The man-boy slid the dagger off of the woman's corpse. Fresh dead, this one. The blade—pale gray in color—wouldn't score more than a few coins, but at least it held some faded ornamentation on the hilt. He frisked the rest of the body to see if there was anything else of value he could take. Tallow from a soot-colored candle stub, a pocket full of cleaned chicken bones, a handful of a reddish dust he could not name, and a strange iron coin with a depiction he could not recognize.

Pevrick pocketed them all. You never knew who was willing to buy such items, or at the very least, willing to buy the lies he told about them.

"Tick," the man-boy whispered. "Tick."

A faint skittering grew louder as Pevrick's noble companion returned to his call. It climbed up his pant leg, leaving tiny pinprick holes where its claws poked through.

Before it could make it to his shoulder, Pevrick clamped his hands around the rat's chubby waste and raised him towards his face. Tick squeaked in protest, and gingerly bit at his fingers.

"Stop that. If you want something to bite, bite this," he said, stuffing the pet inside a pocket of his tattered cloak along with a few of the chicken bones. Tick nibbled away, satisfied with the offering.

The man-boy sheathed the dagger and gave the woman's body a sharp kick for fun. Her limp body wiggled at the contact and slumped further into the refuse beneath her. He tried again with the same result and giggled to himself.

When he was finally bored of the activity, Pevrick stepped out of the alley and into the night. He sucked in a lofty breath of stale, musty air. It smelled of refuse and fever-sweat. Ah, the comforts of home. But there was something else also. Smoke.

The man-boy raised his head to billows of the stuff rising dark from the apartments just above. The flames had barely risen to the point that people were noticing, but notice they soon did. Screams and orders began to echo through the surrounding area as men made their preparations to beat the hungry beast with no heart, or run before they themselves were eaten.

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"Fires bring crowds, Tick. But fires bring guards." His tone was scholarly as he educated his simple companion. "That's how Lily got her neck all noosed. I like my neck. I don't want it noosed." As he said this, he curled his fingers around the rat's throat and squeezed tight.

Tick's eyes grew wide and he raked Pevrick's fingers with his claws. The man-boy released and let out a loud snorting laugh. "Don't worry, Tick. I don't want you noosed either!" Before the rat could flee, he stuffed another chicken bone into his pocket and clamped his hand over the exit. After some time, the rat went back to its nibbling. "That's a good rat."

Pevrick made his way away from the fire and through the maze of streets towards Devil's Market. He traced dank alleys and slick rooftops for the journey, not wanting to chance a run-in with the town guard. As he leapt over the narrow gaps of the roofs, he dropped smooth river-stones. Mostly, the sound of stones meeting stones would echo back to him, but sometimes—when he was lucky—a sharp cry of pain or outrage would ring out from below.

The sound of the crowd reached his ears before his eyes. An armada of homeless beggars crowded inside the hazy light of King's Compassion. All of them filthy. All of them half-starved. "Just lazy," Pevrick whispered to Tick. "And stupid. The King's compassion died centuries ago."

Pevrick slipped down a particularly rusted pipe and sighed as he worked himself up to cross through the sea of worthless bodies, each crying out their chronic pleas in unending repetition to whoever passed by. As he made his way through, several of them broke routine to spit or hurl some choice curses his way.

He ignored them, only returning their hatred with a thick yellow smile and maybe a finger or two. "They've no reason to be this mad, Tick. No reason at all. It's not like I've stolen much from them." The man-boy dodged a weak jab from an especially slovenly beggar, tore the stick from his hands, and broke it over the man's knee. The howls of pain and outrage that followed sent gentle tremors of true pleasure throughout his body. "They don't have much to steal."

"Fancy seeing you here, man-boy."

The tremors stopped. And then started again, though for different reasons this time. He tried to run but was immediately yanked back by the scruff of his cloak. His ass found the ground seconds before introducing it to the back of his skull. Dull and sharp aches erupted from both spots as new stars made their way into his vision. Tick, ever-the-brave, leapt out of his pocket and skittered away, taking a chicken bone with him.

Traitor.