I shivered as I walked down the empty street.

  My clothes had a few new holes in them courtesy of the Pure-blood thugs. On top of that, they weren’t designed fhtlife. My faithful coat was also barely hanging on.

  It still provided some fort from the chill of night and the bite of the wind. Small forts. I should revel in them. I could remember a time when I didn’t have this prote against wind and rain. My mind wandered down that road for a sed, then recoiled. Best not to dwell on those who’d been there with me. The oill alive could be ted on one hand.

  I clopped dowreet on my hooves, walking across cobblestones. You could tell which part of the city you were in. The most wealthy areas? Paved. rung down the dder? Cobblestohe rest was a transition through a whe of pebbles, gravel, wood, and dirt in the poorest districts oy's outskirts.

  On a rainy day, knowing which roads were the tter was essential. In bad years, some people still died in the mud.

  Up above me, the stars did their best to shihrough the smog. Only a few factories had opened and were already doing their best to obscure the sky. Even the moons looked less clear, the edges of Vertiel and Maviel waxy and unclear.

  The light they reflected down onto the streets at least was clear, adding to the glow of the mps. This close to the Watone of them had been vandalized, and their glow illumihe ck of people around me.

  The nightlife of the city typically was more active. Drunks, ne’er-do-wells, pickpockets, revelers, and others would be pag most streets. Some streets were free of that. The reasons varied from each, typically some bination of “Rich”, “Magic”, or “Both in enough quantities to hire private guards to keep the riff-raff away from the houses.”

  In the case of Old Bell Road, being host to a Watch prison and headquarters kept all but the most respectable people off the street at night. No one wao fill some wat’s quota.

  I didn’t know why it was called Old Bell Road. I’d heard over a dozen stories, some of whiixed up in the dark and had mutant offspring carrying the traits of both. Sometimes, there’d be three or more parents for those children—the way of gossip about barely remembered history.

  Most of the street held businesses aaurants along the fnks, stretg down to its friendlier end. The Sapphire, at only five years of age, remained one of the city’s attras. It was an anchor from the other, darker end where I currently walked.

  The terpiece of this side, the Coffin, still loomed over me. It wouldn’t be out of my sight for miles more. Dull-grey towers watched over the surrounding city, twelve in total f the outer bounds of the prison. The only windows oerior walls were five stories up and filled with heavy iron bars. I could see the gleam of the occasional magical sigil underh each, ready to go off if anything bigger than a hand passed through those bars. The Coffin had been built only a few decades ago as both headquarters and prison for the Watch, one of several to repce the old tral prison, which was now just a curiosity kept around because it was too damn big to demolish safely.

  It had been a joke. I’d been io tour, never as a prisoner. Crumbling walls and fking mortar, even during its so-called prime, those kept is walls practically walked out. The spells used to build it so tall had eaten most of its budget. That and being rge enough at the time to hold a tenth of Dramelsen’s popution. Rebellion had been a big back then.

  Those spells made it a dao tear down safely. They were also going to run out eventually. Woe betide anyone walking by wheral finally colpsed.

  Maybe it could do us all a favor and crush some people around it. tral was right in the middle of where the hobnobs, sorcerous heavyweights, guild leaders, and members of parliament lived and worked.

  I’d been walking this eime, entering and leaving darkness iweereelights. The shadows seemed to move about as I passed by, just my mind pying tricks. Not every infernal received the same traits from their cursed blood, and I cked the ability to see in the dark so many of my peers possessed.

  One of the streetmps was out, leaving aire swathe of that street side dark. I gave it a wide berth. Was there someone leaning up against it? Tall, too tall to be that skinny.

  The shadowed figure suddenly moved, falling towards me. I drew my saber, cutting at it as it plummeted towards me in the dark.

  My saber drawn, I stared down at a fallen dder. Oile now spotted a gash from where my saber had struck.

  A nervous giggle escaped my throat as I rushed for the light of the streetmp. Just a dder.

  No one lurked nearby. It robably some junior mplighter who’d rushed their work aheir dder and the streetmp improperly lit. The mplighters were long gone by now. There’d been talk of some rept from the minds at the Ironworks, cheaper, more effit, shining brighter light.

  For now, the dim light made these patches of shadow the perfect pces for ambush.

  My hands shook a little in my coat pockets as I tinued walking. I robably safe. The Watch would have tails on me, and they’d intervene just to keep their lead alive.

  Versalicew who I was, though. His influence was reduced, and he was nowhere he titan he’d seemed so little time ago. But still, even a fallen titan cast a long shadow.

  I heard boot leather g on stone behind me. I didn’t turn around. That would give away I could hear them. I kept my pace, hand reag for my saber’s hilt. The pace of the ccks was growing faster and closer. They weren’t even b to hide their approach.

  I didn’t wait for them to get within stabbing distance. Whirling around, I held my saber at the ready to stab my too-obvious stalker in the face.

  He immediately fell to the ground, a trolled motion that put a leg within kig distany knee and a pistol aimed at my chest. The moonlight illumihe pistol in his hand, but more importantly, his face.

  I breathed out, tension easing out of me. I offered a hand down to him.

  “Tolman, what are you doing out here?” I asked.

  Tolman took my hand, getting back to his feet. He eyed my saber as he adjusted his coat. His fingers whirled about, telling me a message while obscured in his jacket.

  Safe to talk? He asked in the signs of our old gang.

  No. Tails from the watch I signed back.

  He didn’t bother looking around. Even if we did spot them, there wasn’t much we could do about them now.

  “Trying to find you. Woing around the district was that there’d been a dust-up between one of Versalicci’s thugs and some human gang ihe district. Pricked my curiosity, so I went to take a look. Got there by the te afternoon, pce was swarming with the Watch. Talked to a few of them I knew, and they mentioned someog your description being carted off. So I started ing over here, see if I could get you out, proteg your hide. Then you almost stuck a hole in mine iurn.”

  “Apologies, I was on edge,” I said. “Thank you. Truly, thank you. That’s no excuse, though. What excuse did you tell Arsene?”

  Tolman’s husband knew me from the real old days. It’s why he’d forbidden his spouse from helpi, food reason.

  “Eh, wao go drinking. It was his turn to take care of the children, I think he was just gd I wasn’t going to the fighting ring. I think he’d prefer anything to that.”

  “If you believe that, maybe tell him who you spent yht with,” I replied. “I don’t know who he’d try to kill first, you or me.”

  “sidering he’s married to me and told me ohe only reason god let you walk oh was to serve as an example of what not to do in life, I think you.”

  “Your husband always excelled in threat assessment. He’ll find out that you are out here with me sooner or ter, I imagine. What will you tell him then?”

  “That we both owe you, and he’ll learn to live with it. So, what happeo get you thrown in the Coffin?”

  I paused, sidering my words. Watch members tailing me would be certain, but would they be close enough to overhear us? Best not to risk that.

  “A most exg day. First, I got mixed up with this gang member, as you know. Then I get thrown in a prison cell and interrogated by a rather rude detective about my involvement. There was a bright spot, though: I met Mr. Voltar and Mr. Dawes in person. The esteemed detective and his trusty partner in the flesh. you even begin to guess how lucky I must have gotten Tolman?”

  Tolman was currently trying not to look like he’d missed a step at me mentioning Voltar and Dawes. “Lucky, that’s a way of putting it. Woing to jail for it?”

  “Oh, please. I wasn’t in jail. I was merely beiained for questioning.”

  “Jail is jail. They ask you anything?”

  “A few different questions. I was forced to admit my Sculpts, which might lead to some issues if others in the district find out I’ve been trying to look…well, less Infernal. And I don’t want Scaligi getting in trouble.”

  There, a juicy boossed to whht be listening for why I’d hidden my Sculpts. It wouldn’t hold up to much scrutiny. It might get them chasing Scaligi, which would be iing to watch from the sidelines.

  Scaligi had been dead fhteen years now. It didn’t stop people in the District from pretending he was alive to throw the Watch off. No one would ever find the body.

  We’d reached far enough away from the Coffin that the city's nightlife was beginning to appear. We kept a fair distance from the most drunken of the night-time residents. We weren’t in Infernal District territory yet. A an Infernal could be the worst kind of drunk to an Infernal. The ones where alcohol would help vihem that no one would care what you did to an Infernal.

  Only a few races ranked lower than us on that totem pole. The Rats. The Moles. The Keltish, who, despite being human, apparently were sidered even lesser than us just for being from a slightly smaller isnd.

  I guessed fners from far-off nds were even lower. The neers certainly thought so.

  “I think w about Scaligi should be low on your list of priorities. You’re not worried about those two having their eye on you?”

  “Of course not. I’ve hardly done anything wrong. I don’t see any reason why this o be more than an abnormal io be put in the past.”

  Hopefully, that’s all it would be. I didn’t need any of this ba my life. Occasional trips to the jail for suspi of crimes were fine, maybe even a stay of a year or two. Unwanted figures from my past resurfag? I’d rather live permaly in the Underground and be ed about giant aing through my walls.

  You didn’t have to worry about the ramifications of killing giant ants. You just killed them.

  “Fara? Were you going to say anything else? Fara?”

  That jerked me out of ption. “Sorry, I was lost in thought.”

  “As you do. What about?”

  “Giant ants.”

  Tolman visibly struggled to respond to that one. His mouth worked silently for a few moments as his face worked its way through a ptter of emotions before settling on incredulity.

  I cut off whatever he was about to say. “Fet about the giant ants. Did you have any pns for tonight before ing to make sure I was okay?”

  “Well, since you’re alright, I might grab a pint, hat for a bit. Head home a few hours after.”

  “You and Arsene aren’t os, are you?”

  “No. I just want a break. If you think you’re opposed to me trying Ironhand Jack, you should have heard his argument with me over it.”

  “He’s probably -”

  “I don’t want to discuss it. Are you going anywhere besides your house tonight? Definitely not the b?”

  “Definitely not the b Tolman. I don’t think I’d have time even if I wao. I o be up by 6:30 tomorrow. Although,” I sidered the tails undoubtedly following us. “I may have a reason to stop iavern. Briefly. Not the Hell’s Own, that would take me too far past my apartment. I don’t want to cross the Infernal District’s heart twice.”

  “The Palms, then?”

  “Does the owill insist on an all-vegetable ptter?”

  “Yes, but I thought you just wanted a drink.”

  “I haven’t had the opportunity to eat since m. Outside of the Watch trying to have me eat a rodent. A sandwich might be in order. Say about this big?”

  As I brought my hands up to mime the size of my preferred meal, I quickly fshed a few signs at him.

  pensation needed coat.

  Three words had been all I could mao obscure. It received a raised eyebrow in response. “ you even fit a sandwich of that size in you?”

  “I’m starving. ly’s?”

  If Tolman’s eyebrow had raised before, it threateo separate from his head now. I’d named an old name from our time with Versalicci, and he knew why.

  “I was just there st week,” he said. “Old man’s eyesight is fading, so don’t be shocked if the order ends up wrong. Sure yame for it? Their foods are pretty spicy. And we already talked earlier about how you don’t like stronger drinks. You want to make a meal out of both of those?”

  “I’m going to have to. It’s the closest py route home. After that, I’m colpsing in my bed after doing two things.”

  “And what might those be?”

  “ing and a good tonic to ease my sleep. I really do o be up early.”

  That wasn’t a lie. I o see Halmon, see what ingredients might have fallen off the back of the wagon or were in shallow grave and were now for sale. Failing that, finding who had given him that initial tip. The extract I’d made from the dead wyvern’s brain seemed very fortuimed.

  I doubted the poisonings would stop. One was an isoted i, two a ce. If a third occurred, it would be a pattern, one I inteo profit off of if it wouldn’t kill me first.

  Unfortunately, I had two matters to take care of before I could drift off unburdeo my dreams: the box and making sure my b was undisturbed.

  That meant losing my tail. The figurative one, not the literal one currently curled around my leg. Which meant going to ly’s. I couldn’t imagihe old man would reize me, sidering he couldn’t reize Tolman, but I’d avoided him till now like I did most of Versalicci’s associates.

  We’d be forced to meet again by y. There was er way to lose a tail.