I caught up to Zamir an hour later, outside the warehouse. Well, I say caught up—I’d been waiting for her that whole hour, and once I caught a glimpse of that shiny grey suit I stuck a leg out and tripped her. She and all her decorum tumbled to the ground and sprawled in the mud. I leisurely got to my feet and strolled over, placing a hand on her shoulder as she rose. “I think,” I said, “that you owe me.”

Her smile was like a cornered animal, showing a lot of teeth to get me to back away. “I think that…I don’t owe you anything. Not at all. Like the dragonfly above the water. You were the one cheating, they said. That’s what they all said.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“What’s said is what’s known. Hard to change that.”

“Mm-hmm.” I was watching her eyes as I talked, seeing where they went. “It would be, if it was just my word against yours—I’m the lowdown cheater without the sense to make sure all the aces don’t show up at once. But see, you really shouldn’t be carrying around the card pack-” Left and down. I grabbed her collar before she could dart away and yanked her close, letting my other hand find that small rectangular box in her pocket and pull it free. “And you really shouldn’t have let me do that. If I weren’t so nice I’d have a knife.”

I let her go and she staggered backwards. “You-”

“Dresden playing cards. Minimalist, green-tinted design. And,” I said, prying open the lid with a finger, “missing the ace of hearts. I recognize that Luna’s no reputation for intelligence, but I think even we might figure that one out.”

“Blackmail, how sophisticated. Perhaps you’re right. I shouldn’t expect anything more. What do you want?”

“Not looking for anything but words, Zamir. Maybe a promise,” I said. “I mean, you said a total of ten words in the game, maybe less, and I wanted to know. What’s the city doing in a place like this, cheating at cards?”

She grumbled under her breath. “Don’t get paid enough.”

“You don’t get paid enough?”

“No! It is a travesty, a vicious cycle. The city pays people nothing, so it gets nothing done, and then it attracts nobody, so the people there are paid pittances still. Soon it will all be a memory, a—a bad dream, that we have a city at all. I am our criminal archivist. I work directly underneath Mayor Malthus, I have my own desk and my own office and my own library—but what am I to do with it?. I keep the records and the evidence-”

“Like these cards here?” I dangled the little box in front of her.

Dresden cards weren’t expensive, but they didn’t come cheap either. Something about the ink. Zamir’s eye twitched, her pride fought a valiant but losing battle, and she snatched it from my hand. She paused. “And—the other ace, too. I want to keep the set.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

With the same flourish as earlier, I slid the card into my palm and flicked it at her. “But you’re out of your depth here, archivist. You don’t run in our circles and I don’t believe that you came just to win our money. You don’t even carry a weapon. So you’re hanging around for a reason, you’re offering Luna something that only the city can, and I want in. That’s the deal. That’s what I want for ensuring the archives still have a curator, for handing away my money and half a week sick once I suffer through that foundry job. You understand?”

She shook her head. “You leap too far ahead. I don’t even have a name to ascribe these demands to.”

“Starling.”

“Starling, human. Yes—you are on record. Assaulting an officer. Three times.”

“You know they drum those up.”

“I record them nonetheless. But that’s not what you want.”

“I don’t want to show up in those files ever again, Zamir. That’s what I want. You can do that. You can tell the city to leave me the hell alone.”

She was silent for a moment. She carefully and deliberately folded the ace back into the box of cards. Her hand trembled. She must have had a weak nightmare, for I hadn’t yet felt a lick of it yet. She wasn’t human, though. The city wouldn’t have allowed it. “Get out,” she whispered.

“What? We—I thought we had a deal!”

“No!” She was whispering so low that I had to lean forwards to hear. “That’s what I can give you! Get out of this while you can. There’s—a man, now. He came to City Hall, he spoke to the mayor and the lawyers and the police. Calls himself Drakon. He says he’s selling something, something better than Luna. I could smell it on him.” She shuddered, and it wasn’t fear. It was hunger. A weak nightmare would most like to be strong, would buy anything and chase it down. “He promised that he would make everyone in the room rich.”

And what promises those were. I could almost taste them, and that taste made me sick. “When did he arrive?”

“Yesterday. But he is—liked, already.”

People, already. I shut my eyes. He’d be angling for the same customers as Luna—he’d need them. And Luna wouldn’t give them up without a fight. We knew the streets better than some outsider, we should have commanded more loyalty…but money moved a lot of minds, and even streets bowed to guns. “Where would I go?”

“Anywhere. Away. You talk too much, but you are clever like the thresh—a bar would take you,” she said. “Somewhere to lie low. You-” Once again I watched her swallow her pride. It was a good quality to have. So many people couldn’t manage it, and they walked around the city half-blind. “You saved me, Starling. I do not want to see you die here and I fear you will when this man gets his way. Get out of this rotten business. Please.” Her voice caught on the edge of unspoken words, but she shook her head and they vanished. “I am…already late. I should go.”

“Wait,” I said. “Wait.”

She did. Just for a second.

“Thank you,” I said.

The tiniest little nod, just to indicate she’d heard me. Then she was gone.

***

Nine years later. I sat with my feet up on my desk, swirling the same drink I’d been swirling an hour ago. I’d gotten out, alright, and I’d been doing a damn good job of keeping beneath Drakon’s notice. So had Zamir, what little I heard from her—still working for the city, still cheating at cards, keeping the archives well maintained and not rising to anybody’s attention. Until now.

Maybe she’d hate me, for dropping those pages in her lap. Maybe that unspoken understanding was long gone. But we’d saved each other once—I could dream, couldn’t I, that it might all happen again?