“Neither of you come back! Lunatics! Trying to set my bar on fire.”

  I stumbled as I was roughly shoved out onto the street, Edwards's words echoing behind me. I turned around just in time to catch Alice as she stumbled.

  My drunk, stumbling, beautiful girlfriend, despite being a head shorter than me at least, was such an adorable thick muscur woman that I struggled to keep her up, straining at the weight.

  Not that I’d ever vocalize any of that as I kept her from eating street. I prided myself on keeping my head firmly on my shoulders.

  “Asshole,” Alice muttered in a slur that made my head ache some.

  As our designated person to guide us home on this two-person venture, I’d had…three meads. Four? The Imp had sworn it would take the edge off, and honestly, as I’d gone through tankards, I hadn’t cared. I’d pay in the morning, maybe. So my swaying was only a little as I went and pulled her up.

  “You did try to burn down his bar,” I said as I pulled her up.

  “Fucking deserved it,” she hissed. “Trying to cut me off.”

  “You did drink an awful lot,” I said. “More than I’ve seen you do in the past. I suppose it is good to see even you have your limits. Just maybe don’t go to arson when you get this sloshed.”

  “It’s not even the first time I tried it with his tavern,” she muttered as she leaned into me. She tried to stumble towards the Hells’ Own but I swiftly turned her the right way around.

  “First time you tried it where anyone else could see,” I reminded her. Normally, her attempts at arson were a lot less serious, a lot more private, and a lot easier to put out. Except that one time when someone had caught a whiff of smoke and she’d had to pretend to be addicted to Skaff for a month.

  “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “Ruined your big party.”

  “We already had the big one,” I said. “Back at the headquarters. This one was just the two of us, remember? Private little celebration?”

  Alice frowned, staring owlishly up at me. “But this one was way bigger than the other one. By a lot. The one back at the headquarters was…ten people?”

  I kept my small smile on despite the dagger she’d just sunk in its heart. “Eight.”

  “Oh, I made you sad, didn’t I?” she said as she nestled her head back in under my jacket, pressed against my side. “I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry.”

  “It’s reality,” I said evenly. “Hard to be sad over that.”

  “No,” she said. “That's what’s easiest to be sad over. And I shouldn’t have made you feel like that, especially not tonight.”

  She nipped me, just a tease through the shirt and I shivered despite my best efforts not to.

  “I love you,” she said as she pulled her teeth back.

  I pulled her in close as I walked, but she wriggled a little, pushing me away.

  “What?”

  “I never hear you say it,” she said, her tail wrapping insistently around my wrist. “I say it a bunch, but you never do.”

  “Well, you love lots of things, remember,” I said as I tried to peel the tail off. We’d made it perhaps forty feet from the Hells’ Own, and the bouncer had a clear warning gre on that was clear in its message.

  “So?” she asked, trying to nuzzle against me, leaning on me for support, tail looping further around my wrist, crawling up my forearm then leaping off and making for my belt. “You can love lots of things too, can’t you?”

  I grabbed her tail before it could drunkenly fish its way into my pants, only for it to dart for my neckline and make a py for something else entirely.

  “I realize you’re drunk, but could you please focus a little?” I said as I pyed tug of war to keep her from groping me. “It’s past midnight, and these streets are hardly safe.”

  “Say you love me,” she told me.

  “I love you?” I said, half-jokingly, only for a cutely furious face to turn my way. I remembered being frightened at first, but when you knew the person behind it, knew they wouldn’t hurt you, it became perfect instead.

  “Say it like you mean it.”

  I paused, then let go of the tail and it fell down behind her. It..this was simple. Easy even. Just, my heart’s pounding was only worse as words stuck in my mouth.

  Alice smiled at me, almost teasingly, only the fact that she was so clearly drunk made me think it wasn’t on purpose.

  I spun her around, getting on my knees so she was a little taller than me, and hesitantly rested my head on her shoulders so only she could hear.

  “I love you,” I whispered, and almost immediately screamed at myself. No, no, no, not beyond the mask! Hells, even the slightest sliver out was weakness poking-

  Alice pulled back, grabbed my face in her hands ,and kissed me. It was sloppy, it was drunken, it was bliss.

  “Thank you,” Alice said when we were done, then she let go and I almost fell to the street floor, as if she had been the only thing keeping me up.

  I got back to my hooves, and she went back to my side, nestling in once again.

  “I don’t need to focus,” she said drunkenly. “You’re here to protect me. I don’t need it.”

  “Really?” I said, not able to get more than that single word past as we started walking again. I felt…fragile, but good, my heart was pounding, every beat feeling like it might shatter me to pieces but so…free and …Hells what had I just done?

  “You’re so good at protecting,” she said with a yawn as she clung to me.

  “Really?” I repeated, keeping her close to me as we neared the tunnels. Even with reputations as bck and fell as they came, someone would be fool enough to jump us if they detected weakness.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s why I picked you.”

  “Picked me?” I said, keeping an eye on the roof. Okay, that wasn’t even pretending to be a chimney, even colpsed chimneys didn’t have three different high points side by side.

  “Why I picked you to go after,” she said sleepily. “Can’t intimidate everyone, just a good way to piss off the one person who is willing to risk crossing you. Needed someone to make sure that wouldn’t happen. High-ranking, powerful, teacher. Being crazy ain’t enough to keep the worst off. Gotta get someone to support you. Any way possible.”

  We weren’t moving now, and she tried to keep going only to be stopped by my grip. I looked down at her, still listening, but feeling like I was a thousand yards away.

  “You were so lonely,” she said, eyes closed now, and the only thing preventing me from forcing them open was interrupting this the moment I did. “Easy to tug along. Lonely little girl all be herself, sure you’re made of ice and stone and maybe your heart is too, but even stone hearts bleed a little. Wrap you around my finger. Actually ended up easier than expected.”

  She yawned, breaking the flow of conversation as I was vaguely aware of something shrieking in the back of my mind as the imp cackled.

  “Didn’t think it would work at first,” she continued as something roared in my ears and my grip tightened further. “Thought I was pushing too hard but that was exactly what was needed. You’re too easy Malvia, and it made you the perfect choice.”

  Complete halt now, hands shaking, mouth trying and failing to open to say any of the thousand things poputing my head.

  “I think I might love you,” she muttered sleepily in my side. “Maybe?”

  I…she…this entire time….from the beginning. Nothing but a…fucking….my hands quivered, the nails on my free one digging into my palm, cutting deep. Teeth ground as I stared down at her sleepy head, her cute, despicable, detestable face and I was going to-

  “Freeze!” A voice called out from one of the roofs. “Not even the Fme are invincible, so-”

  I pushed Alice roughly aside, ignoring her drunken excmation as bck fme wreathed me.

  When the street stopped burning the next morning, the corpses of all the muggers had formed into a hellish thing with eight legs and twice as many arms, biting gnashing mouths all over it. I heard ter off-handedly it killed ten before finally being taken down.

  I couldn’t bring myself to care at all.

  ***

  Three months ter. Hell had come for the Bck Fme.

  A bit flowery, as I sat on my bed, ignoring the sounds from up above, but accurate.

  The entire room shook, the floor quaking, my bed's springs squeaking as I was tossed a little. Not even anything reted to us directly, just the army following Her Majesty’s directive to finally take the tunnels and dwarf settlements that y underneath Avernon, and the dwarves had proved less than willing to comply.

  This would hurt us too. As those tensions had grown, the dwarves had been the ones to turn a blind eye to our presence down here, although they thought of us as just a small criminal cartel needling the Imperials. Versalicci had already made pns for the dwarves who had more directly known of our presence down here. If things got much worse, there’d be a sudden pandemic of slit throats and devil attacks in the dwarf holds

  As I looked at the roof shaking once again, it provided a nice distraction from what was in the room with me. Or rather, who.

  Alice stood at the entrance to my room, a zy sneer on her face, arms crossed, tail whipping back too and fro as she gred at me.

  “So,” she said, looking at me over crossed arms.

  “So?” I replied, looking up from my bed.

  A lonely bed. It had only had me in it. For three months now. And not because I’d been using roofs or streets or anything else in its pce.

  “Don’t answer a question with a question,” Skall hissed, eyes narrowing.

  “Don’t come to my room expecting me to know what you’re talking about,” I replied back. “What do you want Alice?”

  She actually hesitated, a brief little crack before the sneer resumed, those eyes looking at me brimming with nothing but confidence.

  “Maybe I just came by for a bite,” she said.

  “Fuck. You.” I said, and maybe just a little crack again. Malvia Harrow wasn’t supposed to use nguage like that, especially around people who could be a threat, but this mask was proving a little malleable.

  She recovered just as quickly, leaving it a question of if her confidence was cracking or I was imagining things.

  “If you’re offering, I’d be more than happy too, but I think an apology is in order first?”

  “An apology,” I said ftly. “From me?”

  “It would be appreciated for some of those hurtful things you said,” she replied. “You know, when we got back from the Hells’ Own and safely underground. Or have you already forgotten them?”

  “I have not,” I said, keeping a maelstrom down to a simple, even tone even as I wanted to go over and punch her over it. Knowing her, she’d find that something else to tease. “I think they were well-deserved. Don’t act shocked that you earned them.”

  She snorted. “Course I acted shocked. Trying to wring emotion like you is like blood from a stone, far too much effort for far too little blood.”

  I ughed, bleakly and humourlessly.

  “I’m like a stone?” I hissed. “You want to cim that, how many months ter? Say that’s the truth and not what we lived through. Or are you just dodging responsibility? Pretending I’m the one without emotion so you can dodge the fact you’ve never loved me.”

  “I never said that,” she snapped. “You read far too much into-”

  “Into what?” I interrupted, getting up from the bed, and striding until only inches separated us. “Into you admitting you only ever pursued me because you wanted protection? That I was easy? Maybe?”

  I stared down at her, her jaw clenched, teeth bared as she gred up at me from easily a head lower. Something inside me ached, wanted to lean down and bite and kiss and try to forget this ever happened.

  Something in that angry expression shifted, just a second, so fleeting I didn’t know if I’d spotted it or not.

  “Don’t bme me for you secretly yearning to tch onto the first person to give you some attention,” Alice said. “Nothing to bme for making it easy but your own-”

  My hand wrapped around her throat as I pressed forward. Alice was solidly built, all muscles and rough edges while I kept myself lithe to a fault, but surprise counted for something. She filed for a second, long enough for me to force her back against the wall, hand wrapped tightly against her throat.

  “First lesson of diabolism,” I got out in a ragged gasp, my head just above hers, staring down, my eyes feeling pained as something got in the way of my vision, blurring it. “Letting a hand touch you? Death. Just a thought and I could send rot into you, make your veins burst and your flesh decay into nothing. I could…I could…”

  My hand was shaking now, little bits of fme forming then spinning off into nothingness while Skall looked at me, a half-smile and lidded eyes as she stared over my grasping hand. At some point I’d gone to my knees, my head the same level as hers.

  “No need for that,” she said, tone calm as if I didn’t have a hand wrapped around her throat. “If you want to py games Malvia, we can let bygones be bygones, start fresh. If you want to hurt me? That's what bites are for.”

  I wanted that, I wanted that so badly even knowing what she’d done and that this was probably not even honest, but the thought of things going back the way they were. It was tempting.

  Not enough. I was not falling for this, I would never fall for something like this!

  “Get,” I said, teeth gritted as suddenly fmes wreathed my hand and her half-smile vanished into a grimace of pain. “Out!”

  ****

  Three more months. Now as the roof shook up above me, it wasn’t just us on the sidelines of a fight between the dwarves and the empire.

  I stumbled as the floor shook, going to the tunnel’s side. Up above me would be where the Amry was busy excavating out with explosives and magic. They’d spent a month trying to find the secret entrances into Understreet, but by now patience had worn thin. Now they were just preparing tunnels and colpsing them until they found their prize.

  And each explosion brought more tension down here, especially as the inner circle around our ‘fearless leader’ kept mum as to any future pns. I wasn’t in it anymore, either Gio had cottoned on to what I knew, or just my own defeatism had meant less involvement and more freezing me out of everything.

  A year earlier I’d be afraid of it meaning a knife across my throat. These days…that fear was still there, but there was a way out, in just a week’s time.

  Consolidation hadn’t happened yet. We still maintained outposts and other smaller bases in the web of tunnels and caves down here. For all the good it did us. Getting in touch with them was just more opportunities for the army’s patrols to catch you. Of course, it did mean hours or even days away from the increasing despair down here.

  Not much better in those other bases, but fewer people there to be angry at. And I’d made a habit of it, just to set up for the next run, where three of us would never arrive at our destination. Just dead at the hands of an army patrol, and I had a pn to make the Imp sleep so Gio couldn’t track us that way. He’d assume I’d been tortured and finally made to expire.

  Still days away though, and the gnawing thought of not seeing it had made me pace down here in what was supposed to be an isoted tunnel.

  Supposed to be, if not for the scowling, short figure coming down from the other side.

  Alice Skall paused, stopping a good ten feet away from me. Underneath her chin, flesh still bore traces of scars where I’d seared her flesh. The…biosculpting sessions afterwards to repair the damage had been awkward, to put it mildly, but she’d finally gotten the message.

  “Malvia,” she said sharply, eyes narrowing. “You dogging my every step now?”

  “I don’t dog,” I replied. “Running across you isn’t dogging, and I came down the other side of the corridor. Why are you running across me?”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything more, just headed for the wall and keeping a wary eye on me as she walked past.

  I’d at least put a stop to her trying to pretend nothing had happened, even if it meant fear instead. I'd made it clear where things stood and made it clear any goodwill was us trying to stay alive.

  There was enough that she’d dragged me out of the catastrophe of a scouting mission Gio had sent us on. If anything made me think he knew I’d overheard, it was sending me up there with only Alice as a backup. If it was some attempt to make sure I died, it had failed. I suppose it made a bit of sense, knowing she’d only pretended to love me for protection. Nettle me too much and I survive and she’d be dealing with me, probably ending in more than me leaving her with burns.

  I looked at her retreating back, and an urge built, to say something, make her come back, something. She deserved to know, I could tell her, we could….

  What? Escape together? No, I squashed those feelings down, back where they’d come from. Even if she believed me, I’d get sold out for a little bit of advantage. With this group? Just the evidence that I’d talked to someone without their approval would be enough to secure her spot and my slit throat. What guarantee did I have that she wouldn’t use me for the same bit of safety she’d admitted I’d been a tool in service to this entire time? No, best to just escape with Arsene and Lyd-Tolman. I’d gotten lucky that my skills were just the ones Tolman wanted to become truly himself, and it only reinforced that transactions, they were what mattered.

  My brother. My uncle. A half dozen others before them, stretching forward and backward throughout time. The only person I knew alive who loved me without wanting anything in return was asleep, and likely to never wake.

  ***

  My eyes opened, and I blinked, trying to figure out why I was staring at a doorway. Where was I?

  Lying on something comfortable, was the immediate answer, and looking down I was on some kind of bnket, in front of a manor. I frowned, the sight poking something from my brain. I tried to move, and failed as I was stuck staring at someone’s door.

  My mouth felt dry and full of cotton, but nothing was actually there as I probed my teeth with my tongue. I could feel my limbs, but they didn’t want to move even as I told them to.

  Memories were coming back now, and I tried once again, straining only for very little to move.

  A shadow fell over me, and I went still as it came closer, eventually moving around me, it’s owner squatting down to look me in the eyes.

  “Really Miss Harrow,” Captain Malstein said, voice echoing in my ears. “We need to stop meeting like this.”