It was too much to hope sleep wouldn’t bring certain things to the forefront of my dreaming mind, even sleep from pain. Patchwork pieces floating to the surface as I drifted among the void of rest.

  ****

  “You,” I told Alice Skall, “are quickly making me regret deciding to mentor you. This,” I held up my bandaged, freshly bitten hand, “is not helping!”

  She gave me an honestly ferocious look, teeth wide open, the grin stretching her face wider than any Infernal should be capable of. The part of me that wanted to flinch got shoved down deep inside as I stared into the maw of the monster.

  “Oh come on,” she said. “By the Nover, we call that just a little love nip.”

  I raised an eyebrow, then held my bandaged hand up to the candlelight, letting it illuminate the fact my entire hand was covered.

  “Love nip?” I repeated. “You regurly decre love for people by biting them hard enough to punch through flesh?”

  “I don’t know, are you offering?” She asked.

  “To bite you?” I questioned as I grabbed some of the tools off the table. Uggh, since I’d had to go get this bandaged, the blood on the table had dried into a sticky wet patch that I’d have to wash up. Probably some of mine mixed in there as well.

  “Sure,” she said. “Adds to the fun.”

  “I already mentioned I don’t consume,” I reminded her, and she snorted.

  “Yeah no, that sounds like a good way to end up dead,” she said. “You think I eat my partners like a…what’s that spider, the really bck one?”

  “Bck widows,” I informed her, finishing my packing of the tools. “I don’t know enough to pass any judgment on your habits in that regard.”

  “Hrrm,” Alice said, cocking her head. “I suppose the only way you could find out would be if you-”

  “Not happening,” I said firmly.

  “Aww, am I too te?” She said, pouting and leaning in. Disconcerting, after seeing the carnage she’d wreaked earlier. And after biting through my hand. “Got someone you’re sweet on?”

  “No,” I said while putting some distance between us. “I do not have someone I’m sweet on.”

  Honestly, I’d been avoiding things reted to that since finding out who my…father, I suppose, was. Nothing to make you second-guess certain things than finding out your devil part was created from someone embodying the ‘sin’ associated with them.

  “Oh, have you never?”

  “I have,” I told that smirking, grinning face, keeping irritation out of my tone. “No, I’m not showing you as evidence, I have nothing to prove to you. And you keep on burying the hole you’ve dug for your even deeper.”

  I moved back to the table, grabbing one of the few rags that wasn’t soaked in blood.

  “Grab one, help me-”

  Alice had been creeping closer the entire time, and when she finally crossed the line I judged as too far I whirled around, hand seizing her head.

  “First lesson,” I said as my grip tightened around her face, just enough diabolism leaking through to make it clear what I could do without actually doing it. “In diabolism, facing a diabolist? Letting a hand touch you is probably lethal. All magic probably, but diabolism is what others would consider a nasty end. Unstoppable rot and decay, poured right into you until your veins burst and your flesh melts. That’s when you are tempted when you try this.”

  She didn’t seem shocked, threatened, or irritated, instead fascinated as her eyes traced the edges of my fingers between them.

  “Bit strong in return for a bite,” she said. “I think I might love you.”

  “You,” I said incredulously. “Are insane.”

  “Not disqualifying is it?” she asked, and something inside me wanted to throw an entirely inappropriate answer in response.

  “For the Fme?” I said coldly. “No. For diabolism? Discipline-”

  It is not needed for most, and you insist on it in some desperate attempt to think you can control it, The Imp said in my head with a yawn. Also, just take the girl’s offer and get yourself a bite of nice juicy thigh!

  “-is important for most forms of magic, and arguably for this one a fair bit as well. Especially one more focused on combat magic-”

  Because your idiot of a brother and his servants refuse to see other applications.

  “-where unless you want to roast your allies-”

  “No promises,” she interrupted.

  I gred at her. One thing interrupting me, I could deal with, two things? No.

  “Please keep that to a minimum,” I said. “No more throwing out decrations of love hoping to unbance me or curry favor.”

  “I love you. I love lots of things,” she said casually. “Foods, fighting, occasionally other people. And curry favor? Easier ways to do that I think. You saved my life, and I’ll admit it, you-“

  “Alright,” I said, cutting her off with a solid voice that carried not a hint of emotion. “That is enough of that. Returning to what I was saying-”

  ****

  “-so then he gets huffy, but it he wanted to keep the spots he shouldn’t have left it for four days straight. Sure, it was flooded, but if you want a pce to sleep you don’t let something like the Nover get in the way of that.”

  “Doesn’t the Nover have a tendency to dissolve you if it doesn’t drown you first?” I asked as we continued walking through the tunnels.

  It has been a long day today. Skall’s practice unfortunately required some actual practice outside the safety of our base, and of course a Halspusian priest would be on the edge of the Quarter, the whiff of the Diabolism making him and his entourage charge in. They still prowled up above, minus three of their numbers while we made our way back down below.

  “You learn to live with the river,” Skall replied. “Or more often put some wood on top and live on that. It’s what I did to take it in the first pce.”

  “And so ends the tales of your repeated real estate disputes with your neighbors?”

  “Nah, thus begins the tales of my repeated real estate disputes with my neighbors-“

  “Which can wait for another time,” I said, and she pouted.

  “Already bored?”

  “No,” I admitted, and truth be told I actually wasn’t somehow. “But the boss needs me to work on things soon. Things you are sadly not invited too.”

  Gio didn’t let anyone sit in on conversations between him and our father besides me, and that was because he needed me as a summoner.

  “Well then,” she said, touching my arm, finger tracing bare skin for just a second, long enough for me to suppress a shiver. “I will see you ter.”

  I could use perhaps a little less of that, as she walked away from me, but I wasn’t against the idea of seeing her ter. Not at all.

  Honestly, Skall was much more tolerable when her desire to bite and nibble people was directed away from me.

  Also well, there were some things that one couldn’t fail to notice and she had a very nice-

  “Do my eyes deceive me, or do you spend more time of the day with yonder Diabolist than you do with your old friends, Malvia?” Machti said with an incredibly punchable grin.

  I turned to gre at him and Mitu as they approached from the other end of the hall, Machti all grins and malice hidden on a frame starvation thin even after plenty of good meals, Mitu all grim stares of implied threat and wide enough he needed to turn sideways for some doors.

  “We are neither friends nor old acquaintances, Machti,” I said. Golvar had teamed us up on a number of occasions because he found it amusing to have so many members of around the same age and rank whose names started with M. After two were now dead, that had faded. “If you want me to sit with your group at some point, it can be arranged.”

  “Nah, I like having friends, and you kinda chase those off,” he said, coming closer. I ignored him, looking at Mitu.

  Machti’s hulking brute of a partner considered me and kept his distance. He at least, had some brains about not inviting trouble by say, invading my personal space.

  Unlike Machti.

  “You need to get i-”

  Stop, rotate, immediately sh out, and cue one writhing Machti on the ground, a frozen Mitu looking between him and me.

  “You need to learn to scrub out that garbage chute you think is a mouth, Machti,” I said. “Because honestly, one of these days someone else will and they aren’t going to be gentle.”

  He gasped in pain but managed to get one st sting in.

  “You offering?”

  Juvenile. Obvious. Lazy. But deep down, someone was burning with a desire to kick, and quite honestly? Even Malvia Harrow could tire of this little shite’s constant prodding.

  “Machti,” I said. “Even if your insults weren’t so basic, one would think you’d learn to pick your targets a little better?”

  I eyed Mitu, who seemed to understand a line had been crossed and backed away. As I lined up my next kick, it seemed a good thing that we had healers. Although, how much of their time was wasted on Machti?

  ****

  It was a cold day today. Not the worst, it wasn’t even winter yet, but cold enough with a bit of bluster. It meant most of the urchins arrayed had taken the coats. It had been a sufficient bribe to make them sit still and listen.

  Attentively was another thing as I continued.

  “The Fme has many things to offer you all,” I said with visible disinterest. “Pride in what you are. A sense of purpose. A-“

  “Soccer with the head we took off a Watchman’s neck!” Alice interrupted me, and like that, I lost them.

  “Soccer!” Half to the traitorous brood said, only matched by the other half shrieking happily about a dead Watchman’s head.

  I gred at Alice, although there wasn’t any fire in it. She shrugged under my gre.

  “Go organize yourself in teams, and we’re going to run this pce a little first to warm you all up!” She yelled, and they scattered across the ruined church we’d commandeered for this, one so old being inside only made your skin itch.

  “They weren’t paying attention anyway,” Alice told me. “Might as well let them have some fun instead of whatever you were pnning?”

  “I want to break what I call the urchin to Varrow pipeline,” I reminded her.

  “Alright, now I know you’re lying,” she said with a grin. “Not everyone in the Fme was brought in by his little gang of dodgers and thieves.”

  “No,” I admitted. “But enough are and I want the recruits perhaps not tempered by the worse of them.”

  Her grin sobered just a smidge. “Varrow one of them?”

  “No,” I said. Not to me at least, although that might have been because of those pair of conversations with mother that had the older Infernal stumbling out as pale as a sheet. That had shocked me back then, Varrow unfppable in my mind. These days it felt like I’d seen him that shade more than his natural coloring.

  “Well, a good thing being done,” she said.

  “Because we need more recruits,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah, doesn’t change you trying to do a nice thing. Take a little pride in that.”

  Compliments couldn’t break the mask but that didn’t mean they couldn’t make what was hidden rise to the surface and I suppressed a scowl. It took effort, not feeling happy over that compliment, and more to shove it back inside as it shrieked and protested.

  “Oh come on, not even a little smile?” She teased.

  “No,” I said. “Fttery gets you nowhere when I know it’s your goal.”

  “I’ll have to try something different then,” she said. “Maybe the limb of your greatest enemy once again?”

  “Do not put Machti’s tail in my bed again,” I said a mite too quickly. “Do you know how frustrating that is to re-attach and heal correctly?”

  “It was worth it,” she said in a sing-song tone. “Don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy him actually being quiet for a few days.”

  Quiet because he was rightly terrified of what she might do next, but it was true that a quiet Machti was much more tolerable than a talking Machti.

  “Go lead your troops,” I said. “I’ll keep watch here.”

  “On me?” Alice teased, before getting up and heading to the waiting urchins.

  I allowed myself a slight smile as she led the urchins around the impromptu field. Okay, maybe on her a fair bit. I reached into the bag, expecting some ball done up to look like a Watchman’s head.

  Feeling its surface, I frowned and looked inside and stared in shock at the frozen face of a Watch officer, stuck in silent terror, their severed head inside the bag.

  How in the Hells?

  ****

  I groaned as I y in a pile of shattered brickwork and wood. Ow.

  I’d broken something. Probably a few things, and given how I couldn’t remember what we’d been fighting, I’d probably rung my bell a few times as well.

  It had been the Watch? The Watch was usually a good bet, as I tried to move. Ahck! Pain forced me back down again. Worse, I could hear someone moving towards me, and I grasped Diabolism, waiting to see who it was.

  Alice’s head appeared over the rubble, gring down at mine.

  “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” She muttered furiously as she cmbered over the rubble.

  “Well,” I said as I tried and failed to get up once again. “I can heal myself, so as long as I don’t kill myself everything should be fine-“

  She cmbered on top of me and any other words got drowned out by the pain of my body and a desperate attempt to keep my mask firmly affixed.

  She y on top of me, hips straddling mine and only the pain was keeping me from enjoying that as she leaned down, gring.

  “Don’t you ever say that again,” she whispered fiercely in my ear. “Cause one of these days, you’re going to suffer something you just can’t heal, and that would be a damn shame.”

  I stared up at her, eyes wide as she gred at me, but it wasn’t just anger in that expression.

  “What, you finally ran out of something to say? No answer from the rational one?”

  Something cracked.

  My tail wrapped around her neck, bringing her closer. She struggled for a half-second and I almost let go, but then she leaned into it.

  Blood-soaked lip met blood-soaked lip as she shifted, lowering herself onto me. Our tails twined as I let go of her neck as we met and-

  Something shifted and I gasped in pain and she pulled back a little. My tail chased after, barely missing grabbing her.

  “Aw,” she said. “You willing to let me break you, Malvia?”

  Yes part of me wanted to say, but there were others about and they were-

  “No one to watch?” she whispered, and that was the st brick being removed from the dam as my tail grabbed her and pulled her in, cracks dissolving.

  “Please?” I whispered to her, her frozen face watching as my incisors bit her chin lightly, blood trickling down. “If you’ll let me do the same?”

  “Once you’re healed”

  She smiled, then leaned forward, and bit me on the neck.

  I couldn’t wait.

  *****

  “I love you,” Alice told me.

  I paused, halfway done lowering a package into the Nover. We’d snuck out of the Quarter to do this, just a little bit onto the nearby docks. This te and in Tallow of all districts, no one would notice a pair of Infernals outside of the Quarter. We’d come here in silence, and it had been nothing but silence and hand signals until just now.

  “Why?” I asked quizically, hands still on the rope. The package was halfway down to the Nover, and apparently still asleep.

  “Do I need a reason why?” she said. “I love lots of things, and you’re one of them.”

  “Why now?” I said in a deadpan, trying to ignore the little voice wanting to demand crification on where I ranked. Easy, when the Imp was also in there, currently making his opinion on this none.

  It liked Alice. For dinner. The fact none of our….interludes had resulted in anything going down my throat had led to it being extremely frustrating, even more so when it’s railing at me hadn’t actually been a mood-killer.

  “Do I need a reason for why now?” She said. “Maybe I just felt like it. Maybe what we’re doing puts me in the mood. Maybe the sight of you with your sleeves rolled up is just the kinda thing to make my heart flutter?”

  I paused my lowering of the ropes to stare at her. We’d both gone in street clothes meant to blend in, coats, trousers, shirts, and in her case a set of street-worn boots. My sleeves were rolled up, and…they were toned, but they weren’t anything special.

  “You fucking Foulhorn sluts!” Screamed the writhing package underneath us. Oh, he’d woken up, and gotten his gag off. Brilliant. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Someone who doesn’t realize you say that before you die in the novels?” I muttered, and Alice snorted.

  Honestly, trying to drown someone in the Nover felt like a joke, but I supposed even whatever the hell it was at this particur moment could suffocate someone all the same. Even if the water ended up being breathable this time around, after a few hours it probably would have melted all the flesh off this one’s bones.

  “Some rich fuck who Versalicci wants dead, and is now ruining the fucking mood! Malvia, the fuck is this one?”

  “Lord Gretchen Darrowmore the seventh, eighth son of a baronet, about the only relevant thing about him being the inspection of goods coming in Tallow being managed by him. Informed Giovani Versalicci’s representatives on the third of Greenmore that he would not be overlooking packages coming on boats marked in any way, which is how he ended up here.”

  Honestly, a complete shock, since Lord Darrowmore, barely a lord, had been happy to turn a blind eye to all kinds of smuggling.

  I kept on lowering the rope as he yelled. As much as there was a chance someone would hear his yelling, this needed to be controlled. Let too much rope and sck in and he might be able to stay afloat. A moronic idea, until it had turned out one marked for disposal could breathe underwater, and a certain pair’s carelessness had resulted in Machti and Morder chasing him across a quarter of the city to cut her throat before she alerted the Watch.

  Eventually, his mouth ended up under the water and I tied the rope on the docks, not willing to keep on holding the noble’s weight. He’d had perhaps a few too many steak dinners in his lifetime. Perhaps enough to make even the Imp jealous.

  Alice got next to me, then with a smile pulled me closer to her.

  “I thought your mood was ruined?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

  “It is when he’s yelling,” Alice said. “When he’s drowning in the Nover? Who cares. Maybe a little more exciting, when a little shite like him is dying.”

  She twined her arms around my neck, winking as her mouth opened into a toothy smile.

  “Come on Malvia, one more shithead leaving the world, isn’t that worth celebration?”

  “Maybe,” I said, allowing myself a slight smile.

  “Aww,” she leaned in, her forehead touching mine, her tail curling around my thigh under my pant leg. “There you are.”

  I almost stilled but I forced myself to rex. She meant the smile, nothing else. My tail reached out, curling around her back and then worming its way past the waistband of her pants.

  Alice jumped forward, her head just barely reaching up to my shoulder, her shocked expression returning to a grin in a second.

  “Malvia, you sly little bundle of spice,” she said, and then she nipped my shoulder.

  I hated it when she did this. Hated how it ruined shirts. Hated the feeling of her lips pressing against my flesh. Hated the lightest touch of teeth scraping along, lightly piercing. Hated the sudden rush forward, teeth puncturing skin as she dug in and sensation flooded me, pain sparking across my shoulder. Hated how her tongue glided over the open wound. Nothing but hate as she let go, kissing the open wound and making me shudder.

  I let out a sound and she pulled back, smile blood-red in a few pces now.

  “Malvia, we’re supposed to be sneaking,” she teased as she rested her chin on me, staring directly up nestled between my chest. “You’re going to wake people up-Oh!”

  I struck quick, darting down and tching onto the top of her ear, letting my teeth pierce as I sucked and she made noises she’d never dare let out around anyone else.

  My little smile was a smug, satisfied grin as I pulled back, staring at her half-closed eyes.

  “I’m going to wake people up?” I said. “I think between the two of us, one of us by far made the most-”

  Her hand reached up, gently but firmly grabbing the back of my head and tilting down, till we were only inches apart.

  “Stop talking,” she said, red lips reflecting the moon’s light in a way that made them the only thing I could focus on besides her half-lidded eyes, staring at me with hunger and promise.

  And I did, as our lips met, as we pulled back again and again, kissing and trading bites as below us Lord Gretchen Darrowmore the Seventh breathed his st.

  Maybe she didn't love me. Maybe I'd never know. But this, here? It was enough.

  ****

  Time has a way of dulling things, making one forget exactly how they went. Especially painful ones, and even as I relived old events, I knew what was to come, even if I’d papered over it in the waking world. I remembered enough to not want to continue. A foolish hope.