watched her calmly. “And if we accomplish this and it isn’t him?”

“Then I got one bad man off the streets, and I’ll find the real one later.”

Chloe studied her for a long moment, squeezing her legs as her face became unreadable. Finally, she took a deep breath and dropped her legs into a cross, copying the Amicus. “I don’t agree that it’s definitely the Regent, but I do know that that man won’t stop haunting you until you’ve confronted him. I’ll help you.”

The Amicus raised an eyebrow. “You’ll dress up like a prostitute and sneak into people’s homes?”

Chloe rolled her eyes, and her signing became sarcastic and snippish. “No. I’ll keep you from getting caught. Pull another stunt like last night and they’ll be dragging you to your execution in no time. Don’t do anything again until I have something for you.”

“But—”

Chloe reached over and covered the Amicus’s mouth to cut her off, then pulled back to sign. “Don’t worry. I’ll have things for you to do, and I’ll keep you informed as I work it out. Did you get a copy of the ledger?”

“No?”

“Fine, I’ll work with what they published.” Chloe stretched and stood up, grabbing the discarded newspaper as she went.

Even more confused, the Amicus also stood, nearly tipping over her bowl of gruel as her notebook fell against it. “What are you going to do?”