Dimitry was an idiot. He lured Saphiria into danger, and to avoid having her pay the price, he used magic. Magic he shouldn’t have used. Magic that further irritated the circuits under his skin, each vessel burning and screaming with the slightest movement. Like engorged varicose veins in a dehydrated and elderly patient, interconnected purple webs spread across his arms and chest. Aching. Pulsating. Cramping. The damage resembled that of peripheral artery disease, and perhaps the symptoms would progress to thrombosis, atrophy, and necrosis as well.

Head down and hands folded over her abdomen, Saphiria stood against an uneven wall. Her gaze momentarily met his before tearing away.

“Well...” Precious landed on his shoulder. “This is what happens when you guys try to be nice. You put everyone in danger.”

“I really fucked up this time.”

“The fault isn’t yours,” Saphiria muttered. “It’s mine. I shouldn’t have let down my guard.”

Dimitry massaged his temples to soothe a pounding migraine, but hearing Saphiria blame herself for his error only worsened the ache. What kind of doctor forces a girl into fending off four men alone?

He looked up from the dark corner he sat back against. “I’ll do better next time. Neither of you deserved to go through that.”

Saphiria glanced past a shuttered window with collapsing frames. “This isn’t the first time I’ve killed someone.”

“I know.” He pointed at her scarlet-soaked hand. “Are you injured?”

“The blood isn’t mine.”

“That’s good.”

“Dimitry, I—”

He jerked forward and suppressed the resulting urge to puke. “Yeah?”

“It’s nothing.” Saphiria watched him with large, apologetic eyes. Every glance into them was a punch in the gut.

“Now that everyone’s had a chance to hate themselves,” Precious said, “let’s move on to more pressing matters. What was that all about, Dumitry? We saw you whiz so weird and fast. You owe us an explanation.”

“It’s a spell.”

“Duh! Anyone could tell that much because you look like you’re about to drop dead.” Precious pressed her fists into her hips. “I mean what’s it called?”

“Accelall.”

“Accel… all?” The faerie’s head to the side, and her golden ponytail spilled over her white gown’s shoddily sewn shoulder. “More of that strange magic? Invisall kinda made sense, but what’s this one do?”

It seemed that Dimitry received another ability with mechanics so obscure that they confused even a creature native to this world. He wasn’t any better. Assuming the spell accelerated objects, Dimitry cast accelall to build enough momentum to transpose himself and the larmesh-smoking thug. The goal was to free Saphiria to fight without worry of causing collateral damage to him or the interrogation victim.

But it wasn’t Dimitry’s movements that sped up. Rather, the world around him slowed down. Or that was how it appeared. The truth was obvious to anyone raised on modern cinema. “It accelerates time for the target.”

Precious rolled her eyes. “And why did I expect your explanation to make sense?”

Dimitry watched swollen purple circuits pulsate in his palm. From travel to industry, accelall could change the world. He wished to test the spell, to learn its every limitation and capacity to guide his escape, but that was no longer possible.

Ice creeping through his abdomen warned against magic use. The next time he cast a spell would likely be the last. His body couldn’t take further abuse.

Saphiria edged closer. “Does… does it hurt?”

“A little.”

Her hand reached for Dimitry’s but stopped halfway before retracting to her chest. Saphiria’s eyes watched the uneven timber floor helplessly. They embodied the world’s burden within their self-loathing gaze.

The pain grew too much to bear. “Please, please stop blaming yourself,” Dimitry said. “You were right. We should have waited for a better opportunity.”

“That doesn’t change the fact that you’re hurt.”

“Oh, this? It won’t be long before I’m feeling normal again.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am a doctor; I know what I’m talking about,” he lied. “Maybe it’ll be a good opportunity to think things over.”

“Don’t push yourself.”

“I won’t.” Dimitry forced a smile. “Promise.”

Saphiria’s reciprocative smile was the most wretched smile known to man. “We don’t have much time before more gangsters come to investigate. Can you move?”

“Think so.” Dimitry stood up, and Precious perched on his head as he limped past a man lying motionless on the cottage floor. They bled to death minutes ago—the fourth corpse they hid in this hovel. Soon, there would be another.

A hog-tied thug rolled on the floor.

Saphiria tore away his tablecloth gag and blindfold.

“We need—” Dimitry stuttered when another migraine slammed into his brain. “We need information.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Fuck off.”

Saphiria nudged Dimitry’s wrist. “Allow me.”

“Allow you?”

“I’ve… I’ve done this before.” She retrieved her dull dagger, now dyed vermilion, from a dusty dining table.

Was interrogation another skill she learned while working for Delphine? Back on Earth, she would have been just another girl working at a cafe, a medical office, perhaps a bank. But there she stood. Gentle, caring, and ready to torture a human in Dimitry’s place as a gesture of apology.

Worst of all, he couldn’t justify stopping her. If they didn’t leave Estoria soon, their fates wouldn’t be any more pleasant than their victims’. And leaving witnesses would endanger them all.

The man lay on the floor, hyperventilating. Cold sweat and goosebumps covered his skin. “A… a faerie?” He paused. “You sinners are all fucked once the crew finds out.”

Dimitry knelt beside him. “We’re looking for smugglers who import larmesh from Coldust by boat. I prefer not to hurt—”

He spat on Dimitry’s boots. “You think I’ll squeal just like that? Do you know who I am?”

“I know who you are.” Saphiria strutted closer. “Just another Tenebrae thug. How could you do something like that to a struggling father?”

“Me?” The man laughed. “You’re the one nagging me with that bullshit? Did the soulless bitch that mommies warn their kiddies about return to Estoria just to—”

Saphiria thrust her boot into the man’s mouth with enough force to break teeth.

The brutality made Dimitry wince. Although the girl doubtless had a cruel history as a Zeran Servant, she was never this rash. How awful was the past she wished to conceal?

“Please wait outside,” Saphiria said briskly.

A glance at her downcast expression convinced Dimitry that some questions remained better unanswered. “I’ll go keep a lookout.”

A man’s panicked mumblings and a faerie’s shrill laughter filled the ramshackle cottage as Dimitry trudged towards the muddy alley’s entrance. The door creaked shut behind him, and his hand instinctively patted where his jean pockets would typically be.

Right.

No cigarettes.

How long had it been since he last had the urge to smoke? At least a decade. Even the stress of medical school exams didn’t rekindle that old habit. But now that he stood just far enough away to evade the muffled screams of a dying man, he wished only for a nicotine rush to numb the discomfort.

Rushing by as fast as her oak branch cane could carry her, an elderly woman shot Dimitry a terrified glance. He smiled to convince her of his virtuousness, but her unsteady gait grew more hasty and desperate. She wobbled out onto the road before slowing down.

----------------------------------------

Patients came in all dispositions. Some yammered on nonstop, most spoke casually, and the rest measured their words carefully. Through his experience as a surgeon, Dimitry learned to adapt his bedside manner to every demeanor, which entailed the ability to remain comfortable despite silence.

But now, his skills failed him.

This silence was unlike any other.

To his side, boots somberly plopped into the muddy streets of Estoria’s slums. Saphiria said nothing. She looked ahead, indigo eyes devoid of life, occasionally shooting a half-hearted glance at Dimitry as if to speak but turning away before he could react.

His stomach dropped whenever he saw Saphiria’s guilt-mired face. Not only was the endeavor painful, but with hampered communication, their chances of survival plummeted. He had to make amends.

“Hey, Saph—”

“Yes?” As if in recognition of a fatal mistake, her indigo eyes opened wide. “My apologies. Continue.”

“I know I apologized for what I did, but I never said thank you. So, let me thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

“No.” She bit her lip. “If I didn’t stop by that family’s cottage, I could have prevented those gangsters from surrounding you. I never should have allowed you out of my sight.”

Dimitry stopped walking. “You visited the cottage?”

“To leave them money.”

“What for?”

“So they could move house before the rest of the gang came back to collect.” Saphiria ventured to look at him. “I know I shouldn’t have. I-I should’ve stayed focused.”

“Let me guess. You thought that’s what I wanted you to do?”

“I did it because I wanted to. I’ve seen what happens to those the gangs make examples out of, and I couldn’t watch anymore. My selfishness was the reason you had to use magic, and the reason you…”

“So—” A lump in Dimitry’s throat choked his words. “How much money did you give away?”

“… Eight silvers. I know it wasn’t mine to give. I’ll repay every coin once we reach Malten.”

His heart skipped a beat. “Do you think that’s enough to help them move away?”

“You’re not upset?”

“Upset? Saphiria, you saved that father’s life! You’re the reason his wife and kids won’t have to spend the rest of their lives living off of scraps. Hell, they might have died on their own.”

Stood between an abandoned baby crib and a half-eaten rat that smelled of rot, Saphiria frowned. “You don’t seem to understand. What I’ve done will sooner see us dead than the Crimson Knights and the Church. My naivety hurt you. I hurt you. I vow to never repeat that mistake.”

“You helping people isn’t a mistake.”

“Dimitry. When killing those men, when torturing that gangster, I felt nothing.”

“Thinking of all the people who won’t get hurt now that those thugs are dead, I can’t seem to give a shit about them either. What’s your point?”

“I’m not the person you believe I am. For me to help one, another must be injured.”

“Bullshit.”

Saphiria turned away. “You need not look further than your overloaded arms or the massacre in that cottage. Unlike your hands, which give life to whomever they touch, mine can only take it. That is why I must keep them to myself.”

Although Dimitry didn’t know how the girl felt, nor could he fully comprehend the lingering trauma of slavery-enforced depravity, he sympathized with the desire to bring order rather than destruction. “Then change.”

“People don’t change for the better.”

“Of course they do. Anyone can.”

“Once something good is lost, it can never return.”

He sighed. “You know, I’m not the person you think I am, either. I used to be no better than a Tenebrae thug.”

Her indigo eyes widened.

“Yeah. Stealing from old people, trashing property, threatening anyone who so much as looked at me wrong. Dumb crap like that. But one day, after doing something outrageously stupid, I decided to, no, I needed to become less repulsive.”

“A surgeon?”

“That’s what I chose.”

Glossy raven black hair blowing in the wind, Saphiria stepped closer. “Teach me.”

“Surgery?”

“Yes.”

“That’ll take a long time.”

“There will be plenty once we secure a voyage to Coldust.”

“A few days on a boat might not be enough,” Dimitry said. “Besides, someone as knowledgeable about metallurgy and as bright as you has their own ways of helping others. You don’t need to be like me. I’m sure you’ll figure something out for yourself.”

Saphiria’s gaze fell to the freezing mud beneath her boots. Her mind seemed to drift away, and another silence came to pass. She spoke without looking up. “You’re nothing like a Tenebrae gangster.”

The knot that had been twisting tighter in Dimitry’s stomach since his arrival at the brothel loosened. “Glad someone thinks so.”

“If you became the benevolent man you are, perhaps hope exists for me as well.”

“Of course it does, but don’t get me wrong. Your ‘life-taking’ hands aren’t a bad thing. Without them, that father would be dead and my half-baked plan would have gotten us killed.”

“Do you mean when you led the gangsters away?”

“Yeah.”

Saphiria shook her head. “Your plan was sound, but even flawless machinations go awry. In those times, rely on me.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “Life is difficult alone.”

The melancholy in her tone spoke of a solitude Dimitry could sparsely conceive, yet her message released all tension from his lungs, freeing him to inhale a deep breath. “Thanks. I feel better.”

As if waiting to hear those words, Saphiria’s shoulders relaxed, and her arms fell limply to her sides. “I’m glad.”

Dimitry motioned towards their original direction. “Come on. Let’s go.”

“Right.”

Although the imagery of a gangster writhing on an uneven cottage floor lingered in his mind, and the occasional shiver chilled his spine, Dimitry’s gut no longer sank. The guilt of forcing a girl into murder was gone.