“Put that down.” A woman’s voice. A garbled noise answered her. Lucien could hear it, and he was sure it was a voice, but it was just quiet enough that he couldn’t make it out. It was low, quiet, and sounded like it was as far from him as the moon. “Well, I don’t care. It took me a week to find more last time we ran out, and if you’re the reason I have to go back to market today, I’ll skin you.” More grumbling. Lucien wondered why he couldn’t see. He couldn’t open his eyes. He tried to muster the strength to do so, but at the moment it seemed a monumental effort. He wondered briefly if he was dead. But this didn’t seem to be the Artificer’s workshop. Unless the Artificer was a woman at the moment. Could be. There had been one or two, he thought. Maybe. He was too tired to think. His head slumped off to the side and he drifted off to sleep.

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Angelica looked down at the boy sleeping on her favorite cot. She’d thought he’d moved. She watched him for a moment to convince herself she’d imagined it. Then she resumed berating her cat. “Listen, I get that is smells nice. It’s poisonous. Yes, even to you. If you eat it, you’ll get yourself sick.” “Well,” replied the cat, in a sleepy voice,“I suppose I could leave it. For you, Angie. If it’ll make you happy.” “Yes, Sinxiath, it really would. It makes me immensely happy to see you not writhing on the floor, dying, because all the blood in your body froze in place. I stop you from enjoying that experience, cruelly, solely for my own pleasure. It is my unique form of sadism, really, to watch you struggle through your day, knowing that you’re forever barred from dying in agonizing pain from the consumption of poisonous herbs.” Sinxi yawned. “Indeed, and I hope you appreciate me indulging your nasty habits like this.” He smiled, and curled up on the top shelf of her herb case to sleep.

Angelica threw up her hands in frustration. She turned around in a huff, fighting the urge to smile herself. Sinxiath was the other reason she’d needed to leave Apotheosis. It wasn’t safe in the city for a demon. If one of the paladins had sensed his presence, his life would have been forfeit. That wasn’t to say that this area was a haven for demonkind, either. The whole of the mortal realm was a hotspot for anti-demonic sentiment, due largely to the Children of the Artificer. They maintained that all demons were born of the evils of humans, and that where demons appeared it was the moral responsibility of any and all true believers to either kill them or assist the church in their extermination. It infuriated Angelica that they had the nerve to claim that, despite knowing that it was provably false. Demons were creatures of the Artificer, just as much as humans, possibly even more so. The Children used the excuse that the terms “nonhuman” and “monster” gave them to kill and pillage freely from goblin, demonic, and elven settlements, and had done so for their entire history. It sickened her, and it was infuriating. But she couldn’t solve that problem right now. She turned her mind instead to something she could solve, and resumed restocking her coagulants.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

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Lucien’s dreams were aggressive and feverish, tossing him on a tempest of dark emotions. His anxiety and concern for Reynald and the sense of displacement from being in a bed that wasn’t his own intermingled with the white-hot rage he’d felt in the clearing. Images of Reynald lying, dead, in a pool of his own blood flashed by as his consciousness was dragged through what he presumed to be his own personal hell. You failed, it said. You failed, and he died, and it should have been you, or you should have been with him, or neither of you should have been there in the first place, and it’s all your fault. He fought with all his might to escape. It felt as though the world itself had closed in to admonish him. He fought and fought and, after one final push, he flung his eyes open, only to see an unfamiliar ceiling.

“Ah! You’re awake!” The woman’s voice from earlier. Who was that? Where was he? He tried to sit up. “Ah-ta-ta. Don’t move. You’ll upset the bandages.” Indeed, he noticed vaguely, there were quite a few wrapped around his abdomen and hands. Funny how he hadn’t noticed those until now. He tried to work up a voice, but found the inside of his throat had been possessed of a dry, bark-like quality that stubbornly refused to bend to his will.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t try to get too lively yet. You’ve been out for-” “Reynald…” He croaked. He had to know. His own health could wait. “Oh, the boy I found with you? Little Mr. Tough Guy? Yeah, you took care of him pretty well, actually. Didn’t have a scratch on him. YOU, on the other hand…” She waved pointedly down at his injuries. “You’ve been out for weeks. I actually had to kick out your mom, Reynald, AND Reynald’s mom, at various points during the past week and change. You’re well-loved, if nothing else.” He gaped at her. This was news to him. There were so many things he needed to say. The most important, though, was “You… kicked out… the Duchess?” The pain in his voice wasn’t fully the fault of his current state. “Is that who that was? I had no idea. She kept screaming ‘Do you know who I am?’ and I kept replying ‘No, now leave.’” Lucien stared at her. He could feel his soul shriveling up inside. He could have died right there and then. “You… kicked… out… the Duchess?!” “Yeah, she was in the way while I was cleaning your wounds. Kept crying and trying to hug you. She was annoying, so I kicked her out.” Lucien’s body tried to laugh, but he ended up coughing instead.

The woman whipped around and grabbed a tea mug and pour him a cup. “Here, kid. You’ll want something to whet your lungs. I kept you as hydrated as I could, but getting an unconscious person to drink water is a lot harder than it sounds, and if you’re not careful you end up drowning the sorry bastard, so you’re probably pretty dry.” “Ughhhh… Yeah, I’m gathering that. Thanks.” He took a sip. It was sharp on his tongue, but he thought he could feel the warm liquid actively repairing his throat as it went down. It hurt, but he could tell it was a good hurt. His eyes involuntarily squeezed shut. “Yeah, it’s an acquired taste, I suppose,” the woman said. The woman. Lucien realized, to his shame, that he’d never asked her name. “Ah, there it is.” “What?” Bewildered, he looked up from the mug to see her staring at his face. “You got that look on your face. More people come in here passed out than come in on their own feet, so I’ve gotten real familiar with the ‘Wait, where am I? Who are you?’ face.” She sipped from her own mug. “It’s quite distinctive. It sorta fades into existence, like a sunrise. Then you’ve got… confusion, anxiety usually, defensiveness, and just a hint of embarrassment. Written all over your looker-mask, kid.” He tried to muster a rebuttal, but couldn’t. She watched him struggle for a few seconds, and eventually allowed a wolfish grin to crawl onto her face. “It’s Angelica, by the way,” she said. “My name, that is. Not where you are. You’re in my healer’s hut, a couple leagues north of the Mayor’s place.” She gestured at her cat. “That’s Sinxi. He’s an asshole and sweetheart in equal and opposite measure, and he’ll oscillate between the two modes on the drop of a hat.” The cat stared at her, apparently offended. Lucien sipped his tea and fought a grin. “Well at least I’m not cruel and rude to my friends, Angelica,” Said the cat.