“Don’t,” I said sharply as she tensed.

  She’d made it to the windowsill, her upper body leaning out, only her hooves and lower half still in the room. I could mostly just see her silhouette, the moon’s light illuminating her face as she looked at me confidently. Dressed from the bottom of her neck to her toes in tight street clothing covering every inch and making my eyes linger far, far too much. Cold air rushed in through the open window, the chill kissing my skin and making me shiver. Helpful for staying awake. The moon’s light framed her perfectly, that impish little face so pretty when it was smug, her eyes color reflected in that light.

  “Don’t do what?” She asked me in an innocent tone, a smile on her lips that I wanted to deal with so badly.

  “Jump,” I said. “You try throwing yourself out, I will put a bullet in you. Don’t care how fast you think you are, you won’t survive. But try it. Go ahead.”

  “And to think just a second ago you asked me not to,” she said, easing her way back inside.

  “I reconsidered when I realized where it would take you,” I replied. “To the ground with a bullet inside you.”

  “In a vindictive mood tonight, ain’t you?” She said, easing closer only to pause as I shook my head.

  “Ten paces minimum,” I said, getting out of my bed. My tail tried and failed to coil around my mp, instead nearly spilling the entire thing to the floor as I walked on unsteady hooves. “It’s less vindictiveness and more knowing what will happen if I keep letting problems build up, eventually it’s going to kill me. Thankfully, one of them has literally stumbled into my p.”

  I stumbled forward a little, my hooves shaking until I gave up and nded on my bed, gun still pointed at Alice. My tail finally wrapped around the ntern, hoisting it up next to my face. I blinked, the bright light making tears well up in my eyes.

  Alice looked at me, her eyes widening a little. “You're ragged, Malvia. More than I think I've ever seen before. The Hells happened to you?”

  I ughed, a bitter ugly thing that forced its way up my throat. Something was having a ugh at me today. The Hells, the Gods, and everything in between. First Tagashin, now Alice?

  “What’s happened to me? So many things. Too many to list really. I’ve been running around chasing a murderer with a detective who isn’t willing to admit time is short, a priest who hates me, another who I can’t get a read on. Then I got ambushed by devils and thugs, and they chopped up my poor tail and now I can’t make it work! Then I come home and whose here by my brother, with that corrosive little shire Machti and his silent partner Mitu, and they’ll kill my mother if I don’t find someone for him. And I can’t sleep, because all I see when I close my eyes is the past Alice, and you’re in there, and now you’re here. In my room. At this horrible hour and I want an expnation for what you were going to do right now?”

  She hesitated as I numbly sat on the bed, mp idly swinging as I hummed to myself. Some old tune, I could barely remember it. Might even be before the Quarter. I muttered half forgotten words in some sembnce of rhythm.

  “This might not have been the best time,” she finally said, interrupting the slow meandering of my mumbled singing.

  “It might as well be now,” I said. “Not while I’m asleep and you slit my throat because you think I did you harm.”

  “I wasn’t coming to do that,” she said gruffly. “Not really pnned on it the first time either. I was angry, but I wasn’t going-”

  “You were angry?” I said with a ugh. “One of us has more right to that than others, and the only reason I didn’t snap was because you shocked me by being alive!”

  “Think the shotgun might have had something to do with it,” she said.

  “Right,” I said. “Should have brought that. Or just a pistol. Shot through the window. Easiest shot in the world.”

  “Malvia, I’m not here to kill you-”

  “Then why are you here?” I snapped, raising the gun again.

  “Malvia,” she said with a gentleness that made my traitorous, foolish heart nearly skip a beat, bringing back old memories I wanted to stay buried as she took a few steps closer. “Get some sleep, please. I’ll admit I’m still angry, and you…it doesn’t matter. You need rest.”

  “I’m dreaming still,” I muttered to myself. “Are you actually caring about me?”

  Alice spped me, hand smacking my cheek and sending a fsh of pain through me. Tears welling in my eyes, I pulled the hammer back on the revolver, stopping a follow-up blow.

  “You know,” she said angrily. “I’ll take a lot of responsibility for how things ended between us. How things were between us. But that? That’s your fault in all of it.”

  “What?” I snapped. “Me questioning why you care? You admitted you seduced me, admitted you used me, tched onto me like a parasite!”

  “You make it sound worse-”

  “I make it sound exactly like it was,” I said, tail spping the wall. “My entire life in this city has been people lying to me and using me to their own ends, so thank you Alice, for giving me a reminder that no one, no one in this city values you except for how they can use you. And I’ve been stuck here ever since!”

  “You though, you got out,” I continued,. “You escaped, you stayed escaped, unchained, unfettered. And then you came crawling back, why? Because your name got dug up again? Because I resurfaced? Who was going to care Alice? Everyone deeply involved in that mess knew it was me all along, and anyone not deeply involved wouldn’t know what you looked like.”

  Alice froze, and for a second seemed at a genuine loss, but I wasn’t going to let her answer. I moved forward, keeping her at the end of the gun but closing in, herding her away from the window.

  “I wasn’t happy, but I was something approaching it,” I spat. “And then a million things had to come taunting and vexing me and you had to be one of them! For the longest time I hoped you would be anything but that, but no, even you turned out to be a snake!”

  I was far closer than I should be, face inches away from hers, her eyes flickering through emotions that I couldn’t tell if they were real or fake. I never had before, as I loomed over her.

  “Wanna take a bite?” she asked bluntly, and something in my gut twisted, and I snarled and turned away. She moved in the corner of my eye.

  Click went the hammer, and her hand froze. She’d gone for my hand holding the gun instead of the throat, but that made little difference. Both could be lethal. It would be lethal if she touched skin.

  “Okay, maybe not the right thing to say, but-“

  “No games,” I said. “Reason for me not to pull this trigger, right now. Make it quick.”

  “Cold,” Alice said with a grin. “You-”

  “As someone put it to me, I really don’t care about others besides myself and one other,” I said, and her face twitched at that, some other word trying to escape her mouth. “Don’t say anything. You aren't the one other, so spit out something useful, Alice.”

  Silence as she seemed to think while I counted down the seconds. Ten. Ten and then I would do something. Shoot? Grapple? Scream?

  I knew as little as Alice probably did if I’d actually pull the trigger. From a practical standpoint, it was going to be awkward as hells to expin a gunshot. Then again, Watch didn’t come here often, the neighbors learned to not be noisy, and Intelligence could pay me back for letting people constantly invade my fucking home!

  For that. Only that reason. Please let Alice just…offer something that wasn’t reted to our past or pain.

  “The deal,” she said as my internal count reached seven, and something that didn’t make my heart ache to hear about. Business. “Unless you’ve found another source on it?”

  From her cocky grin, she clearly thought I hadn’t. Unfortunately, neither Melissa nor Vesper knew much besides its existence.

  “No,” I said. “Outside of confirming there is one. I would suggest a better hint than ‘whispers’ next time.”

  “Thought you’d catch on immediately,” she said. “Guessing you haven’t heard it then?”

  “No,” I said. “Turns out being the spawn of what I’m guessing is a rival of this one puts me very low on the list of diabolists they’d offer the deal to.”

  Maybe not a rival, but probably someone this Devil didn’t want intruding on this offer.

  “Can’t deny everyone with that kind of lineage,” Alice said. “Ain’t it a suspected thing where anyone with the inborn talent has some kind of royal lineage?”

  “I think Daver made that up just so you’d get booze for him again,” I told her. “Even if it is true? I’m the spawn of the devil in question and have been in regur contact with him, including one time recently.”

  You should do it again, The Imp whispered in my brain. He may have guidance on who has sent this deal to the mortal pne.

  Firstly, no, secondly, not the time to even try discussing that.

  “Really?” Alice asked, arcing an eyebrow.

  “Really,” I said, irritation mounting again as I pulled the drooping barrel of the revolver up. My eyelids had been drifting down again. I did not have time to get drawn into a longer conversation. “If you want more details on it, talk to Versalicci. Back to the deal. Details.”

  “Deal’s one of those ones where you got to buy in to know the details,” Alice admitted. “Least that’s how it was whispered in my ear. People less on the fence, they might have been told the entire thing. Twelve priests dead, specific ones. Kill ‘em by fucking up a change into a devil. On top of that, a church belonging to their deity has to be deconsecrated as well. In return, you get a wish.”

  “For the entire set?” I doubted it, since that would mean already any incentive to keep killing would have finished with the third murder.

  “Nah,” she confirmed. “But the more you kill, the bigger chunk of the pot at the end you get. More powerful your wish would be. Other targets too, are not worth as much. Mind you, wish is what I was told, might not be the actual case. You know how it is, keep things vague ‘til you’re in too deep.”

  “There’s got to be a genuine pot,” I muttered. “Too much effort to be something fake, and the targets would be something they’d want alive. They need them dead for something.”

  “Why would the Hells want some priests alive?” Alice said, and my eyes narrowed as she continued. “Keep me in the dark if you want, but I’m the only one who heard the Deal here, and the only one who might have a shred of additional insight into it.”

  Unfortunately true, which meant probably going ahead and telling her about the whole thing. Of course, no guarantee she’d keep it a secret, and if it were traced back to me? Intelligence would probably be happy to let my soul get spiked instead of dealing with angry churches over that. I was a dime a dozen after all.

  On the other hand, where are we currently? Stymied by that same insistence on secrecy, with an increasing rate of murders. Twelve needed, four already dead. A third of the way there, and how close were we to catching up?

  Not at all. Some things would need to change.

  “They decided to dip their hands into the unholy,” I told her, and her eyes widened, skin actually paling.

  Probably real. Possibly real. Probably not real. By all rights it should surprise her but I could hardly cim to tell what actually swirled around in that head.

  “You have got to be joking,” she said, composure returning a little. “They decided to practice Diabolism? The fuck would they do that for? Halspusians hate it.”

  “Halpsus has little to do with it outside of keeping an eye on it,” I said. “Twelve churches, more than twelve priests, but twelve deities. So one from each.”

  “And how many killers?” Alice asked.

  “Who knows,” I said, idly counting off with one hand as the revolver shook in my other, her eyes locked on it as it moved about. “Versalicci says he’s not involved, and he’d be stupid to be. Still, you’ve given me something to chew on.”

  At least confirmation that it was twelve targets. And that deconsecration was involved, although maybe not the church the target was killed in. I should write this down, before I forget it in my sleep. Maybe we could set a trap? How many Baltaren churches could there be? Then again, with their disappearing trick, maybe there were thousands on every street and we wouldn’t know. Truly a frightening possibility.

  I was singing again, I realized, and this was definitely in my mother’s native nguage. Alice looked at me quizically, moving slightly towards the window.

  “Time for me to leave-”

  “No, no,” I said with a grin, and her expression faltered a little. “It’s time for tea first!”

  Alice gnced at the open window and then back at me, and for once, uncertainty was in her eyes.

  “Thought you were a mead and beer kinda girl?” she asked as I moved between her and the window. “Like, you did tea too, but you drank other things that are better suited. Tea’s more a morning and afternoon drink, ain’t it?”

  “I gave it up,” I told her. “Tea is so much better, a balm for the mind and soul that is suitable for every hour of the day, so it is the perfect time for tea. Every hour is perfect for tea because tea is perfect for every hour.”

  “Malvia,” she said slowly, as if talking to a child. “I’m not going to drink tea prepared by an alchemist in her own house.”

  “Tea,” I insisted, keeping the gun trained on her. “I’d tie you up so I could make it, but it would give you the wrong ideas.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You compin about me asking for a nibble, then pull out lines like that? Malvia, just let me out of here-”

  “Tea first!”

  She didn’t really have a choice, as I kept her in sight the entire time as I prepared, but my suddenly disobedient tail was eager to help out, especially with a few additional ingredients. And I could hardly leave a guest unentertained, so I decided to recount everything she’d missed.

  “-and anyway, he was clever enough to realize what I’d been trying to do, but then his father interrupted. He did give the nicest massage, though, but then refused to dance. Sure, the ballroom was littered with corpses, but still, we could have made the effort.”

  “I thought you said you broke your leg that night,” Alice said numbly. “Also, sorry, are you trying to make me jealous?”

  I giggled and ignored the little voice telling me to say yes. Shut up, Imp! “Nothing to get jealous over. He hates me now. I kidnapped his brother, and now he’s back with everyone else in that regard. And the leg was in a splint, it would have been fine!”

  She muttered something about her being called the crazy one, which I ignored while I paid more attention to my little teapot as it steamed.

  “Tea’s done!” I called out, my tail pouring two cups that I carried over, drinking one in small sips as Alice stared at me across the table. “Come on Alice, it’s freshly brewed!”

  She hesitated slightly, and I realized what I saw in those eyes was pity. Something snapped.

  “Drink,” I snarled, pressing the revolver’s barrel against her forehead.

  Her eyes widened as I kept staring directly at her, expression not faltering the slightest as my thumb nudged the revolver’s hammer back bit by bit. My tail wrapped around her other hand, squeezing along her wrist.

  Alice’s hands went to the teacup so fast it nearly spilled, shaking as they seized it and hurriedly brought it to her lips, but still wasn’t taking a sip.

  “You need sleep,” she said, a note of fear coloring her tone. “Genuinely, Malvia.”

  “And you need to drink some tea,” I said in a sing-song, finally cocking the hammer. “Genuinely. Come on Alice, what’s a little tea compared to a bullet in the old grey matter? Barely anything at all.”

  “You’ve poisoned it or something,” she said, trying to pull her other hand back only for my tail to pyfully yank it forward.

  “I drank from the same pot,” I said solemnly before giggling, and she redoubled her efforts to yank her arm free. “Besides, I’d never taint my tea to the point it would kill someone. It’s a point of pride, my tea.”

  “This is fucking Wrocaster’s,” she snapped. “It’s dark, it came out a tin, and you whined every time I bought it as a gift as if anything else got sold in the Quarter.”

  “And you’ll sip every little drop,” I insisted, pressing the muzzle of my revolver against her forehead. “Or you’ll never taste that shitty store-bought brand again. Come on, I drained a cup, the least you can do is drain one!”

  Shakily, she drank as I watched, then I slowly smiled.

  “Good girl,” I said, then I moved forward, my teeth tching onto her shoulder. They bit through fabric, grazing flesh, and she let out a startled yelp that turned into a snore as I bit. After a few seconds, I realized she wasn’t moving at all. No fun, as I pulled back to see her slumped against the table, fast asleep.

  Something burbled up in me, traveling up my throat till the giggle came out as I looked down on the sleeping Alice.

  This, this was a joke, a prank of some kind. Had it worked? I nudged her with the barrel, half-expecting her to spring to life, either to try and rot my arm off or bite me, depending on her mood. Nothing.

  I’d put that drug in the tea as an alternative to seeing if I could put her in a chokehold without getting rotted; I’d hardly expected it to work.

  I giggled some more as I tested her two more times, and the giggles built up into ughter as I realized it had worked. She was starting to snore in earnest now, and I’d forgotten how she used to sound like an earthquake.

  I’d mentioned that once, and she’d bitten me. Not the fun kind of bite either. But it was the clearest sign the drug had knocked her out.

  I’d built up my own tolerance to it. Not completely, as I stumbled around the table, using the chairs to keep myself up. Enough that a dose to put her to sleep merely left me even more in need of a bed. Honestly, even odds we’d have both ended up snoring at that table. I nearly slipped, the giggling continuing as I made my way over to the window, shutting it then turning my attention back to Alice.

  Okay. Enough foolishness. Enough. I’d captured Alice Skall. Now, what was I going to do with her?

  I considered the sleeping Alice for a few seconds, running through an increasingly shrinking list of options.

  If I just wanted her dead, I could turn her into the Watch. Or just slit her throat myself if I was really that dedicated to seeing her dead. Slice it with a knife, and let the blood seep out.

  I shivered, forced that thought, that instinct away. Let’s not indulge my brother’s ideas about me. Alice was part of this puzzle if even a small one. She’d heard the whisper for one thing, and I couldn’t trust that she’d divulged all she knew about to me. And I only had her word for how little she was involved with Versalicci.

  Honestly, just taking one more wild card out of py was reason enough to keep her locked up. Downstairs for now.

  Alice continued sleeping, and I waited for the moment she’d suddenly wake up, having been faking it. It never came. In a few minutes, I’d tied the smaller Infernal to her chair with the length of rope, a series of knots keeping her snug and unable to move when she woke up. Able to break her way free? Eventually. She’d always been more a kneebreaker than a thief, but nobody sted long in the Fme without picking up some skills. Then there was diabolism to consider. Alice could rot through those ropes in an instant if she woke up. The sleeping concoction wouldn’t st forever.

  It had to be the same pce I’d stored Melissa and Gregory, although I’d had to make this a more permanent pce. I doubted there’d be any talking Alice into working with me after this. As for storing her elsewhere, well…best not to strain Voltar’s patience any further. Not with hiding someone who had killed, possibly more than I had. Melissa was questionable, and young, not..early to mid twenties? I didn’t know Alice’s age, she might not know herself. Same age as me, probably. Far beyond saving at that age.

  We were all beyond saving in the end, as I looked down at her. No matter what, our end fates were either in the Hells, or stuck underneath a cathedral for eternity. And Derrick thought she had it bad? Lucky gal.

  I yawned, eyes closing. I’d get Alice moved in a bit, but first, I could y down and rest for a bit. Just a few seconds to rest my eyes…

  I jerked up, biting my lip until I bled. Fool!

  If I was going to do this, I’d need something so I didn’t pass out and have Alice wake up with me in her arms.

  Outside of being very embarrassing, it would put me within perfect rotting distance of her. Not that I hadn’t been there multiple times already, but she might change her mind after I knocked her out and tied her up. Then again, quite a few fantastic nights had started-

  Okay, a definite sign I needed something to keep me up. Both because I was beginning to lose track of my thoughts, and also because they’d headed down that track. Like a train. I’d never been on one, which felt unfair. A lot of things that were unfair.

  Somehow, I stumbled over to my cupboard, opening it and clearing tins and cans out of the way until I reached a trio of gss bottles in the back. A little bit of magic in a bottle, mostly derived from a gnd in a particurly alert and quick lizard. Helped the lizard bite anyone hunting it to death, or its food, or errant adventurers and delvers.

  I uncapped and took a swallow, and immediately the incoming sleep retreated, awareness returning to me. Which meant full awareness of what I’d just been doing.

  Oh hells, had I just bitten her? ‘Good girl’? Recounting every detail and hope of….I could strangle myself for that alone, never mind everything else. I groaned, head in my hands, as I tried not to let the frustration against myself mount so much. I needed sleep, and until I got it, I was not responsible..Okay I was responsible, but still. Sighing, I closed the cabinet, staring mutely at my face in the mirror, pulling the ntern closer. I hadn’t bothered to look before sleeping.

  Circles under my eyes? It had only been one sleepless night, blood vessels didn’t dite that fast!

  Okay, one additional night with very little sleep beforehand. And the night before, I’d insisted on walking the roofs to stay in practice before allowing myself to sleep. The night before that was what, inventory and dealing with some mostly legal alchemicals with Gormer Vile? Then the night before that one I had-

  Okay, more than one night without proper rest. Quite a few of them actually. And days. Sleep was so easy to sacrifice in the moment. Otherwise, I looked…pretty awful still. I’d focused my biosculpting on the parts of me actually at risk of permanent damage, which meant my face bore cuts and bruises all over it from nding in that bush. Hells, was that a twig still caught in my hair? My hair was limp and completely unstyled, which combined with the gauntness of my face, made me look like some terrifying banshee conjured by a necromancer. Not to mention my lip now bleeding from when my teeth had gone in.

  No wonder Alice had seemed unsettled, with me leaning in and going ‘It’s time for tea!’ looking like this. Opening my mouth to present my teeth like I was going to tear off a strip might have made me look better at that point.

  Meanwhile, my tail dragged on the floor, rolling around as I gred at it. The Imp? No, more than likely I’d wired the nerves wrong or fucked up in some other way, as to be expected. There were Infernals I knew whose tails acted more on instinct than command. I could fix it tomorrow, with sleep. And maybe a little freshening up before that?

  Enough, enough. No time for vanity. I’d decided not to allow myself more than what was needed to go without comment in the circles I traveled, and I shouldn’t start breaking that now as I moved to where Alice was. My tail tried to brush against my cheek as I moved closer, and I swatted it with my hand. Definitely connected a nerve wrong.

  Alice was already drooling lightly, some of it already on my table which I quickly cleaned up with a handkerchief before lifting her head off of the table.

  I thought it had been cute, then more than a little annoying after te nights together meant getting it on me. Just another small sacrifice along with the snoring made for the rest, but the rest easily made up for it. Once upon a time.

  You just had to open your mouth, didn’t you? I thought irritably, looking at her. If she hadn’t, how might things have gone? Would I be living wherever you fled to, waking up next to you once again?

  Even if I’d be living a lie, it was a tempting one. And if I never knew, would it even count? But no, there would have still been things holding me here. Mother.

  You can’t even be something I could have lived a lie for, I thought bitterly. Things probably would have spiraled as soon as that hidden piece of information came out. Would being open have just resulted in the thing she’d drunkenly whispered being thrown in my face in return? Maybe. Then again, why should she care? She’d never cared about me.

  Despite that, I remained careful as I gathered her up. Hells, she was heavy, despite being so short. Had she put on even more muscle out in the country? It did wonders for her arms as her sleeves fell down, catching on the biceps, and honestly, she also filled out those pants nicely-

  I shook my head, trying to drive that out. When I was done with this case, I was finding someone to screw my brains out until whatever nonsense ran rampant inside it vanished. Some guy or girl or anyone else that I didn’t know at all. I grabbed her under the armpits, huffing and puffing, and began to drag her down the stairs.

  Two flights of stairs, and by the time I got her into the same room as I’d stored Melissa and Gregory the burst of physical energy had vanished as I lethargically locked chains around her limbs.

  Time to go to bed and try to sleep. Once the alchemical had worn off and stopped holding off a desperate need to sleep. Half an hour, maybe a little longer. What time was it anyway? Late evening, perhaps past midnight and approaching early morning?

  I probably couldn’t sleep in either, not with murders still going on and Versalicci’s bckmail so I’d find Melissa and now handling Alice, and probably a half-dozen things before breakfast as well. Best to go to bed and get under the cold, lonely covers, perhaps hugging a pillow just to have something.

  I scowled, irritated at myself. Pathetic, being so desperate for companionship in bed? It had never been like this before, when I’d thrown myself into being Katheryn Fara. The perfect little mask, then Golvar had to crack it and break it open, followed by Lady Karsin and her band of shapeshifters and a half dozen others prying my safe protective shell off of me.

  I’d idly thought about reconstructing it, but what was the point? I’d evaded notice before by being too low to notice by the major pyers, too much effort to pursue for a diabolist kept in the dark, and alchemists and biosculptors would be easier to find. But now that I was in the grasp of one of those pyers? Being let go was an impossibility, to save face if nothing else.

  Time to rest. To bury myself in covers and stare at the ceiling and try not to think until sleep cimed me. And hope nothing else lurked within.

  I trudged up the stairs, halfway up to my rooms, my tail trying idly to wrap around the railing. That’s when someone knocked on my front door.