“Boss Versalicci,” I said hesitantly, eyeing the green Infernal as I took a few more steps into the fighting pit.

  He chuckled. “Just Versalicci. ‘Boss’ sounds ridiculous. Sleep well Miss Harrow?”

  I took another hesitant step, weighing my answer. Usually I’d have a good answer, but I’d been sent here by a man who’d put a gun against the back of my head. Was this…an execution? There was no one else here though. An interrogation, just with the people to intervene just out of sight?

  Lie? I doubted my sleeplessness had gone unnoticed, so he might immediately know the lie, but telling the truth…just say it. Golvar had likely told him everything.

  “Sleepless,” I admitted. “It was hard to get any sleep at all.”

  “Not unexpected,” he said, turning his attention back to the corpses. “A difficult day to get through, I’d imagine.”

  “I’ve seen worse,” I replied quietly, which was true. I had seen worse, sometimes at least once a week, yet nothing had affected me this badly since the first year stuck in the quarter.

  “Nothing quite matches having to kill a friend,” Versalicci said. “Taking a life like that leaves marks deeper than witnessing a horror or slicing the throat of an enemy. I’d be more concerned if you did sleep soundly.”

  I didn’t respond. It wasn’t the first time, although that had been an accident, this had been…something different.

  He didn’t respond either, and I stood quietly waiting, not willing to break the silence.

  I’d seen the boss a few times. Recruitment, when Varrow had taken us to that warehouse. When the tattoos were carved into our flesh. He hadn’t said much, usually a lieutenant like Golvar, Tefelmen, or Krenz speaking instead. The recruitment, he’d talked then about how they wanted to be a force for change. Golvar had been..a blow against that in parts, although I couldn’t deny we needed funds and needed them from somewhere.

  Versalicci though, he remained an enigma to me. Much like this sandy pit underground.

  I’d never gotten a straight answer on why this had been constructed. I guessed for training or entertainment, but I’d never gotten the appeal of a fighting pit. Putting yourself at risk of injury deliberately for a paltry purse?

  This was more eborate than most of those, one that could easily seat four hundred or more, all built underground where space was limited. Hidden parts of the underground varied in how well they could evade a searcher’s eye, and the ones that were the safest were limited. And they’d spent the space on this.

  The silence stretched out, and I tried to say something only for the words to die in my throat as my eyes flicked down to Pieter’s limbless corpse on the sand.

  Daver moved out into the sands from the same entrance I’d come in, not paying either of us any mind as he came out, lugging a bucket filled with red liquid far too thick to be water. Drops fell on the sand, the dry ground eagerly sucking up the blood as Daver got closer.

  “Boss,” he said as he neared the pair of corpses. “Here to watch?”

  “Yes,” Versalicci said, turning his gaze from me. “That and talk to Miss Harrow. I suppose you want us up in the seating?”

  “Unless you want something nasty happening,” Daver said, flippantly not showing any deference. “Devils want a taste of flesh, and they will test the barrier hoping to get at any source of it. Including you, me, and her. As I’ve told you many times in the past. As I’ll tell you many times before because you never actually do it.”

  “They shouldn’t be able to go outside the ritual circle,” I said quietly and kept going even as they both looked at me, one encouraging and one very irritated. “That until you make a deal they can press against it, but it won’t actually break.”

  “Depending on the quality of the seal, my abilities as a caster, the devil, and a dozen other details,” Daver said gruffly. “But at least you did listen when I was giving you a lesson, unlike someone else.”

  That disapproving gre was off me and I felt lighter for it. Before all of this, Daver had just been another older member of the gang who had conscripted me for errands. Mostly buying his booze. Then I’d numbly cut up two people while he drew blood and expined precisely what was going to happen to both corpses, while something had prowled the interior of that workshop.

  He hadn’t said anything, and its brushing against my legs had been light, but something had moved about in there, something that had definitely bitten into one of the corpses. I could see the mark out here even, a circur chunk taken out. Lamprey-like in its biting.

  And then the preparations had started for the corpses, and I…didn’t remember much of them, which according to him was a good result of touching the mind of the devil who we’d be summoning.

  Golvar took a brush, dipped it in the bucket, and painted the sand, starting a circle around the

  two bodies that I kept myself from looking at.

  I’d cut every limb off both, but I still couldn’t look Pieter in the eye. Every time my stomach twisted itself into knots. I’d eaten a little bit since I’d….ate him, and every time it threatened to bring it all back up.

  Now that I didn’t want to empty my stomach vomiting came harder. Or maybe I just wanted flesh in my stomach no matter how much I denied it.

  “The devil is ready and waiting?” Versalicci asked Daver.

  “Has been for some time. You could have asked the girl, she was there. Albeit her head got a little rattled from a devil speaking near her.”

  “Wait, the devil spoke to me?” I asked. “I don’t remember anything like that.”

  The two of them stared at me a second, then Daver said “Case in point. Yeah, it’s arranged although I had to cajole quite a bit to get its true name out of it. It didn’t like giving it up, shock of shocks.”

  Versalicci sighed. “Yes, well we need something to help pull it through Halspus’ barrier. And something to keep them from deciding not to obey us. I want this one helping out above ground as soon as we can arrange it.”

  “It would be easier if we waited until enough corpses were ready to give it a proper shell,” Daver said. “I told you this one doesn’t like trying to modify existing limbs and we’d need at least a third.”

  “It will learn to make do,” Versalicci said. “Or it can let another devil take its pce. We’re not cking for devils wanting to come up here.”

  “No, but we’re cking in ones who are willing to follow ‘mortal-bound trash’s’ direct orders,” Daver groused, finishing the st symbol. “Circle’s finished and assuming no one has fucked around with the sand, it should be good. If I find Machti messing with it again, I’m ciming an arm. Use it for an imp or something more useful than him. Now, you might be suicidal, but take my new apprentice to the seats before you get her killed?”

  “Fair enough,” Versalicci said, and he guided me out, up through a narrow tunnel to the seating around the fighting pit, waiting until we were both settled in before continuing.

  “You know,” Versalicci said. “Golvar did tell me the entire truth of what happened. I appreciate what you did for us. Typically, when we test loyalty we don’t do something that hard for a while, so I’m gd it got cleared away early for you.”

  “The entire truth?” I said in as dead a tone as I could muster.

  “Yes, every frustrating little detail from his perspective. Don’t take it too personally, his anger goes deeper than your behavior. That is fixable with time, losing members of the gang to the Watch or his revolver is not. Do not worry about it too much.”

  I’d believe that more if it had come with an assurance Golvar wouldn’t have pulled the trigger. Not that I would have believed it.

  “He did mention you like to partake,” Versalicci noted. “While we couldn’t spare any from the dead watchman this time, in the future if you wish to have your fill, it can be arranged?”

  My stomach twisted as that, the sensation of that bite traveling down my throat as my mouth watered and-

  “I’d rather not,” I said in a monotone. “I didn’t care for the taste.”

  “Yes, he mentioned that too,” Versalicci said, his tone warm, with a warmth that I hadn’t felt for a long time. Mother yes but from anyone but her? The st had driven us in here, turned harsh and berating as he drove us inside. “Admitting you found it disgusting is fine. Not all of us eat it. Just maybe don’t try it again unless you know you can tolerate it.”

  “It was an accident,” I said, and he didn’t reply.

  Down below the lighting of the runs finished, Daver began to speak in a harsh nguage that felt like he was speaking with a bed of nails inside his throat.

  The sand shifted, flowing as something pressed at it from underneath, making it move like a rat under a sheet. Daver coughed and barked in the strange tongue. The pair of torsos shuddered, levitating off the ground. The sand was discolored, streaks of green and yellow moving through while I could hear whispering around us. A shadow moved on one of the walls, many-limbed and there for only an instant before vanishing.

  Pieter’s head still hung on the ruins of his neck, rotating to face mine, mouth open, and for a second his eyes looked alive, then with a snap it was forced against the Watchman’s head.

  Spines poked through, slender needles of bone and flesh that bent and tched onto the other torso, pulling it closer. The sewn-up stumps of their arms and legs broke open, more spines poking through, spider-like limbs carved from the bones inside. I could see spines pushing through the ruins of Pieter’s throat, pushing up, poking outwards with skewered eyes on their tip before I turned my head aside.

  Always have to be careful. Don’t know when you’ll be next with a devil wearing your dead face. I knew better than Pieter did though. Hells, Versalicci probably wouldn’t have killed him if I hadn’t been fool enough to stab. Talk him down, set him straight, not..this.

  “It’s always sad when those we think we can trust turn on us,” Versalicci said as the corpses continued to change. “A sadness that gnaws at the heart. It gnaws at you, doesn’t it?”

  I breathed out slowly, as Versalicci looked at me. An obvious tell but better than letting him know the fear eating at my belly. Let him just imagine the reasons for that fear while I composed myself.

  “It does,” I admitted. “I always trusted Pieter. Thought he trusted me in return. Thought this was just some brief moment of…irrationality I could talk him out of. Siding with the Watch, of all groups-”

  “Why did he side with the Watch?” Versalicci interrupted me. “Money? Doubtful. I don’t think anyone in the Quarter would trust Watch promises of coin. Funnily enough, they do want to offer it.”

  My ears perked up at that. “Really? How do you know?”

  “People love talking about their frustration,” Versalicci told me. “And even if it’s not vented in front of an Infernal, it’s said in front of people who are willing to talk to Infernals.”

  “And they are willing to talk to you?”

  “When offered enough, yes. The Watch wants to, but the Empire and Church deny it. But we stray from my question. Why did Pieter turn? Did he tell you? If not a guess.”

  A test of some kind? Again, stick to the truth Malvia, you didn’t do anything wrong.

  Besides stabbing Pieter in the throat and chewing-

  “Fear,” I said quickly. “He was afraid of what the Watch would do if they knew the extent of your operations. That they would scour the Quarter in response.”

  “Fear,” Versalicci said. “I don’t bme Pieter for what he did then. People gripped by fear are irrational, and the Imperials have done their best to make sure it takes root all across the Quarter. The Watch offers protection across this city, at least to those it cares about. Which means none at all for us. They only come in to grab people to fit the crimes they have unsolved and make sure none of us leave. Yet Pieter turned to them because he fears what would happen if they were to find even a hint of defiance among the Quarter.”

  “Were you saying he was right then?” I asked a little shocked Versalicci was giving credence to any of that.

  “That the Watch will retaliate? Of course. But the current situation would have it happen anyway, decades down the line at most. As the city grows and more people become assimited by the empire, space becomes tighter. The Quarter didn’t use to be this small, and while they’ve denied its use to us, even if it floods regurly it’s still on the river. And once they take that, why not the rest for themselves?”

  I knew what he meant. No one was directly taking nd anymore, not with the Quarter stuffed to the brim, but if given a reason to ‘clear some space’, it would be taken.

  “Do you think they know about any of this?” I asked, still not looking directly at the devil as bones snapped and skin split, its new form being tested and shifted.

  “I’m certain the Imperial government is aware of some of our activities,” Versalicci said. “Oh ,it’s aware we steal and smuggle and even kill. But as long as it’s mostly reserved for ourselves? Or others they don’t care about? Why make a fuss, as long as things aren’t taken too far? Of course, they have to reply to some insults. Such as the Watch has over the events of today?”

  No. Please no. “What did they do?” I asked.

  “Two were taken from the Quarter today,” Versalicci said. “Several more were beaten and left as an example, but they only took two. Direct retaliation for the Watchman’s kidnapping.”

  My heart plummeted, as stupid as it was to have not expected this. Of course, the Watch would retaliate for one of their own vanishing in the Quarter. And for the fight that had broken out on Hells’ Own.

  “One brigadier Tullen was in charge,” Versalicci continued as my stomach churned. “He doesn’t want to deal with the fuss of trying to chase us. For one thing, he knows it’s mostly a useless pursuit. So instead he went for any lowlifes he could pce there who might have worked with us. Most of them got a beating as a demonstration that fell short of making him hated. Spiking them all would have done that. Spiking just two, however, is another matter altogether.”

  My heart stopped. “No.”

  Versalicci gave me a sad smile. “Sorry, Miss Harris. But I won’t lie. In public at the hands of a priest of Halspus, they had silver spikes. By now they’ll be underneath the cathedral.”

  Underneath the cathedral, with how many others, sealed inside those vaults for eternity? The only pce to go after death, besides one other.

  “Do you think it’s better or worse down there than it is here?” I asked him.

  He froze, then pondered the question for a bit as the thing that used to be Pieter and the Watchman continued to transform in front of us. It was swelling, skin stretching as flesh grew, the spiked bones being strained to their limits.

  “It’s a cruel pce,” he said, as the combined bodies continued to change and morph with wet squelching noises down in front of us. The combined face opened, a tendril rolling out as elongated bone spikes pressed through the skin. I shivered, focusing on Versalicci instead as he continued watching.

  “Cruel, and not easy to live in as I know it,” he continued. “It’s a shite choice forced on us, to either go there when we die, or be stuck in a spike under that cathedral. Just another case where we were condemned from birth, another case of the world trying to tread on us.”

  I frowned, thinking about some of what he’d said before the few times.

  “You are descended from royalty, aren’t you?” I said. “A duke. You’ve mentioned it before. That doesn’t earn you anything.”

  “Earns me a little,” Versalicci replied. “Spares me some of the worst. Not all though. And if I don’t fulfill the will of my father in this realm to his satisfaction? Perhaps I’ll wish my lineage was much poorer. Do you know yours?”

  “No,” I confessed. “I know it’s close. My mother uh…well some of her family wasn’t hesitant to tell me exactly how I was conceived. But she’s kept her mouth shut on which devil it is.”

  “She’s alive?” He said. “I thought Varrow stuck exclusively with orphans for his pickpockets?”

  “We needed money and I was very insistent,” I said with a slight smile. I couldn’t begin to imagine what Varrow had thought when I came crashing through the roof of his hideout. He’d been dividing a meager pile of pilfered coins with his two favored pickpockets, Alton and Patrice, and all three had put the boots to me while I’d desperately tried to spit out that I wanted to join.

  Somehow it had worked out. Although that might be more because of my mother than me. I don’t think she liked the idea of me picking pockets, but we were at the point of needing something to earn coin. Especially with her cough worsening and the amount of suspicion being a non-Infernal in the quarter brought. Worse, a very foreign non-Infernal, with a daughter who looked just as strange to boot.

  You learned quickly to keep your head down when the insults came, cause even among the lowest they’d pick someone even lower to gang up on.

  “Interesting,” he said. “I don’t know any Harrows.”

  I snorted. “How many people here use the name they were born under?”

  I actually didn’t know but I could imagine it was meant.

  “Malvia Harrow isn’t your real name?” He asked.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s not, I decided on it shortly after we..arrived here.”

  I didn’t want that name. Mother could still call me it but I wasn’t a Xang, not after they’d tossed us out. Not after Uncle had made sure both of us would end up here, tossed into this miserable, shitty pce for the rest of our lives. I didn’t want that name.

  “You change much since taking it?” He asked.

  I tried to puzzle out the importance of that one. Honesty might be the best way forward? Maybe it was a mistake, to treat this different than Golvar. But maybe it wouldn’t be?

  “Some,” I said. “Not much. Some.”

  “I think it’s a waste of a new name,” Versalicci told me. “If your old name is displeasing, why not make a fully clean break from the old you?”

  I frowned at him. “That sounds….I don’t think that sounds like something that could be only beneficial.”

  “Depends,” he replied. “Depends on if the current you is unsuited in some way for your current situation and you need to make a change in course. Or maybe just unbury something else lurking within. But ciming a new mask for yourself then not wearing it properly is such a waste.”

  “Mask?” I said. “I thought we were talking about names?”

  “The same thing, just different terms,” he told me. “I’d be happy to expin the difference further since Daver is going to spend some time helping our newest recruit.”

  “You aren’t busy?” I asked him hesitantly. We’d already talked for quite a while, long enough that the devil had finished changing and had padded out on paws made of liver and spleen. The resembnce to Pieter had long ago vanished, now resembling a single human torso with spindly spider legs of bone pushing out of its sides.

  “Too busy to spare an ear for someone who made the right choice? Never. Come, let’s go to my office, and spill your troubles. I will listen.”

  ***

  I woke up gasping, a sound halfway between a sob and a scream rising in my throat.

  I seized it, forced it down as I closed my mouth and tried to calm my breathing.

  Breathe. Breathe. You’re fine.

  Maybe I wasn’t. I could still taste Pieter in my mouth, still feel my knife buried under his throat, the saw in my hands cutting through flesh into bones as the Watchman shrieked.

  Bury it. Thinking about it would bring nothing but pain and things I couldn’t take back.

  I avoided going bolt upright, slowly blinking as I stared at the ceiling for the second time tonight.

  The light of the moon outside cast patterns, illuminating some parts of the rough wooden ceiling I could make out individual details, and focusing on them helped push those memories back.

  This had to be a curse. Genuinely. A curse designed to unbance me, unsettle me. It’s why I kept on having these dreams, why I kept on dreaming old memories designed to torment me, why Versalicci’s words had unbanced me so.

  I sighed softly. When I put it like that to myself, it made me sound unhinged. Perhaps a close examination should be done, but ciming that everything that pgued me was some curse was…paranoid.

  Still, I didn’t like being reminded of how I’d been back then. So naive, so stupid. Bad enough I’d killed Pieter, he’d been right all along. Not that he’d ever know unless he took a look from the Hells after I’d bitten out his throat.

  Then so eagerly listening to Versalicci, spilling my heart out to him and taking the words said back as gospel. Foolish little girl. About the only useful thing had been about how close I’d come to letting anyone there see-

  You’re awake, The Imp noted grumpily. Bah, I was enjoying solitude for once. Sleep, and cease your mind’s buzzing.

  Honestly, knowing that even if it couldn’t read my mind my thoughts were noise needling it made me want to stay awake. That brief bit of petty anger though died down as I stifled a yawn. Already sleep wanted to drag me back into its embrace, eyes drooping.

  What would wait there? More torments? Maybe staying awake would be better, no matter what my body said.

  A sound on the roof above my head, a slight crunch, followed by a second fainter one. A series, heading towards my window.

  Oh. That’s why I’d woken up. I settled further in my bed, one eye open just a little bit as the intruder moved toward the edge of my roof. The noise was obvious now that I’d noticed.

  Even with alchemicals, muting sound was difficult when you tried to py the sneak thief on people’s ceilings.

  A rope fell down, hanging just inches from my window as I struggled to stay awake. The problem with settling in to pretend you were asleep, made you want to sleep. After a couple of seconds, a figure was lowering themselves, something on their waist connected to the rope, feet or hooves holding them steady against the window as they pulled out a series of tools.

  I waited, while they began to work. There was a basic spell on the window, the best I could afford, and it failed to go off, so they knew about it. Not some random thief.

  The figure continued to fiddle with my window as I examined them through only a slightly open eye. I could see horns illuminated in the moonlight, and ones familiarly curved as well. Still, even if it wasn’t her I couldn’t risk them being able to see in the dark. My eye remained a nearly closed slit as I moved a hand under the covers.

  I had a revolver in my drawer, safer than under my pillow in case of an accidental discharge. It would take time to drag it out, but I wanted the figure inside first. If they were at the window, they could just drop. Fall into the built-up snow, then leg it before I even made it to the window.

  So I just inched my hand closer while they undid my window with a click, letting half swing open. They slipped inside, moving towards my bed. Nothing in their hands, which was more suspicious than if they had a gun or a knife. They got to the side of my bed, looking down at me, one hand moving towards my face.

  I cuffed the side of their head, the sudden shock throwing them off bance. My knuckles rammed into their chin, the blow sending their head to the side. They fell backward, scrambling towards the window, but I was faster.

  Drawer open, revolver drawn, hammer cocked, gun aimed just as they’d reached the window.

  “Move an inch outside and you’re dead,” I snapped. “Move too fast and the same. Turn around, slowly.”

  The cloaked figure slowly turned as my free hand lit a match and then my mp.

  Alice Skall stared down the barrel of my revolver, expression sheepish as I gred.

  “Trouble sleeping?” She asked me.