Five weeks later

Gilbert Armstrong walked homeward in the darkness. He had just entered the district of Draggok Hill where he lived, close to Eastgate wall, a respectable place though by no means wealthy. Dawn was about three hours away and he preferred to be home in bed before sunrise. It was still too early for the city to begin waking up, and more or less too late for the rowdy or rough to still be up to their shenanigans. These few hours were the day’s best in Gilbert’s opinion.

As he turned the corner to his street, he heard a gentle scraping sound, and something toppled over somewhere in an alleyway farther down the street. It was probably one of the city’s cats on the prowl; they shared their schedule with the nightshift Watchers, after all.

A thud sounded from down the alley. A thud and a subdued, pained gasp. Gilbert stopped to listen. It was definitely bigger than a cat, he decided, as he sighed and approached the darkness of the alley, where garbage boxes and sheds for the nightmen lined up.

No moonlight or light from the street braziers reached this area and he stopped again, wondering if he had imagined it. But then there was the faintest rustling from the darkness, and Gilbert drew his lightstone from its pocket on his belt and gently tossed it into the air. The magical trinket hovered in mid-air and illuminated the entire area in bright, bluish light.

The trash had been collected earlier in the night, but in the glaring light, he saw a booted foot sticking out from behind a wooden box. Ah, so probably some drunk, he thought per instinct. But then again, this was generally not the area where people passed out drunk in the street.

“Aya,” he whispered, and the lightstone fell sideways into his hand, plunging him into glaring darkness before he walked closer and threw it again, so it illuminated the figure on the ground behind the garbage boxes. There was a gasp of either pain or panic, and the prone figure feebly raised an arm to cover their face. Then they gasped again, tried to curl up, failed at that too, and then slumped anew, unmoving.

Dark matte leather hugged the figure tightly. Nothing shone; no metal could clank, no material could creak, and nothing was loose on the belt. The difference from last time was that the hood and mask were off. He could see short, dark hair under the bracer-clad arm, and blood smeared on pale skin.

“Shit…” Gilbert mumbled quietly to himself, looking at the fallen Magpie King.

He slowly approached and crouched down to move the man’s arm away from his face. The thief gasped in pain at the movement and the eye that wasn’t closed by a dark bruise flickered open for a second, eliminating the last doubt in Gilbert’s mind that it might be some other highly specialised thief. The grey gaze was pained, glassy, unfocused, and the thief immediately slid back into unconsciousness.

“Aya,” Gilbert quickly whispered and the lightstone sprang to his ready hand, re-establishing the darkness he shared with an apparently severely wounded criminal.

Turning him in would be so easy. Maybe he could even have a civilian friend do it, so they could share the reward that wouldn’t be paid to a Watcher … although it would do wonders for his career to take credit for this. And the palisade would be given actual funding. They could patch up their gear, maybe hire in some more people, have a decent stock of healing tinctures for once, maybe even hire a priestess of Kaala, the goddess of fair fights the area took its name from…

Gilbert sighed.

In his mind, the decision had already been made, even though he cursed himself for it. So, life handed him opportunity in leather, and he squandered it just because the man had helped a sour, opinionated colleague who Gilbert didn’t even get along with particularly well?

“I’m an idiot…” the Watcher captain whispered to himself as he put his cape around the unconscious thief, hiding him as well as possible before lifting him. I’m literally carrying fifty thousand gost right now… his mind supplied as he made his way down the alley to his house as quietly as possible, hoping nobody would see him.

*

Gilbert had started with the armguards but evidently loosened the first one incorrectly because six lockpicks and three keys had tumbled from the leather’s confines. That had set the tone of the undressing: slow and messy.

As soon as he had the arm uncovered, Gilbert had mixed a knife’s point of venom-ash powder in oil and cut a small gash on the thief’s pale arm, so he could smear the sharp-smelling mixture into the wound. He saw it take effect and dull the pain, letting the unconscious man breathe a little easier as the whole of his broken body began to relax.

The sun had only just risen over the houses to peek red-eyed into the office beyond the bedroom when Gilbert was done removing clothes and identifying injuries. The tight-fitting trousers, belt, jacket, and bracers were very carefully set aside, and he had been cautious not to trigger anything or peer too deeply into any of the myriad pockets. The few encounters with the Magpie King people had reported often ended with smoke suddenly enveloping the witnesses and the thief escaping into the shadows he came from, but judging from the amount of care and precision the man’s clothes showed, there might easily be starker means of repelling foes hidden in one pocket or other.

At the end of the undressing, he had a pile of different tools set aside. There was also a pouch with a round, flat, firm object in it. Gilbert decided that ignorance was bliss and just stashed it with the thief’s clothes.

Now, the illustrious criminal lay in the Watcher captain’s bed, wearing nothing but his undershorts. He had a nasty wine-dark bruise down his left side and hip, and Gilbert felt rather certain that an impact like whatever had hit him probably cracked at least a couple of ribs too. Half the man’s face was bruised and swollen, his lip torn up, and a deep gash ran from his ear to his forehead. It had bled intensely and took Gilbert a while to clean the blood to a point where he could see the extent of the damage.

The left shoulder was dislocated, two fingers on the left hand were clearly broken, and a crossbow bolt with angry yellow fletching sat so far into the lean thigh muscle that it peeked out on the other side. The venom-ash seemed to still be effective, but the Magpie King’s chest rose and fell unevenly with his ragged breath.

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Gilbert quickly set to the task of preparing for the healing tincture. The tinctures were incredibly expensive and bought at the temple of Kaala, but it would save the thief several weeks, if not months, of healing and save Gilbert from having to hide the fact that the thieving legend of Sonderport was lying in his bed.

The tincture would mend sinew and bones, but if joints were not in their sockets and bones were not set, they would grow together wrong. He didn’t look forward to removing the crossbow bolt from the thief’s thigh, but there was nothing for it.

Gilbert sighed, mixed a new batch of venom-ash for when the agony woke the thief, and set to work.

The shoulder snapped back into its socket with a sharp, wet smack and the man in the bed shot up, gasping in agony. With breath heaving in his chest and a bleary lack of hesitation, he desperately tried to fight Gilbert off with broken fingers. Gilbert grabbed him and pulled him close so he could isolate the newly-socketed arm and keep the thief as still as possible, so he didn’t do more damage to his ribs.

“You are safe. I’m a friend,” Gilbert said, holding the man whose futile and weak kicks made the bolt wobble in his thigh. It lasted for an intense moment before he wordlessly slipped back into unconsciousness.

Gilbert very, very slowly released the breath he just realised he’d been holding. He felt the same old helplessness he had felt years ago watching his wife fade away, although of course there was no comparison between the two. He shook his head, gently laid the man down on the bed again, and gave him a small dose of venom-ash. He waited until the drug had been absorbed and then took the thief’s hand and looked at the askew fingers. He had worn half-gloves, but his long, slender fingers were painted black with ink, presumably so he had full mobility but stayed a shadow.

The thief would be dependent on those digits for his work. It would be easy to cripple him, but also crushingly dishonest when he had just said he was a friend. Gilbert took a deep breath and drew the thief’s fingers level, hoping to let the joints and bones glide into place. The drug was fortunately strong enough that the patient didn’t wake.

Next, the crossbow bolt. The yellow fletching was unknown to him, so likely it was from a private guardsman’s weapon.

In the cabinet in the corner, Gilbert got the small bottle of foul-smelling healing tincture and put it on the table by the bed. He found a blanket, folded it up under the thief’s thigh and sharpened his razor. Then he stood looking at the man in the bed for a moment, gathering his courage.

He had experienced tight and ugly situations in the field during his fifteen-year career as a Watcher and had seen some dreadful things in his time. But being the perpetrator of the damage needed for the thief to heal still required a bit of a run-up. It was somehow just too deliberate.

But there was nothing for it, and he sat down with a pair of pliers and rested the razor at the edge of the wound, where the bolt stuck out. He let it bite the skin and, as the flesh parted for the steel and blood welled forth in sticky gushes onto the blanket, he gently tugged the tip of the bolt with the pliers. The fletched end of the projectile moved in concert with it, so the serrated metal tip was not going to fall off, it seemed. Quickly, Gilbert snipped the fletched end off of the bolt and then dragged the projectile the rest of the way through the wound and out the other side.

It bled. Relentlessly. In dark gushes onto the blanket which didn’t take that much liquid, so the blood dripped onto the bedclothes and seeped into the mattress. Heart pounding, he picked the thief up into a slumped sitting position, supported him against his shoulder, and tipped a bit of the thick-flowing tincture into his mouth. It stank. Like pus, iron, and cheese. And nothing happened. Gilbert tipped the small bottle again, and all of a sudden the thief bucked in his arms, gasping and fighting to fold himself over the side of both Gilbert and the bed. He spat up the tincture onto the floor and Gilbert’s boots. The Magpie was gasping in pain and the fingers of his good hand squeezed Gilbert’s knee almost painfully for a moment before he slumped in an unruly heap across his lap.

Gilbert sat very, very still for a moment, before putting a hand on the slumped thief’s neck. Nothing.

“Shit!” Gilbert exclaimed and flipped the thief onto his back in bed. “Hey!” he shouted and shook the man; put a hand on his still chest. “Don’t you dare!”

When nothing happened, he picked him up into a sitting position and grabbed the wound on his thigh as hard as he could.

The Magpie King drew a long, heaving breath that sounded like a scream and arched his back in Gilbert’s arms. Then he slowly relaxed, breath fast and frantic in his chest, until he finally slumped back, unconscious.

Gilbert had never actually seen anyone vomit up the nasty tincture, although everyone claimed it was a miracle they didn’t, and he certainly had never seen anyone getting injured to a point of death by the stuff. It was supposed to pull you back from the brink of death, not kill you. He wondered if he had somehow bought a faulty one as he sat with the unconscious man in his arms and pressed a bloody hand to his chest to feel the heartbeat.

It was there. Steady, slow, and rhythmic. Gilbert sighed in relief and then noticed that the blood had stopped welling forth from the thigh too. Slowly, the swelling was retreating from the wounds. He sat with a hand on the man’s chest and watched as the damages painfully slowly mended themselves.

As the bruise retreated, he saw the Magpie’s face. It was unusual; too sharp-featured to be traditionally handsome, but hard to look away from nonetheless. The wound on his lip began to mend slowly and Gilbert put a finger on the cut to hold it together while it knit itself closed cleanly.

He wasn’t sure how long he sat like this, watching the thief’s chest rise and fall with a finger on his mouth. He would live, that was certain. He would live.

Exhaustion suddenly hit Gilbert hard, and he removed his finger from the lips of the stranger in his bed and gently laid him down. Then he slowly toed his tincture-vomited boots off and got up to go to the washroom and clean everything he could. Afterwards, he anxiously checked that the thief was still breathing as he boiled some water, washed the thief of blood, threw the bloody blanket into the iron stove and set it on fire. When this was over with, he would have to find some way to get rid of the mattress but that was a problem for later.

The sounds of daytime came from the street; sounds that were normally a lullaby to keep a nocturnal Watcher asleep. Gilbert went and found some bread in the kitchen and leaned on the doorjamb to the bedroom, eating his meagre dinner and finally studying this rare creature that had eluded every single attempt at capture in the last decade as his legend grew. Well, evaded capture until now.

He had sharp features, high cheekbones, a sharp jawline, and dark eyebrows that contrasted with his pale skin.

…And in the moments it had taken Gilbert to get some food in the kitchen, the small black cat that sometimes came for a visit through the window to beg a snack or sleep near the stove had curled up on the thief’s pillow. It began a greasy purr that nearly made the windowpanes rattle with its volume. Just getting near the cat had taken Gilbert months of snacks thrown. But he assumed it recognised one of its own.

The same way every single detail of the Magpie’s clothes was specially built to achieve silence, stealth, and efficiency, his entire body seemed to be tailored in the same manner. He was slender of build with sharp angles everywhere. He seemed to be made of muscle and bone alone, and just looking at his strong, nimble form made it clear that he would have no problem quietly hauling himself up a rope or sprinting and jumping and climbing for long stretches before becoming tired.

His body was obviously as much a tool to him as the lockpicks in his armguard.

Gilbert guessed the Magpie King to be in his late twenties. There was a single, silver hair in his short dark mane. Now that he was freshly bandaged and the worst of the agony was over despite the vomited-up tincture, he was… fascinating as he lay under the blanket, relaxed and unworried as he slept. He was oddly beautiful, and Gilbert caught himself looking forward to seeing his silver eyes open.

Then he gave himself a severe talking to and dragged his reading chair from the office to the bedroom, so he could recline and catch a nap. He placed a foot on the thief’s mattress, so he would hopefully wake when the thief did. Before he wrapped himself up in a blanket, though, he put a hand on the thief’s chest. To reassure himself of his heartbeat – only to make sure his work wasn’t in vain, of course.