I spent the fifth day partly in negotiations. At least this time, there wasn’t a gun being pointed at my face. If only because the other party didn’t own one.

“My favorite fish shop is closed for three weeks because the entire area is now diabolically tainted,” Varrow hissed. “It’s going to be closed for an entire month as well. At this point, I wish you’d used that airborne poison instead.”

We were inside his house once again, which he’d reinforced. Since he didn’t have the money for a locksmith, I’d waited five minutes while he huffed, puffed, and then finally moved aside a couch. A massive, old piece of furniture I’d never trust to sit down on. Not without getting several new insect companions latched onto me.

“Varrow, it’s just some letters. I’ve attached good money to delivering them and the jobs inside. Why focus on what by now is ancient history-”

“Less than a week ago.”

“-relatively ancient history. It’s not like I’m asking you to do any fighting. Or even sneaking. Just simple delivery.”

He considered the letters in my hand, then sighed and took them from me. “Why can’t you do this instead?”

“Just because I survived once doesn’t mean I’d survive twice,” I said. “At least for the first one. For the rest, I have other things I need to do.”

“So you’re bumming the work off to me because it’s beneath you,” Varrow griped, followed by a few coughs.

“You have been taking the medicine I sent?” I asked, moving closer.

Hopefully, paranoia hadn’t led him to not even opening the bottle.

“Yes, yes,” he said, backing away and waving me off. “Bad case of smog drifting off that new manufactory the artificers have set up on the edge of Bismuth. Look, I’ll deliver them, all of them. I’m just….damnations, I try to stay low key on purpose, Malvia.”

“You weren’t the only one,” I said sympathetically. Although he at least could probably disappear into relative obscurity after this. I doubted I’d have that option.

We both went to the door, and he opened it to let me out, couch right next to it and ready to be moved back into place. As soon as the door opened, a muffled sound became much clearer and immediately caught both of our attentions.

The noise was familiar to us both. If not, the distant chanted slogan and the sound of marching feet, the booming voice projected across the sky way the same. It hadn’t been there when I’d arrived.

“How many times this week?” I asked.

“First time since the first. Thought they’d had their taste of violence and left once the Watch stopped playing nice with them. Way I heard it, some very surprised folks ended up with a night in the Coffin.”

“The Watch? You’re joking.”

They’d acted even-handed when I’d briefly watched, but I’d never thought it would extend to stays in the Coffin. One of the lesser jails instead.

Then again, they had removed the torturers out of the Coffin.

We both walked down the same streets towards the ever-rising noise. Fewer Infernals were crowding the cross-streets now. Everyone knew what this was, so the curious would be gone. So would anyone who had any fears about them.

Those left were those here for either a show, a fight, or to spit defiance. Only one of those three were the good kind to be around if you didn’t want to be involved in a brawl, and that would be the more peaceful side of this.

The Watch formed a barrier between the marchers and Quarter residents again, but there was no relying on numbers to keep the two sides separated. Gleaming bayonet points served that role instead. They must have borrowed the rifles from the army. Whoever was trying to keep the peace probably didn’t trust any units from the army to handle those.

Units stationed inside the city would have no Infernals inside them, while those outside had too many. While the slim part of the Watch that had horns and hooves weren’t on favorable terms with many in the Quarter. Still, the Quarter would trust them more than an entirely non-Infernal force. And there weren’t enough of them to risk them joining those wanting to bash the marcher’s heads in.

The ringleader’s enhanced voice kept speaking. Probably a priest of Halpsus, since it sounded like the ruined cathedral once again.

“Diabolism is running rampant in our streets, brothers and sisters!” the voice yelled from the sky. “Only a few days ago, a fiendish caster of Infernal blood attempted to transform the entirety of Avernon’s docks into a diabolic creature to assail our city! Only stopped by the brave intervention of those who guard us against the worse impulses of those spawned out of the hells below, but they cannot keep this vigil up forever!”

Varrow pointedly stared at me while the blather continued up above.

I rolled my eyes. “I can promise you that over two-thirds of that is complete nonsense. The other third is stretching the truth so hard it’s being torn apart at the seams.”

“Try telling that to this lot,” he responded.

That, I was forced to concede, wouldn’t end well.

“If not that, they’d have seized on something else,” I replied.

It was hard to deny that I’d add some fire to the actual smoke. It was harder to buy into claims of, say, diabolical infernals turning your daughters into succubi when all four daughters were still distinctly human.

Publicly, at least. I could speak to the idiocy of your average Diabolist or your average pair of teen lovers. Hopefully, Beth and Thomias were enjoying themselves in whatever Hell they’d been consigned to after Versalicci killed them both for that stunt.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Poor example. But most cases of diabolic accusations were unfounded rumor and hearsay. I’d unfortunately provided a case twice now where it wasn’t.

The marchers were more daring than our side, some of them getting right to the points of the bayonets as they yelled things at the Infernals on the other side of the line. They weren’t backing down after yelled orders from the Watch either.

“What do you think are the odds on some of them betting the Watch wouldn’t dare use rifles on upstanding citizens?” I asked Varrow.

“Having lived here for fifty years? It’ll happen. It’s….what’s the word?”

“Inevitable?”

“Think that’s the one. Of course, they may be right. Can’t see the Watch being too happy about this.”

“That’s for sure.”

Despite my relatively cordial treatment by Malstein and making it two trips to the Coffin without having bits cut off, I knew better than to trust them. If an unfriendly face suddenly starts acting like your chums, watch out for the stiletto being aimed at your back.

“You think they’re here to protect us or to protect them?” Varrow asked me, nodding towards the cordon of Watch.

“I think they’re here to keep the rest of the city safe,” I muttered.

Riots would spread if they were large enough, and there were enough marchers to make it a massive riot, which was part of the issue.

“How are there this many of them?” I asked myself, but Varrow seemed to take it as directed at him.

“That a serious question? There ain’t ever been a lack of people willing to hate us, Malvia.”

“Please don’t call me that while we’re in public,” I glared at him.

He at least should understand the idea behind not using real names. I was going to strangle the next person who did that in public.

“Point being, the hells caused this?” I asked Varrow. “This is trailing the mark to their house and trying to pick their pocket while they’re closing the front door. These people are begging for a beating.”

Sure, there were many marchers concentrated in the street. The single street. Running through the entire Quarter, one that had been emptied multiple times over waves of conscription into Her Majesty’s armies or even those working for paying work. It still probably had easily more than a hundred times the number of marchers, who maybe numbered four or five thousand at the absolute most.

Survivors from service in the army, or even the navy, had returned to service as well. Add in the criminal population, which this lot would probably think was a hundred times bigger and meaner than it actually was on average. They’d be convinced every pickpocket and con artist was some Black Flame or Ram-horn tough.

They’d decided to come here anyway.

At least my describing this in pickpocket terms seemed to reach Varrow, whose eyes had narrowed.

“People think irrational things about those they hate,” he said. “And the numbers might give them confidence.”

“Then protest in front of the government’s buildings, where their message is going to reach people who might hurt us,” I said. “Here they’re showing their numbers to those who do not care. What is it supposed to be? Intimidation? We’re already mostly confined here.”

Well, I wasn’t, but most Infernals didn’t get caught up in messes like I did.

Varrow considered the chanting crowd again, the gathering crowd of Infernals around it.

“Might be tempering,” he said. “When you lot were young, I’d send you against marks I knew would notice but wouldn’t hurt you too badly. Learning the trade, learning to do it well. Confidence-building once you started doing it without being caught.”

“I disagree with them not hurting us too bad,” I said. “I have at least one once-broken rib that disagrees with that assessment.”

“Eh. You survived.”

“Besides, I think we’ve stretched the analogy as far as it will go. They shouldn’t need to build their confidence unless they plan on invading the Quarter. This is a threat.”

An angry mob big enough to threaten the whole quarter storming it? It’s not impossible, multiple times over the last few decades. Once in my lifetime even, which had been hell. Before the Black Flame, when I’d been part of Varrow’s little gang of street rats and pickpockets, trying to find enough to keep me and Mother afloat.

She’d been fine, blending in with the rioters quickly enough. We’d had to make do hiding in a basement in an abandoned building. Barricading the door and hoping no one broke it down or tried to burn the building. It had been a night of screams.

From the look in his eyes, Varrow might be thinking of the same night. Or a different one before I’d been born.

“Threat to who? Us? Like you said, getting us shoved out of here wouldn’t be easy.”

“Underground mayhap, but that wouldn’t end well for anyone. Either way, it’s a mystery for perhaps another day.”

Hopefully, not for now. The sinking feeling that this was connected wouldn’t leave my gut, but the mind made connections, hoping to make sense of things.

This was just a coincidence. I was providing some unfortunate fuel to the fire, but that didn’t mean they were involved in my problems. Just adding to them.

***

It was night now, the dual suns of today having set, and now a trio of moons had replaced them, Maldare, Roviarre, and smaller Kelsen trailing far behind her two sisters.

I’d retrieved the dress from Aedelia, exactly with the modifications I'd asked for it.

The longer that conversation had gone on, the more disconcerted I’d found myself by the Elven dressmaker. Could she add hidden pockets? Sure, and plenty of them! Big enough for knives? Definitely, if they were small enough! Potentially able to help cushion glass vials so their contents didn’t eat through the dress and your flesh underneath? Oh, she knew just an addition to make to the fabric.

I wasn’t sure if I’d been dealing with someone who sold dresses or used to outfit assassins. Given her age…it was a possibility.

The dress was now hung in the attic's half I had slept in, away from any chance of my lab leaving a stench on or damaging it. I’d already stowed what I could inside the hidden pockets. Vials, a pair of knives, a derringer. The revolver I would fit into my purse, along with several alchemical and regular rounds, but there would be no smuggling a saber in.

I had cajoled the location of a few of the Montagues' out of Gregory, who seemed mildly ecstatic at the idea of me laying my hands on family heirlooms. Well, at his father’s reaction to that.

And I thought relations with my family were...no, they were still worse. My few conversations with the demon that had sired me left a lot to be desired. My brother was a manipulative monster. My mother was either cursed or in a coma, while my family from her had considered me an embarrassment when I was barely old enough to walk.

They might die from shock if they discovered what I’d been doing after taking my first steps.

My thoughts wandered freely tonight. Mainly to avoid the topic at hand.

On the floor before me was an eight-sided star, a black flame in the middle.

Why is this even a debate? The Imp said in my head. Do you think you can stand up to these creatures sans Diabolism?

“I’m not the only one who will be there,” I replied. “The last two times, I was on my own.”

And how much do you trust these people with your life? A noble who hates you and barely tolerates you being here and his guards? A detective who has coerced you into his service and constantly pokes and prods, waiting for you to fall apart? His partner who is in the service of an organization who will be looking to exploit your services the moment they can while they hold your parent hostage? A noble brat who has played you in almost every conversation you’ve had? A watch captain presenting himself as the pleasant face to an organization that only years ago would cut you up?

I picked up the focus, rotating it as the moonlight caught the black steel, the color seeming to darken. Someone had bled to make this. Knowing my brother, someone had probably died to make it.

The Imp was so heavily biased that its opinion could be ignored. No matter what the problem that faced me, it would always advocate for Diabolism as the solution.

That didn’t mean it was wrong.

I tucked the metal star into one of the dress’ pockets, then settled in for an uneasy sleep.