The cart rocked gently over the stone streets and Aelia fought hard to stop the motion lulling her to sleep. The night was quiet except for the hum of the wheels turning, and for Rufus's gentle clips and clops against the stone.

Her training with Coric had gone well, she'd thought. At least for a first session. He'd taken her outside of the city walls to a copse of oaks and demonstrated an advanced spell that he promised she'd learn eventually. He'd raised a miniature twister, only as high as his knee, up from the earth itself, that sucked up the leaves from the ground and crumbled them to debris. Then, he'd leaned down and blown it, sending it shooting forward, until eventually, it dispersed.

She'd joked that it would be a useful spell for cleaning a house. Coric had smiled politely but she'd felt like an idiot for saying it.

Then the young mage had burned the skin of his left palm, much to Aelia's dismay.

"You'll practice your healing on my hand, not your own," he'd said, before taking her through the spell.

After several hours, his hand was still raw and the skin still peeled -- but it was a little better than it had been when she'd started. Thanks to her healing, she'd hoped, not just from the time that had passed.

Aelia had only gotten two or three hours of sleep, by the time she'd had to get up to meet Henry. It had taken a long while for the excitement of the day (and previous night) to wear off, so she'd lain in bed imagining casting her own whirlwind someday soon.

"Penny for your thoughts," said Henry.

"Hm?"

"You looked deep in contemplation. Either that, or you were about to fall asleep."

Both were true, Aelia knew.

"You need to be looking out for crosses, Aelia. Not daydreaming. Nightdreaming. Whatever it was."

"Sorry." She held up her lantern and aimed it at the doorways of the houses they were passing. "All clear so far." Then she added, "You know what you said yesterday about taking from the dead. That it honored them to uh, to not let their possessions go to waste?"

Henry laughed. "Oh, I remember. Had a change of heart?"

"I need to earn more money. I can't afford enough moss on the job's income alone."

"You especially won't be able to afford much this week," he said.

"Why's that?"

Henry frowned. "Week of the raven. Don't tell me you've forgotten already? You seemed so impressed by it all at the church."

Gods be damned. How had she forgotten? "How much will we earn this week?"

"About half of what we otherwise would."

Damn. Then the next rent would have to come, at least partly, out of the money her mother had given her.

"But if you mean what you're saying," Henry continued, "about honoring the dead, then I think we can earn quite a nice little extra together."

"I do mean it," she said, with no hesitation. "I need that money. And it's no good to the dead now, is it?"

Henry shook his head, amused. "None at all."

"So, how do we... you know, make money from it? Surely shops don't buy it all off you. Wouldn't they be suspicious about where it all came from? I doubt they'd want plague-infested goods. Or illegal goods, for that matter."

"I've got contacts that will do the selling," he said. "They take a small cut but nothing gets traced back to us this way."

Aelia nodded. Henry seemed like the kind of person who would have contacts. She shone her light onto the next house. Nothing.

"How did you get into this line of work?" she asked. "Surely it's not a job many people go looking for. And it seems to only pay well if you take a little extra."

Henry shrugged. "I like working with the dead. They're always quiet and rarely complain." He shot her a grin but Aelia didn't laugh. She thought of the hand last night as they'd been working, the hand she'd imagined reaching up from the cart floor and scraping her leg.

Henry was both so open and so mysterious at the same time. Happy to tell her anything, but the answers always seemed vague. Who were these contacts? It was like how he'd told her he had no parents. She guessed he meant he'd been orphaned, but why not say that? Perhaps he was embarrassed. Or bitter. She wouldn't blame him for being bitter. How lucky she had been to have been born into a family that loved her so deeply.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

The lantern light fell across big black cross. "Stop," Aelia said. "We've got one."

Henry pulled the reins and Percy halted.

Aelia clambered down. She'd be hauling bodies tonight, Henry tomorrow. They'd agreed to take in turns.

The door was unlocked, and as usual, a body lay in the hallway beyond. Aelia wasted no time, grabbing the dead lady's ankles and yanking her out of the house.

The lady had been slight and it was easy enough to get her up into the cart. She wore a plain brown dress with no pockets. But Aelia spotted a silver necklace hanging around her neck, with a single stone bauble in its center that represented the Stone God.

With a deep breath, she reached around the woman's neck and unfastened the trinket. She pocketed it for the moment, then grabbed the bucket of paint and drew a white line through the cross on the door.

"Better than nothing," Henry said, as Aelia showed him her prize. "Might get a couple of silver, depending on the quality."

The next few houses they stopped at held further riches. Watches (none of which bore Samuel's inscription, she noted happily), bracelets, and leather belts. They weren't allowed to take shoes or clothes (besides belts) as they were the property of the Great Morgue. But anything else was fair game, Henry said.

Best of all, she'd found a few silver coins in a gentleman's pocket. They shared them out evenly and Aelia hoped they might find a few more before the night was over. She'd soon have enough for a week's worth of moss at this rate.

How quickly she'd gotten used to dealing with the dead. Strange, she thought, how she could be almost excited about finding a body when only a few days ago she'd been sick at the thought.

They rolled along a quiet street that so far had no houses infected by the plague.

"Did you hear the news?" Henry asked.

"What news?"

"War with the augmented is ramping up."

She hadn't heard that. As far as she knew, there had only been a few skirmishes with the Godless Kingdom so far. "Oh?"

Henry nodded. "They burned down the whole of Riarmonte. Slaughtered the guards, then locked the townsfolk inside their homes and set the whole village alight."

Riarmonte was a border town, and in that way a dangerous place to live. But it was also a farming village, and the people there innocent of anything other than living. "Gods," said Aelia. "That's an act of war."

"I wouldn't be surprised if we look to avenge it tomorrow. I could easily imagine a few hundred horses marching. The Stone God will not let it go unpunished."

"I hope He won't," said Aelia, thinking that it could have been her little farming village. Could have been her family locked inside their home and burned alive.

They hadn't seen the men approach.

Three of them dressed in dark clothing.

The first Aelia saw of them was the glint of a knife. Then, a man hopped up onto the cart next to Aelia and put a blade against her neck.

"Stop the cart," said the man.

"Shit," said Henry, glancing at Aelia. "Shit!"

"Stop, or she gets it, then you get it."

Henry brought Percy to a halt. The two other men, both brandishing knives, jumped into the back of the cart.

"We're a plague cart," Aelia said, feeling the cold blade against her throat as she spoke. "If you want to catch the plague, fine. But you'd be sensible--"

A palm slapped her cheek hard. She winced but wouldn't let herself cry.

"Leave her be!" said Henry. "What do you want with us?"

"What little treasures have you found tonight, body thieves?"

How did they know they were thieves? Aelia wondered. Did all plague bearers steal from the dead and it was just presumed?

"We have little of value."

The knife pressed harder into her neck.

"Whatever you have, hand it over," said a second man, hovering behind Henry.

Henry sighed as he passed over the bag of goods they'd looted. "You're lucky the lady is with me," said Henry, defiantly, "or there would be hell to pay."

The men laughed. "The kid thinks he's brave, does he? Well, let's find out how brave."

The second man brought his knife to Henry's ear. "Think you can lose it without screaming?"

"Go to hell," said Henry.

The panic in Aelia's stomach was giving way to anger. She wondered how much moss she had left in her pocket. Probably just crumbled remnants -- she'd used nearly all of it earlier while training. Probably not enough left to do any real damage. But still... She snuck a hand quietly into her jacket pocket. Then, in her head, she recited the order of the fire spell. She wouldn't need to cast it at range this time, and that would help make more of the little moss she had.

She raised her hand to her neck, gently touching the man's arm.

The man screamed and the knife fell.

Aelia stood up and held her arms wide. "I am a mage of the Academy," she said, as confidently as she could manage. "If you do not leave us now, I will turn you all to flame!"

"She's lying," said the third man.

"She's not!" said the first, already down from the cart. "The bitch burned my arm."

"You have five seconds," Aelia said. "Before you all become ashes."

The two remaining men looked at each other. Then they jumped down, bag of goods in hand, and fled.

When they were out of sight, Aelia collapsed back down. Her hand was burned again. The spell had been a strain with such little moss.

"That was... amazing!" said Henry. "Just, amazing. Took real pluck. Could you really have done that?"

She shook her head mournfully. "I was lucky to singe the man's arm. And either way, we still lost our earnings.

Henry laughed. "You just defeated... Look, Aelia, it sucks we lost a bit of money, but we have the corpses still. They're what matters. We'll get paid at the end of the week. And tomorrow night, I reckon we'll find even better loot. This was a victory for us. They won't bother us again."

A phyric victory, she thought as she examined her burned hand. She didn't even have any moss to try to heal it. She'd have to put up with the welts and the pain.

"It was stupid of you to say they were lucky I was here or you'd have had them."

"Well, I would have done," he said, insistent.

"Oh yeah? How?"

He paused. "... I'm a good fighter. But not when there's a knife to a lady's neck."

"Oh, sure."

"We need to get the Morgue," Henry said, changing the topic. "It'll be sunrise soon."

"Fine. We don't need to talk about it. Just know that it was stupid."

Henry lifted the reins and Percy began to trot.

It was a victory, in a way, Aelia supposed. Maybe she shouldn't be so upset. She'd scared off a group of bandits through her use of magic. A bit like a real mage would have done -- even if her threats had been bluffs.

A smile snuck onto her face as they rolled down the streets and headed to the Morgue.