Kalasyp was going to be furious.

It’s all that echoed in my mind as I walked the street. It shouldn’t. On the list of things that had gone wrong, not fulfilling my word to Kalasyp was far, far down.

Could he blame me? It’s not like I’d planned this morning to be banned from the guild and the underground settlements they controlled. I couldn’t have even guessed the guildhall meeting would have happened.

Helvek had been very polite but very insistent about me immediately leaving. I’d been walked to the front gates and left outside while they ground shut. Joe Jebediah had also been very polite about me moving away from it before anyone needing to enter came along.

Walking along empty tunnels traveling out of the underground, had been a blur. My mind had been in another place. Another gate. Another banishment. Another march by someone there, others watching. Another sending away, never to return.

There were differences. I respected Helvek, even liked him, but he was simply doing his job. There was no betrayal in that. Nothing near the same as when my mother and I had been cast out from the family home.

There were superficial similarities. Not enough to explain why I felt a dull ache too similar to a stab wound in my gut.

I’d never considered the guild a home, and I had barely considered it an option. It was a means to an end, a place to mingle, get ingredients, and enjoy conversation. To occasionally feel flattered by the recruitment attempts. I’d never valued it.

Never take anything for granted, Malvia. It’s how they trick you. They make you content with scraps, thinking the gifts will last forever. Never believe anything given is there forever. There’s always someone waiting to take it away. You need to always put in the work to prevent that from happening.

I shivered at the memory and picked up the pace, hoping that focusing on walking would banish that back where it came from.

Some of those remembered words were true. Not all of them, but enough of them held truth.

I did my best to remove the evidence of tears. Katheryn Falara did not value the guild. Neither did Malvia Harrow. I was not making another mask. This one was too close to fragmenting as it stood.

You might think the biggest struggle with masks is maintaining it all the time, all the mundane little details repeated repeatedly. What will be your greatest test will be when pressure is applied, because then the temptation to let the person behind the mask take over will rise.

I sighed, considering where I was. I’d reemerged from a side tunnel near the Hell’s Own. It might be worth stopping there, just for something to take the edge off. I could hardly say I had demands on my time now. I could not supply Kalasyp’s customers except for what alchemical supplies might be in my own stocks. Both those and my regular customers were dependent on those stocks not being destroyed, which would mean checking first my own lab and then my apartment.

It's probably best done sober. Sighing, I looked at the end of the street where the tavern stood, then headed in the opposite direction. Time to salvage the rest of my day.

***

I looked over the wreckage of my lab.

Someone had ripped both of the doors off at the hinges. Inside, smashed glass, burnt ingredients, smashed-apart piping, and shredded herbs all coated the floor. They hadn’t even bothered stealing anything, instead destroying it all.

What had I done to earn this kind of enmity?

A stupid question when I thought about it a little more. If this was the work of the Pure Bloods, I’d help cut down members of their gang. If it were Versalicci, I’d escaped him. That would rank higher than stealing from his coffers on the way out. If I ever rejoined his ranks, he’d consider the stolen money a loan to be repaid, just as temporary as our parting.

Gods, I could recall the smug condescension of his voice perfectly, even after five years.

I’d gotten here a few minutes ago to an unusual sight. The owner of the building was here for the first time in four months. In two years, Richard Marlow hadn’t changed. He was still wearing a tattered and worn suit with a roughly trimmed goatee. A couple of new scars, although they didn’t look deep or long. He might have put them there himself. I’d seen people more intelligent than him do it in an attempt to look more intimidating. They were morons, usually. He’d also filed his horns to pointed ends and made them even more fragile with the amount of bone he’d removed.

He was busy going off on a tirade about the costs of repair and how much I would owe him. He’d not paused for breath since I met him at the front, climbed the stairs and finally arrived at my wrecked lab.

Next to him was a hired leg-breaker, looking about as fond of Marlow as I was, but she wouldn’t fail to step in. She didn’t bear any gang symbols, but she was a head taller than me, well-muscled, and also had a steel club in her hands that could probably crack right through my horns. I hadn’t risked touching her to check, but probably Biosculpted in parts. The muscle had some signs of that not-quite-natural look from the less professional sculpting. It was not distributed naturally and was not balanced properly. She’d probably not gained it from actual exercise.

Also, she was not someone to provoke if I wanted to keep my brains inside my head.

“You’ll be paying for this,” Richard shrieked, kicking a half-broken beaker, sending more broken glass flying across the room. “This place is ruined, and the costs to repair it alone are more than the rent you’ve paid-”

“It is not,” I said as calmly as I could manage. Not as calmly as I’d wanted. The hired muscle’s hands went for her club. “Not at the rates you charge. Which, some of which I believe was supposed to be for security?”

He glared at me, mouth shut. It was true the contract said that, but he’d never provided any, of course. You were simply expected to provide it yourself in return for the landlord not prying into your business.

I’d done what I felt was sufficient. It clearly hadn’t been. The sleep spell had been part of my defense, but most of my protection had been too little of notice to be worth bothering. Don’t irritate anyone, stay away from the big power players, pay for mother’s hospital, and work towards maybe eventually having enough money to move out of this quarter.

I also didn't want to melt anyone with the more deadly security measures I could have installed. That might have been too kind a choice in hindsight.

“Either you pay for the repairs, or you don’t rent out of this place again!” Richard yelled, having found his voice again.

I looked at the remnants of my lab with as much clinical detachments as I could. Smashed glassware. Destroyed ingredients. Months of work and pay ruined overnight. I could replace some of this, but it would take time.

“Deal,” I said.

I’d already turned and made it a few steps towards the exit when Richard found his voice again. “What?”

His hired muscle was already moving towards me. Sighing, I drew my flintlock, turning around and pointing it at her in a single fluid motion. They both halted.

I wasn’t going to shoot either of them. Gods and devils, that would be even more trouble, but I wasn’t going to browbeat by this cheap little shit either.

“Deal,” I repeated. “Richard, I’ll be frank because it’s been an extremely tiring day. I have two criminal gangs after me, one of whom has smashed up my lab, both of whom probably know where I live. I am not renting this place again. You have a deposit for another three months, keep it. I didn’t provoke this mess, and any imperial magistrate isn’t going to care either way. You can try taking me to court, and we can quibble over the contract until your hair has gone grey, or we can leave it at that, and you can satisfy yourself on the money you’ve gouged out of me these past two years.”

“Be careful with your tone,” he warned me, scowl deepening. “I know people Falara. I can make your life very difficult if I want to.”

“That’s nice,” I replied. “I know people too, but you should consider the fact that I am probably your least important customer by a fair margin, and everyone else who rents from you is probably wondering how much their property will get protected by you.”

His eyes narrowed, but he gestured to his muscle who backed down. I lowered my pistol.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

“Don’t ever come here again,” he threatened quietly.

“I don’t plan on it,” I replied, turning around and heading down the stairs.

I put my pistol away, sighing. Katheryn Falara didn’t pull pistols on people when words would suffice. Or at least she shouldn’t. I could do better than this.

Neither Richard nor his legbreaker had followed me. Good. I’d burned a bridge there but not sufficiently that either would come after me. Not now, anyway. I wouldn’t put it past Richard to send some hired thugs to my apartment.

I would be burning bridges many more times in the coming weeks. All of this was far too much. Voltar, the Watch, the well-dressed stranger, two noble houses, the Guild, the Pure-bloods, and finally, the Black Flame all swirling about, catching me like a piece of flotsam in their wake. I could only begin to guess at the game being played. Things had been planned around me, meant to occur and catch me in the center of this scheme. The fact that the well-dressed stranger had left the original tip and then later broke into my lab only confirmed it.

Well, perhaps not the center, but I was being manipulated.

Thinking about it, that was the most dangerous thread of them all. I’d gotten the tip from Halmon before the poisonings had even started. The well-dressed stranger would be connected to them, then. But what did they gain out of it? Why try to seize the cures after I’d distributed two? Was he connected to Montague in some way?

I snorted, dismissing that entire train of thought. I didn’t even know for sure if Halmon’s source for the wyvern’s corpse was the same as the person who’d broken into my lab. Besides, I shouldn’t be wasting time thinking about it. The proper solution to this was to escape.

I’d need to talk to Tolman and Arsene. The latter wasn’t likely to be very cooperative and would probably blame me for the situation. He might not even be wrong for doing so. However, it was perhaps time for the three of us to disappear once again. I’d need to finish things up with Montague first, which would hopefully provide the liquid funds to do it. Maybe get out of the city entirely. Infernals got treated worse in other parts of the empire, but fewer people knew us out there.

***

Walking towards my apartment, I found the traffic slowing. It was not a shock, heading towards the afternoon, especially considering how many were on foot, but things were slowing to a halt. Not only that, but people heading in the other direction looked agitated, muttering darkly amongst themselves. I caught snippets of conversation in between discussions about getting weapons. A march of some kind?

I heard it long before I could see it, a chant that only grew in intensity and volume the closer I got, echoing through the quarter.

“Hell’s Get belong in Hell! Hell’s Get belong in Hell!”

Frowning, I moved through the crowd, eventually finding a low enough building with a waterpipe attached. Being out of practice, it took me nearly half a minute to climb onto the rooftop. My muscles ached when I made it, as well. Out of practice, and in this body, definitely out of shape.

Near twenty other Infernals were up there, most bearing gang signs. I chose a spot not close to any of them along the roof's edge. No one bothered asking me what I was doing up here. Hell, members of rival gangs were within feet of each other and did not raise a fuss. The same member of the Black Flame who had tried to fetch me for Versalicci earlier was only a few feet away, but after a forced nod of acknowledgment turned her attention to the street.

We were all occupied with something much bigger.

Humans marched across Salenbury Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares of the Infernal Quarter. Most waved placards, and all chanted. A seething mass of humanity, and specifically humanity. Occasionally, I spotted a halfling, gnome, or elf, but only maybe one out of every twenty. Those who didn’t chant were yelling at Infernals, their screaming forming into an indecipherable mess of yelling, over which the central chanting still rose.

The Watch was here, trying to set a cordon along the street, but they were failing. Groups of Watch moved up and down the street, trying to intercept any potential problem spots as they happened.

My lips quirked as I spotted a dwarf officer down below. I’d only spotted her briefly; she wore a different haircut than before, and she had less metal in her face, but it was my neighbor from my brief stay in the Coffin.

Infernals had gathered along the sides of the street, wary eyes on the marchers. No weapons were displayed openly at the moment, even as more gathered on the sides of the streets. Hopefully, no weapons would be displayed, with the more reckless members being kept in check by those with some sense.

I hoped no one down there had illusions about what would occur if Infernals openly brawled with whoever these marchers were. A second Understreet, except not just limited to the underground.

That understanding would only put a limit till this blew up of course. My sympathies were on the Watch with this one, as strange as that was. I’d lived through one Understreet, and that had bled anger from me. Even if this group was routed, it would be their victory at the end of the day.

Of course, there was a difference between knowing that and accepting it. My teeth ground as I watched the marchers continue, some of them carrying torches and others bricks. More worrying were the weapons: swords and pikes, old favorites of the rebels that had broken the back of Her Profane Majesty. No guns, at least none visibly carried. Were they testing to see how much the Watch would allow?

A voice boomed somewhere further down the street, amplified by magic. Male and full of the fire and conviction only zealotry could bring.

“See how these things live in a den of their own filth and depravity! They are turning our city into their own home, that place of sin and vice revered by all their kind! We must reclaim it before they finish what their foul forefathers began and sink our city into the depths of hell!”

Whistles blew from the opposite direction. Boots slapped the pavement as the Watch swarmed where a knot of the marchers and Infernals fought. The Watch separated both sides, Infernals being slapped in irons quickly. Not so with the Marchers, who quickly disappeared into the mass of humanity; others surged forward to form a wall against the Watch. A few of the officers tried, getting into a yelling match with individual members to no avail.

Not a good move on the part of the marchers. Watch sympathies might be with them, but defiance of their authority might tip the scales.

The zealot leading this talked over all of it, and the restlessness of everyone only rose as he continued.

“They have plotted this before, and they will plot it again! The officials of this city hide much from you, of how far their tendrils reached into it! They will stretch again, given the chance, which is why we must be vigilant, brothers and sisters!”

I froze, turning to look at where the voice echoed from. Halspus Cathedral? If you wanted to talk without worrying about interruption from an Infernal, atop those ruins worked. But that last bit was worrying. This might be something other than some zealot to know about the causes of Understreet.

Speeches like this kind weren’t unusual. This wasn’t even near the tenth worst thing I’d heard from some of my own relatives, let alone random people in the street. What was different was the scale. How many people were marching here? Hundreds, at least, maybe thousands.

Tensions were never good and had been bad before, but a march through the center of the Infernal Quarter was unprecedented, at least in my memory. And those hints about Understreet were very disturbing. Most everyone had some understanding of what had happened in Understreet, but the why had been well-hidden. Was this one in the know, or simply shooting in the dark? Frowning, I considered the marchers. Most of them looked like…well, average citizens. None of whom I’d guess to be of the same mold as the Pure Blood thugs I’d encountered. Still, that group’s recent pushing on the Delver guilds couldn’t be a coincidence.

This…didn’t feel right. Tensions were never good, but there should have been rumblings of this long before it occurred. The fact the Watch, whose ears were usually so close to the ground, were so clearly unprepared for the scale pointed to something more than the usual animosity.

I shook my head, forcing those thoughts from my mind. Not my concern. Neither was this, at least not immediately. My apartment was on this side of Brimant Street, and I wasn’t waiting for this to spark a riot. I headed for the pipe.

“Falara!” A voice called. I turned around, frowning at the Black Flame member who’d followed me to the pipe.

“I think I made my preferences clear earlier today,” I said. “And for the record, I am not the Lady in Red, despite the resemblance. I will talk to Mr. Versalicci later, at a time of my choosing. Oh, and it is Miss Falara. We are not friends.”

She raised her hands placatingly. “Mr. Versalicci said you’ll find your way to him eventually, although his patience has its limits. He did want to pass a message along, though.”

“That message being?” I asked.

“Your trip tomorrow, the one you have planned? Do not do it. It doesn’t serve a purpose and if you cared about the person on the other side, you wouldn’t do it.”

“Ah,” I said. “That was the entire message?”

“Yes,” she replied warily. For some reason, her hands were near the saber belted to her waist. A few others on the rooftop were also giving me strange looks. I turned my stare on them even as pain sprouted behind my eyes.

“Can you take a message back to him in return?”

“Yes?” she said hesitantly. My eyes burned now, and I forced them to keep open even as something began to well in them.

“If he sticks his nose in that affair again, I will make sure he hurts for it, even if I have to use myself as the fuel to set him alight. And if that’s too vague for him, he gave me the tools I’ll use. I doubt the Watch will be pleased to see some of them being used and will have some very pointed questions about where I got them. Good day.”

I was down the water pipe before she could formulate a reply. The pain in my eyes faded as something wet traveled from them to my cheeks. I pressed the fingers of my glove against them, pulled it back to find it streaked red. Damnations.

I took a few moments to clear all the traces of that away before continuing towards my apartment.

As I neared my apartment, I saw someone in a cloak begin to move toward me from one of the alleys. Sighing, I produced a knife from one of my sleeves and then rushed forward, one hand pushing them against the wall while the other pressed the knife’s blade tightly against their throat.

I wasn’t going to kill them, but a knife against the throat would go a long way to securing some cooperation-

“Wait, don’t-” the bundle of rags yelled, and his face came into view.

“Varrow?” I asked, immediately letting go of him.

“You trying to scare me to death?” He hissed, pulling further back.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” I quickly put the knife back. “You startled me, is all. Why are you lurking outside my building? Did the medicine not help?”

“What?” Confusion flashed for a brief second across his face. “No, not that. I came to warn you, that people broke into your apartment, humans. One of them’s still up there, looking through it. Fancily dressed looking fellow, top hat.”

Oh. Oh.

“Is he?” I said politely, the knife vanishing up my sleeve once again. “Well, I suppose I must say hello to my new guest. Tell me, was he here before this most recent circus came into town?”

Varrow looked at my sleeve curiously. Crap. He’d taught me that trick.

“Mr. Varrow,” I said, tone insistent. “Was this human here before the group outside was?”

That snapped him out of it. “Can’t say for sure. It looks like whoever broke into your apartment did it earlier, but no idea how much earlier. These marchers just got here, but-”

“They could have very easily started doing other things in the quarter earlier,” I finished for him. “Well, I suppose it’s best to go say hello.”

And unless I got a damned good explanation, to force one out of him.