The Unfortunate Maid’s beer was atrocious. Their spirits, if one could call them that, were even worse. However, that wasn’t the cause of Stella’s headache at the moment. Rather, it was the news report blaring from the television above Mr. Dagan’s bar, which the scowling bartender had turned up, probably just to annoy them.

“Sixty million kin in damages,” she muttered with her head buried in her arms. “You guys caused sixty million kin worth of damage.”

Luci raised a tentative hand. “It’s, um, actually sixty-seven million, two hundred thousand kin.”

“I was trying to be optimistic!” Stella snapped. Luci let out an eep then slid along the bench away from Stella.

“But we got the bad guys, at least,” Wip said, before savouring his ninth beer for the morning. They’d been up since midnight after having completed another dungeon crawl, so they were in the process of winding down for the day.

“No, see, you didn’t,” Stella said. She raised her head and thrusted a finger at Wip, sitting opposite her. “Because you missed the biggest bad guy of them all.”

Wip turned around, saw nobody behind him, shrugged, then downed the last of his ninth beer.

It had been almost a week since the Shanties Catapult Incident had occurred, as the news now called it. And they hadn’t stopped talking about it, much to Stella’s grief.

Luci leaned in and spoke low. “Um, I was actually wondering about something. Isn’t it a bit weird that it’s taking so long for the bad guys to be caught? There were witnesses that night, not just the Cartel. Surely someone would have given names or even descriptions to the appropriate authorities. If this was Sylexa, the culprits would have been exiled by now.”

Stella narrowed her eyes at Luci. “Do you want to be exiled?”

Luci waved a hand defensively. “Oh, no, that’s not—I meant the Cartel, because they—I’m not saying that what I did was right but…”

Her other hand squeezed her staff—or, more appropriately, on the new carry case for her staff. It was actually just a retrofitted golf club bag. The top could be unzipped to reveal the staff’s head, allowing Luci to use it without blocking off her melds. A couple of extra holes sewed and covered up again with loose flaps on the side for her to slip her hands in during an emergency.

Wip had actually been the one to find it, and neither Luci nor Stella had dared ask him where he got it from.

Sighing, Stella took another sip of her cheap rum. “Shanty-rats don’t trust authority,” she explained. “Not just because they like their so-called freedom, but also because the Cartel gives them good reason not to trust them.”

Luci’s brows furrowed. “But aren’t the Cartel less trustworthy than the city guard? They’re criminals.”

“Only because the city says so,” Stella said. “But yes, they’re much worse than the guard. Keep in mind, though, that most of the work done in the Shanties is done in technically illegal factories stuffed into any spare space they can find. They’ve got reason to mistrust the authorities. And besides, they’re afraid of the Cartel.”

“But why were all the people missing?” Wip chimed in. “When I sensed the area, everyone had left.”

Stella shrugged. “Maybe the Cartel warned them in time. That wouldn’t surprise me. Afto fights can get nasty in tight city spaces, as you two so perfectly demonstrated.”

Luci ducked her head and blushed. Wip raised a glass for a round of cheers, which never happened as Stella stared him down.

“The problem,” Stella went on, “is that the Cartel doesn’t want to lose their money makers. The factories might take a while to rebuild, but labourers take even longer. So, they’ll usually give them warning to leave when there’s going to be trouble with the guard. After all, every time a fire breaks out in the Shanties, whole blocks can get burnt to the ground before it’s put out.”

“That’s… understandable,” Luci staid, squinting in confusion. “I guess that explains why it’s taking so long for reports to come in, as the city guard have little help in piecing together the events.”

Stella took another sip of her rum. “And all of that is why my anxiety has been peaking over the last week.”

To pare down that anxiety, Stella had been resorting to various liquid means. She thought she’d found a comfortable equilibrium between her anxiety and drunkenness. Then the damage estimates had arrived today.

She’d been drinking nonstop for the last six hours. It had taken her over an hour to get to the Ravelin after Luci took her phone from storage and texted her. In her drunk stupor, she’d messed up the tax calculations and overpaid. In all, it was probably the second worst day of her life. The first was when she’d met Wip.

“Still,” Luci said, running her fingers over the rim of a glass of water. “I can’t believe that nobody died.” She glanced around nervously then lowered her voice to a whisper. “Mr. Wip actually performed a miracle that day. He even caught all the people that I’d sent flying.” Wip’s ears flushed from the compliment.

Luci’s recollection of events was still hazy, so she’d had to piece together the events from news reports and Wip’s unreliable statements. If more people had died, only Wip knew at this point.

“No, there were two casualties,” Stella said. She slammed her glass down and cheap rum sloshed over the side. “My wallet and my career. Well, they’re in the process of dying. What you guys have basically done is taken a hand each and ripped their beating hearts out of their chests. Now you’re laughing while you wait for them to bleed out.”

Wip raised a hand. “Do they have a cores?”

Stella stared at him incredulously. “No, Wip. They don’t have cores.”

She rested her elbows on the long wooden table and buried her head in her hands. With the inn being so dead all the time, they’d taken a spot under the stairs, tucked away from the common room. A dim light bulb dangled overhead, the glass-encased crystalline emitter inside it flickering. This, too, was giving Stella a headache.

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“I need you both to understand something,” Stella said. “Fences are punished for the mistakes that their dungeoneers make. When I set up a contract with you, I basically sign my life away. You guys screw up, I get demerits against my badge. Look.”

Stella unpinned her badge from her skirt and dumped it on the table. The calcite emblem, depicting a scale carrying a sword and shield, was encased in a brass frame. Eleven notches had been carved deeply into the frame’s edge, exposing the calcite beneath.

“I have eleven demerits,” Stella explained. “If I get one more, I’m out. It’s a supposedly clever system that’s meant to weed out bad fences. The idea is that, if you pick bad clients, you’re more likely to get demerits. By putting the responsibility back on the fences, it cuts down the number of idiots that enter the dungeon.”

“But you can just walk in,” Wip said. “They always leave the gate open on the Kimaw.”

“Well, yeah, that’s true,” Stella said. “But what’s the point? If you can’t get a fence to sign you off, you can’t go past the first checkpoint on level one. And even if you decide to stay on the first or bribe your way past the checkpoint, fences aren’t allowed to process taxes for someone who doesn’t have approval. So, you end up having to turn all your earnings in to the city. A one hundred percent tax, basically.”

“It seems a bit unfair that the city would put so much responsibility on the fences,” Luci said.

“That’s because it is unfair,” Stella slurred, resting her chin in her palm. “It’s some dumb idea that a bunch of bureaucrats came up with to make it look like they’re doing something about all the carrion crows. All it does is pass off accountability. It’s no longer the city’s problem that the law allows corpse picking, it’s my problem.”

Stella picked up her rum and downed the rest of it. “But most importantly, it screws over new fences. Everyone starts off as Kin ranked, but if you don’t have the right connections, you end up with all the shady dungeoneers that nobody wants.” She shot daggers at Wip, who completely missed the implication. “If you know people, you can get recommendations for clients. All family and friends, of course, but it’s better than nothing. Or, better yet, if you know someone from a guild you can even start your career there. But if you’re from the countryside like me, you get screwed over.”

Luci leaned closer to eye the badge resting on the table. “So, how do you get rid of your demerits?”

“She can ask a forger to plug them up!” Wip said.

Stella dug her nails into her cheek. “Wip, filling in the notches won’t fool anyone. The Dungeon Administration and Remuneration Agency keeps a record of the demerits.”

“Then you have to destroy the records,” Wip said.

Stella scraped up her badge and hurled it at him, which he caught with one hand. He then raised it to the light and inspected it with one eye closed.

Sighing, Stella turned to Luci who was seated beside her. “Demerits are removed at the start of the year or when you rank up. And no, I’m not going to be ranking up soon. I need to meet certain performance metrics which I’m very far behind on, thanks to certain people.” Luci’s cheeks burned, and Stella felt a hint of catharsis known she’d made her feel guilt. “But even if that weren’t the case, I still need to get the approval of nine higher ranked fences. Now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Luci, but this city is full to the battlements with sanctimonious grupps.”

“It is?” Luci said.

“Of course it is!” Stella shouted. “You literally got abducted by the Cartel.”

Wip banged the edge of the badge lightly on the table. “But where does the enma go?” he muttered. It wasn’t an afto.

“Wait, does that happen all the time and nobody does anything about it?” Luci wailed, clutching a hand to her heart.

“Worse,” Stella said. She leaned in and stared grimly at Luci. “The city is full of politics.”

Luci’s face scrunched up in confusion. “It… is?”

“Yep. That’s why I can’t get a promotion. I’ve been set up! All the fences are out to get me. The system is rigged, man.”

Off to the side, Wip had decided to test the badge’s materials with his teeth. Stella was too preoccupied with her rant to notice.

She poked Luci on the shoulder. “This city will chew you up and spit you out. Outsiders like us have a hard time getting anywhere in Anypaxia, and nobody will care if the Cartel—or anyone, really—tries to screw you over.”

Luci’s face scrunched up a little more. “Um, Ms. Stella, where is this going?”

Wip slid Stella’s badge across the table and the fence stuffed it into her pocket. She didn’t notice that one side was wet. Then she grabbed one of her glasses and tried to down it, but grimaced once she realised that it was empty. “The point is, you can’t stay at the Unfortunate Maid anymore.”

Luci’s face crumpled into the saddest expression Stella had ever seen. “But I like renting here. And Wip stays here as well. I have company; I don’t want to leave.”

“No, you don’t understand. Wip.”

“Present!” Wip replied.

“How many times have people tried to stab you here?”

“None!” Wip said.

Luci gestured at Wip with both hands. “See? It’s safe.”

Wip held up three fingers. “But people have tried to club me this many times.”

Luci’s face dropped. “Huh?”

“Mr. Emery has tried to electrocute me twice. Mrs. Theras from down the road has shot at me five times. Some dungeoneers tried to steal my collar for some reason. They’re all dead. Oh, and Mr. Dagan tried to poison me nine times.”

Luci eyes darted to Wip’s nine empty beer glasses, then to Stella’s three empty lowball glasses, then to the wispy-haired proprietor eyeing them darkly from behind the bar counter, and back to her water. Her face was twisted in concern.

“It’s okay, Luci,” Wip said. “He did it on purpose. You can drink your water.”

“How is that okay?” Luci shouted. She slapped her hands over her mouth then glanced over at Mr. Dagan.

The inn’s proprietor was drying a glass with a towel, and shooting a death stare at their table. Stella noticed that the glass was completely dry.

With her shoulders hunched, Luci leaned in close and spoke low. “How are you not dead?”

“Oh, it didn’t work,” Wip said.

Luci stared at him incredulously. “Okay. But if it didn’t work, how did you find out?”

A beer glass slammed down onto the table and its contents sloshed all over Wip’s plain white shirt. Mori, the underage waiter, leaned in and glared at Luci with his one eye. “Because I told him. And he drank them anyway.”

Luci gaped at Wip. “But why?”

Wip shrugged. “I like the beer.”

Stella slammed her hand on the table. “Anyway, Luci, you’re going to stay at my place until you can find somewhere better. The last thing I need is you destroying another neighbourhood.”

Luci’s mood brightened immediately and she pinched the sleeve of Stella’s hoodie. “Wait, a sleepover? I’ve never had a sleepover before. I was never allowed to because of my training. I—I’ll go grab my stuff now!” She grabbed Lunacogita off the bench beside her, leapt up from the table, and skipped up the stairs. Every thump of her footsteps on the stairs above Stella made her head hurt a little more.

It only occurred to Stella then what she’d done. She scooped up the fresh glass of watered-down rum Mori had dumped on the table and took a long sip. “She’s not going to leave, is she?” Stella turned to Mori. “By the way, you didn’t hear any of this.”

Mori blinked slowly with his one eye. “Can you get her to destroy this inn?”

Stella had no idea how to respond. Though, she didn’t have to. Her phone buzzed from a text. She read it, then read it a few more times. Each reread only made the message more confusing.

Your client has been arrested. Report immediately to the Shanties, East Wharf guard station.

“Hey, Wip,” Stella said, her brow furrowed. “You don’t have a clone, do you?”

“Um, they should all be dead,” he answered.

“Then who is—”

Stella looked up at him with her face scrunched in bafflement. Wip only responded by sipping his beer. He seemed completely serious. Stella shook her head and got up from the table.

“Tell Luci she’s staying here again for the night—day,” Stella said before heading out the door. She left the bill to Wip.