“You’re going to tear your shoulder open again,” Aska drawled, and Eve shot her a dirty glare.

“Shut up,” she hissed, without straightening from her awkward half-crouch as she peered around the corner. “It’s like you want us to get caught.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Aska sighed, leaning, casually, against the side of the building as though nothing were amiss. “But how was I supposed to guess that you knew the guy? Why do you always make the craziest friends?”

“Samir isn’t a friend,” Eve muttered, watching the front door of the commissioner’s building suspiciously. If the guy was caught, he’d certainly be brought here - to have his memory erased, or, to be executed. She couldn’t be sure which decision they’d swing towards this time.

“Oh?” Aska said. The smile in her voice was palpable. “You’re awfully worried about this...not friend of yours.”

“Just don’t want to be responsible for his death,” Eve grumbled. “Have enough on my conscience.”

“Yeah, I bet. Like how you’re going to pay me back for all the trouble I’m about to go through.”

“You volunteered.”

“I was volun-told, by you, to save the human, or live the rest of my life with a guilty soul. Do we even have a soul?”

“Aska,” Eve hissed, slapping her arm to shut her up. “There.” She pointed up.

Samir was perched on the very edge of a white marble roof several dozen paces ahead. Very much not caught. Instead, he was stalking the sanctifier, like he had a personal vendetta against the thing. His focused, furrowed brows pinched together as he leaned another inch out over open air. Eve flinched.

For a long time, the two women were silent, staring blankly as the creature strolled silently past him, without reacting, even slightly, to his presence. It seems Samir had an unusual effect on all the creatures he encountered, and not just Eve. Aska’s jeer tickled her ear.

“Not friends huh? I can certainly see why that might be the case-” Eve elbowed her. Hard. Aska choked out a muffled cough. “Rude. I am simply stating the obvious.”

“Help me get him down?” Eve ignored her, eyes trained on the man, who had dug his fingers into the building edge. “What the fuck is he doing? Does he want to die?” But, before her eyes, Samir clenched the few, feeble inches of overhang and swung downwards, landing in a crouch as silent as a cat. The sanctifier had begun to climb up the set of impressive steps towards the commissioner’s entrance hall. Samir seemed determined to follow.

Eve socked him on the back of the head, a blur of motion, and before she could so much as say another word, Samir had her pinned against the wall, warm and broad against her front.

“Eve?” he gasped, the harsh grasp on her hands immediately loosening, putting a careful breath of distance between them.

“Yes,” Eve hissed, arching up so she could bring her face closer to his. “You’re a goddamn idiot but I didn’t think you were suicidal. Why are you here?”

“I followed you.”

A dry look - there wasn’t an expression in the universe that Eve could use to fully express her frustration. “Yes,” she said, slowly. “I guessed as much.” Samir ducked his head, just slightly. He still hadn’t let go of her wrists.

“This is going to sound crazy,” he whispered, his long eyelashes making his eyes go dark in the dimness of Cropis. “But I don’t know why I was compelled to follow you. All I know is that I couldn’t allow you to leave on your own. That things would end disastrously if I did.”

Eve licked her lips, mouth suddenly dry. “I hate to shoot down your expectations, but if we can survive the next five minutes, I would already consider that a positive result. You essentially sealed your own fate by coming down here.”

“Then why are you here?” Samir challenged. Eve broke the eye contact, tension thick, his attention still trained with burning ferocity on her face.

“None of your business.”

“She’s hurt,” Aska cut in. Her hand clapped onto Eve’s shoulder, fingers oddly heavy.

Eve hissed in protest, just as Samir blinked, eyes going wide. “Hurt?”

“Didn’t tell the silly little human anything, did you Eve? You always were too nice for your own good.” The deity flicked a long strand of black hair over her shoulder, and her emotionless eyes were only half-open, flicking lazily in the direction the sanctifier had gone. “Yes. Hurt. An old injury, but one that festers each time she uses her magic. Someone like you might call it a curse.” A pause, then, in a voice that was slightly quieter than before, Aska drew her body more upright, a fizzling pressure settling in the air. “You have seen the magic at the very least, I assume?”

Samir let go of Eve’s hands. Then he tucked his own into the pockets of his pants and shrugged, the very picture of casual ease. “Yes.”

“And if I were to try to kill you, for having seen it?” Aska asked casually. The pressure at Eve’s temples increased. As though static electricity had begun to gather in their vicinity - the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end, skin breaking out into goosebumps. Samir only shrugged.

Stolen novel; please report.

“You’re welcome to try.”

“Brave,” Aska grinned. She was at eye-level with Samir, and met his gaze evenly. “But foolish. Do not mistake me for the same type of creatures you may have encountered before.”

“Nothing anyone has tried in here has been of much use against me.”

Eve reached for his wrist on instinct more than anything else, pausing with her fingers in mid-air. “You were attacked in here?”

“Oh yes,” Samir smiled. “As soon as I entered.” He didn’t say anything else. The fact that he was in one piece was answer enough. Aska narrowed her eyes at Samir, but after a moment, relaxed, the tension which felt as though it might make the air unbreathable disappearing.

Suddenly, Aska turned back to Eve, head tilting. “You’ve picked up something interesting this time around,” she said, and it had a faint note of distaste to it. “About time, honestly.”

“What do you mean, about time? Was I wasting time before?”

“Yes, about three centuries of it - at least. And you’re not even any wiser to show for it.”

“Scars of the past are not so easily healed,” Eve scowled.

“You should be thankful your consciousness is intact, after everything that happened.” Aska rolled her eyes, turning back to the man, who was watching them with poorly veiled confusion. “You. If you stick around and she does something stupid - just know, her brain isn’t entirely in one piece. Mostly because she’s technically already died once.”

Samir seemed at a loss for words, mouth opening and closing several times to no avail. Eve didn’t blame him. It was a lot of information to take in at one time. He visibly recovered when Eve took his hand, the haze of his eyes clearing. The cool touch of his fingers, threading between hers, was oddly familiar. When she snuck a peek at him, from beneath her lashes, he seemed a little smug.

Oh.

That had been on purpose. To see if she’d be worried.

Suddenly, any concern she’d been feeling dissipated into irritation.

Eve took one, full step away to gain some distance between the both of them. Samir smirked. Eve flashed him a rude gesture when Aska looked away, towards the commissioner’s building again, where another sanctifier had begun to descend the steps.

“Awful lot of those things out and about today,” she commented. “I suppose two humans would warrant it. But their presence is making others nervous.” And indeed, Aska was correct. Wary eyes had begun to peer down from the neighboring buildings, close enough that if they thought to look, they’d notice their odd little gathering and raise the alarm.

“Let’s head back to your place,” Eve muttered, shrinking back, as though that might somehow make her presence less visible.

“You only use me for my building amenities,” Aska muttered. “Samir, right? Are you coming along? Or did you have business with our enforcers?”

“He’s coming,” Eve said, before Samir could interject. He shot her another, more sheepish but still slightly smug look, then nodded.

“I’ll go with Eve.”

“Very cute. Save the flirting for later though.”

Eve flushed, but couldn’t really find words to retort. She was still busy processing why, exactly, Samir was here with her, and not safely a thousand miles away.

The city had a habit of growing around Eve when she was scared, and it felt especially ominous now with Samir’s life in danger too: darker and emptier, somehow than she remembered. Her shoulders wilted beneath the anxiety as they stole along the winding staircases back up towards Aska’s home. Aska made a half-assed effort of pretending to be worried.

She stumbled, distracted by her thoughts, the effervescent path slick beneath her feet. Samir was there to catch her. It was a little cliche - the faint heat she felt touch the tips of her ears, and she shook him off with more vigor than what was necessary.

“You seem a little nervous.” His voice was a feather against her skin, sticking far closer than what was necessary. Eve didn’t shove him off - not yet - but craned her neck to give him a warning glance.

“If you knew what was good for you, then you would be terrified.”

His secretive little smile didn’t falter, but he did raise a brow, and gave her some space. Strangely, she began to miss his touch as soon as it was gone. Then the wind shifted, they turned the corner, and any frivolous longing vanished quickly from her mind.

Aska’s house was a neighborhood staple mostly because it was so starkly out of place. Most of the divine chose to live in luxury, on sprawling grounds with waterfalls of gold and gold crusting the walls of their home.

Aska’s comparatively tiny cottage - frenetic and colorful, with a milliard of murals sprawled across the stucco walls and glowing inscriptions across nearly every available surface - was usually immediately visible. It was short and stout, carving a divot into the otherwise consistently soaring cityscape.

Now, it was nearly invisible, coated in a dark shroud.

The facade of Aska’s house was positively swarming with hollows.

“Eve,” Aska said, sounding far too calm considering the circumstances. “You’re going to owe me for the next thousand years.”

“Make that two.”

“Two?”

“Two thousand.”

“How did they find out?”

Aska straightened, and began to pull her hair up and out of her face. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll buy you some time, so get out of here.” One careful finger parted her bangs down the middle. Her third eye blinked open, shining a molten gold, and winked back at Eve.

She only did that to unsettle her.

“But-” Eve began to protest, unsure of how they could possibly avoid so many of the creatures.

“Go,” Aska snarled, voice dropping into an inhumanly throaty tone that echoed in her ears. The deity’s hands fell to her sides, crimson lighting crackling between her fingers. “Before I smack you into the next dimension myself.”

“Samir,” Eve breathed, reaching for his hand. “Samir, we should go.”

“We can help,” he said, clearly hesitating, and Eve’s voice broke, slightly, revealing the tremor she’d been suppressing.

“No,” she breathed, ashamed and afraid. “No, we can’t.” Not when she was already weakened. The roof of Aska’s house rippled, one of the creatures sounding off, launching itself from the shingles and in their direction.

“Go,” Aska barked, a second time, the light of her palms flaring brighter until it bathed the whole street like a vivid ruby. Samir took Eve’s hand again, more firmly this time, and she allowed herself to fall into the comfort of that touch as he pulled her away.

For what was probably the first time in her life, Eve ran.

Not because she was afraid for her life.

But because she was afraid for Samir’s.