The moment the trolley slid back into the linehouse, Hassani launched through the door. Avani's eyes lit up as she saw her as whatever drug Ghulen had used on her finally wore off. Sobbing and laughing in equal measure, Hassani hugged her tight, lifted her up, and spun around and around, all the world gone except for her and the warmth of her little girl pressed up against her.

"Amma, why'd you go 'way so long?" Avani said, leaning back and then frowning at Hassani's face. Her little fingers ran across the innumerable scars now tracing Hassani's visage in the aftermath of the destruction she'd wrought when using the Aze blade. "What'd they do to your face?"

"Nothing that matters now," Hassani said, pressing Avani tight against her again. She finally looked over the girl's shoulder to the figure leaning against the opening to the trolley's front platform. "Thank you, whoever you... by the Ascen!"

The figure moved forward into the light. A ghost from what felt like another lifetime.

"Denault? You're alive?"

"Barely. Could say the same for you." Denault moved with a pronounced limp as he moved closer. The months had ravaged his face with the force of decades and his eyes had shrunk to baggy hollows.

"But, that night on the balcony." She bit her lip recalling that night, a flood of guilt, anger, regret, and shame pouring into her. "You..."

"Fell. Into a heap of sail laying on the docks. Saved my life, but not my leg." Denault gestured down to his left foot, now canted inward at a harsh angle.

Avani tired of playing with Hassani's hair and twisted in her arms. "Adda!"

After all this time, Hassani didn't want to let go, but she forced herself to set the girl down and relax her grip.

Denault dropped down to the Avani's height and wrapped their daughter in a giant hug, suddenly wracked with sobs of his own. "I never thought I'd see you again, my little Avani."

"Adda's bein' silly," Avani said, giggling as she pulled away. "'Course we wou'd see each ot'er 'gain. We're a fam'y!"

Hassani walked closer slowly, warily. Memories jagged at her: the weight of Denault's final words those months ago. The remembered throb of her elbows and fists crashing into his body. The nightmare that had become her waking experience ever since. All of them stretched a yawning gulf between her and her husband she had no idea how to bridge. By the haunted, wary look in Denault's eye, he didn't know how to any better than she.

Avani knew. Holding one of Denault's hands, she turned and grabbed one of Hassani's. "See? Fam'y 'gain."

Hassani's eyes watered, everything smearing into a blur.

"Could you ever find a way to forgive me, Hassani?" Denault whispered, his voice tentative. "I cursed the Wretches who rescued me and nursed me back to life. But in time, it was the hope of finding your forgiveness I lived for."

"There's nothing to forgive," Hassani said, voice cracking as she wiped at her eyes. Tears streamed down Denault's face, unashamed. "I'm so sorry."

They closed into an embrace far warmer than any Hassani could remember, their little girl hugging their legs and grinning up at them. A weight heavier than the trolley seemed to fall from Hassani's shoulders as they stood there in the deserted linehouse. For that long, beautiful moment, the exact 'where' they stood didn't matter. Hassani was home.

Then a literal weight much, much heavier than the trolley crashed somewhere above them. Dust billowed and pebbles rained down the linehouse stairs.

Avani looked up at them. "Wha' was that?"

"I don't know but we'll go find out," Hassani said, walking cautiously towards the stairs, still holding on to Avani's hand who, in turn, held on to Denault's.

After a few twists and turns, they came up a ramp to the surface where Jax's crystal gardens sprawled. Every other time Hassani had been there, the place swarmed with Verser lords and ladies, bureacrats, and courtiers. Once politics and gossip filled the heart of the stack. Now only the occasional scrape, the burble of the streams, or the pop of raining stone broke the silence.

The inner dome lay scattered across the garden's ruins. A huge crack running up the side of the outer dome cracked and popped even as they looked. The only other living things present searched the rubble despondently.

"Ferals? If they're looking like that..." Denault began.

"Then Jaxe is dead." Hassani finished. A spray of white quartz showered from the dome overhead. "And if we stay much longer, so will we be."

"I've been working the Trolleys and stashing food in our apartment," Denault said, pulling them back down. "We can stop there and-"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Avani bumped into the suddenly-motionless Denault. Hassani almost bumped into them as she too turned to go. "What is it-"

"Shhh," Denault hissed, staring down to the shadows at the base of the ramp.

"I don't..." Hassani trailed off as her eyes made out the wrongness of the shape lurking at the edge of the darkness. Too many limbs. Too little form. No head. No eyes. Proportions wrong. A child's crude shaping of a human made from black clay then expanded to half the size of their apartment.

"What is it mommy?" Avani said, her voice quavering on the shrill edge of hysterics.

"Close your eyes, Avani," Hassani said, her hand inching agonizingly towards the handle of the Aze Blade. "Amma's going to make the monster go away.

"Demon," Denault whispered, still not daring to move enough to look away.

"No, Monster," Hassani said.

Another series of cracks and pops from above rained more dust and crystalline chunks from the ceiling. The temptation to duck nearly overwhelmed her, but concern that the twitching, malformed creature might spring towards them at the first sign of movement kept her still.

"What's the difference?" Denault said hoarsely.

Screams echoed from somewhere deeper in the stack's tunnels.

"This can be killed. Many demons can't."

Hassani had once observed a captive demon through a tiny slit in the ceiling of the Iron Prison of Sunset. Though she had only been able to see the faintest hints of its outline in the darkness, the thing had radiated power, menace, hunger. However ugly, this thing mostly radiated a slowly oozing puddle of slime.

"When I start moving, stay behind me and stay close. I'm going to destroy it, then we're going to head to the apartment," Hassani said, her hand closing on the Aze Blade's hilt. "Stay right behind me as we'll likely run into more of these things on the way. Where there's one, there's always more."

She shook her hand until Avani let go, still staring wide-eyed at the lurking horror. Hassani drew her weapon slowly, expecting the thing to lurch up the ramp towards them at any moment. The screams from deeper in the stack rang out again. Closer this time.

A trickle of watter ran down the blade as she held it before her. Dripped onto her knuckles.

She moves on instinct, sprints down the ramp. The monster unfurls itself. Long barbs extrud from the ends of its five limbs. They reach for her in slow-motion. She severs two limb-tips with a single slash, lifts one of her legs to avoid one jabbing at her foot. Drives the blade into its the center of mass.

It does not respond as most living things would: no pain reflex. No self-preservation instinct. In spite of the Aze Blade's workings, a barb tangles in her hair as she narrowly twists away from it. A few more hacking swipes render the monster into filthy chunks. They spasm, curl, writhe, and dissolve into dark threads of matter. Ten thousand ebony worms writhing in a heap.

Avani is screaming. Has been the whole time.

Denault vomits.

Hassani moves into the tunnel. The Aze Blade's faint white glow lights their way.

Corridors all empty. Here and there bloody smears amid dark, oozing stains give evidence of recent violence.

Something falls from the domed ceiling of an intersection. Hassani curses. Shouts a warning to Denault and Avani. She tumbles back as an undulating web of hooked flesh flops to the stone floor in front of her. It rears up and undulates forward, a hundred yellow eyes gleaming.

A dozen retreating slashes cut it to thick ribbons of flesh. One wraps around her leg, barbs hooking in deep. She snarls, falls backwards, and slices a it away with a single precise cut. It patters to the floor in sinewy threads. A dozen bloody barbs remain hooked into her skin and meat.

Swinging and stumbling back, she fends the rest of it off until the last bits fall inert.

Limping, she pushes on gritting her teeth against the tugging pain; the barbs jangle with each step. Bodies litter the hall outside their apartment. Mercs. Johine, his throat a messy ruin. Inside, more. Deia, so small and fragile-looking in death.

She sweeps the apartment. Empty. Returns to see Avani huddled against Denault, her eyes wide with horror, his look grim.

No more threat. She tries to sheath the Aze Blade.

Can't. Won't. She's done being powerless. This is power.

Denault reaches for her as she brushes past. Calls to her. More monsters to kill. Her family to protect. Won't stop until no demons left in the stack. Her home. Polluted, tainted, invaded. A bump against the wall leaves her gasping and clutching her leg.

The pain cuts through the rush of the Aze Blade's power.

She hears Avani's forlorn cry. "Amma, don' leave us 'gain!"

With all the will she can muster, she sheathes the sword.

The world thundered back. Crashing booms she'd somehow ignored thundered from above. Walls shook and dust rained. Avani cried. Hassani's leg throbbed.

"What were you doing?" Denault shouted as she staggered back to them.

"Doesn't matter," she said, stepping inside and hefting the too-light body of her master onto her shoulders. "We have to get out of here."

"She's dead. Where does she need to go?"

"I'm taking her home."

Hassani stepped to move past him, but he blocked her way. "There's no home when you're dead."

"This isn't a discussion, Denault."

"Fine. Your way as always. At least let me carry Deia since you're hurt," Denault said, reaching.

"I have to do it," Hassani snapped. Tears ran down her cheeks. "She was my master."

"Gread idea. And who will protect us if more of those things come?" Denault shot back, gesturing at his belt. "I don't even have the decorative sword I'm pathetic with."

After a long pause, she numbly let him take Deia's body then turned to the door. After glancing into the hallway's darkness, she paused to snatch the lambent lamp from its nook in the honeycombed wall of the apartment.

After rubbing the filaments together to get their glow started, she carefully knelt down to Avani and extended it to her. "I have something really important for you to do, Avani. Amma needs her hands free in case more monsters come and Adda is carrying Amma's master."

"Are they sleeping?" Avani said, taking the lamp seriously and glancing over at Denault as he slung Deia's body over his shoulders.

"No, Avani. She's passed. We can talk about it more later; we need to hurry."

Avani nodded and held onto the lamp with both hands as they moved out into the hallway.

For a while, Hassani wasn't sure where she was going, just veering the general direction of down at every stairwell they came across.

"We have a small messenger vessel remaining at dock down below," Denault panted, shrugging to redistribute Deia's weight. Avani clung to his dirty, torn robe. "It should function to get us away."

Hassani nodded and they continued down. Her sandal rapidly became slippery with blood from the hooks in her calf. Denault's own limp became more pronounced. Avani began to trip and stumble on the stairs, her whimpers growing louder with every flight they descended.