The Yorks? So Harper already knows that the alley doesn't have any Satyrs.

I share a confused look with Russ. He sinks slightly with realisation.

“We’ve been played.” He says faintly.

“How many Satyrs were there? How many women?” I return my gaze to the Madam as a fury bubbles through me. My hopes smashed, success further hindered by fickle hands playing from the shadows. She sent us here on a folly. To do her dirty work.

“Five sla… Satyrs. Three were cows.” She catches her breath as the word slips out, her fear returning.

A loud crack shatters the middle of the door as a white shoulder pushes through. The attendant's head pokes through the gap, then screams in alarm. “Madam!”

“Get out of the way!” The marble man shouts.

Any moment now and they’ll be through.

“There’s no more bukke, it's all gone. I poisoned it to get back at them. Sold it through secondaries so it would reach their family’s house.” She confesses.

Whatever supply they had, it was always finite. Harper knew this and that the source of the bad batch was coming from the Sinner’s Alley. Considering the Madam’s career choice, Harper assumed we’d either kill her through torture or sheer frustration.

“Can we get out that way?” Russ nods to the back door.

“Take the stairs and follow the dark stones to the beast room. There’s a door to Undercity behind the cages.”

“I won’t be her dirty knife,” I say to Russ who simply nods in agreement. “But you’re a piece of shit for treating your own kind like slaves.”

I slap her, smooshing my bloody hand into her eyes, nose and mouth. “Enjoy your taint.”

Her howls chase us away as we retreat to the back door, snatching it open as the dungeon door finally caves in. We don’t look back as we rush through and sprint down the stairs.

Simple patterns in the brickwork are displayed with varying colours, each split off at intersections. We follow the dark line round bends and corners, ever descending.

“Can we trust her? What if it’s a dead end?” I call out.

“We’ll know when we see the exit, it’ll have those etched runes on the frame,” Russ says as we round a sharp turn.

The hunting Blackroots’ calls echo from behind. A cry of pain and harsh insults soon follow as one of the drunks takes a tumble.

“Isn’t the Undercity exit blocked?” I ask.

Russ ignores me as we keep going.

We enter the beast dungeon through thick doors. The large room holds all manner of animals locked behind bars, it reminds me of the Zoo. We pass miserable eyes, the creatures left to circle endlessly in their tiny habits all day long in the near dark.

I stop at the sight of a large rodent with white feathers. It lays motionless except for a tiny bundle staring back at me with defiance. It’s young cuddles close to the parent, maybe at the start of its adolescence, it still has a lifetime of suffering and boredom within this cage. I turn the key left in the door and swing the screeching gate open.

“What are you doing? Seth?” Russ hisses as he searches for the hidden exit.

I try to coax the feathered stoat out but it refuses to abandon its dead family.

“Fuck! It’s fucking bricked up!” He slaps his hand against a solid wall before rushing back to the corridor, he steps out the doors for only a second before slamming them shut again.

“They’re onto us! She must have told them!” He grabs an empty cage and wedges it against the door.

I natch the stoat, which bites and claws my cursed arm. Luckily some coral growth has spread and begun coating it with a protective layer.

Russ joins me in releasing all the animals nearby, kicking the cages to get them out though most remain. A great clang announces the blockade has fallen.

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“Little pleb!” The marble man calls out.

The small garrison saunters with confidence down the thin pathway towards us. Calling us cornered rats that need to be culled.

“You know what they say about a corned beast!” I shout back before swinging my beads. The stoat squirms in my arm as the chittering fills the room, my heart pounds along with the noise. Snarls, roars and growls erupt as the hungry beasts find they’re imbued with restored energy. They launch themselves towards the exit, and straight into the unpowered, semi-naked men that only wield sex toys.

A sharp pain catches my arm. The stoat's mouth froths with thick saliva that hisses as it dribbles onto the floor.

“Seth, get rid of that thing. It’ll burn your arm off.” Russ grabs it by the scruff of the neck which causes a fat gloop to shoot out. The substance melts the wall like it’s made of loose sand.

The corrosive liquid had barely touched me but the pain was intense. “I thought it was just a bird-rodent hybrid.”

“It's a Mordax, alchemists keep them to harvest their acid sacks.” He steps back from the hole that continues to melt.

I squeeze it, spraying the brickwork. It falls away easily, except for the stones marked by runes. Whatever power they contained was enough to resist the substance.

We leap through the hole and onto the streets of Undercity.

Putting two districts between us and the Blackroots, we finally slow to a walking pace.

Dressed and with our abilities returned, I’d used my tame lesser cattle on the Mordax. I was pleasantly surprised to find it had worked and Stoat was now an official member of my flock.

Russ was still in a depressed stupor since realising we’d been tricked.

“So she wanted us to kill the Madam as payback for the poisoning.” I strike up the conversation.

He grunts at me as he lights an ebony.

I pinch it from him and take a drag. Trying to bait the man out and get his attention. “She used us, just as you were using me.” I snap.

He glares at me before lighting another and walking away.

“Admit it, I was a path to Harper for you.”

He grumbles a yes.

“I haven’t held anything back from you, Mother, the prophecy. If we are going to help each other then you can at least do the same.” I check over my shoulder in the hazey street light, ensuring that no one is following. As always, not many people were out for a stroll in these streets.

Stoat pops up from underneath my bear poncho, her feathers puffing out like an angry owl.

“Go back to sleep little one, your fathers are just fighting.” I coo to her.

Russ turns on me. “Is this all a fucking joke to you? The adventure in wonderland you always dreamed of.”

I hold my cursed arm out in the street light. “Sheer luck saved our asses back there and that wasn’t the first time. But I can’t stop this. Every night I go and murder some poor bastard who had to choose the hard life to survive. It doesn’t matter if I survive because this curse is eating me from the inside. So fuck me for trying to have a laugh in a moment of peace.” I step up to him. “I know I’ll finish this prophecy, even if it takes my sanity. It’s my only path home so what choice do I have? I don’t even know what you want, but I’m sure it has something to do with her.” I hold his necklace, the pendant open and displaying a young girl.

He slowly takes it. “Thank you for keeping it safe.” He says finally looking me in the eyes.

A humid breeze blows at my greasy hair as the silence hangs between us. I want nothing more than to clean myself with the bucket of fresh water in the stables and go to sleep. But this void of trust growing between us was becoming difficult to ignore. I need help in my mission and I believed Russ was an asset, this drama in the brothel outlined that he has his desires and goals. I want to help him where I can, but if he hinders me further then we'll have to walk a different path.

Finally, he caves. “Bella, she’s my daughter. She’s back home.”

He grips the pendant tightly before placing the necklace back around his neck.

“That’s why it’s important we help each other and talk like a team. Mother brought me here to save her followers. Once I’ve fulfilled the prophecy then she’ll send me back. She’ll send us both back.”

He pushes me away. “I don’t have time to wrangle every bloody lost soul, you don’t understand.”

I grab him before he can get away. “Then help me too.”

A single tear runs down his weathered cheek. “I’ve been here for eight years, Seth.”

My stomach drops, he’s lived this nightmare for eight years. His daughter grew up without a Dad, always wondering why he abandoned her. The torture of knowing the pain his absence caused must be soul wretching. I try to take him into a hug but he pushes me back.

“If a deity pulled me from my family, I would have sought the means to slaughter them. But I was never so lucky to have a purpose here. I’ve been searching for a way home this whole time. While she’s waiting for me. Ancient libraries, distant oracles, dark rituals. I’ve done horrendous acts.” He falters for a second, staring into the shadows before shaking it off.

“I even went on a fucking raid. While she waited for me” His voice broke. “I’d given up after that. Drank and smoked myself into a dream, it's the only place I could be with her. But then fate finally took a shine to me, after so long crawling through the darkness.”

He opens the pendant again, carefully removing the tiny picture to reveal something hidden behind it. He hands it to me.

A polished portrait of Queen Elizabeth II shone on the ten pence coin.

Why would this mean so much to him? The single piece of change barely held any value in our world.

Then it dawned on me.

“You didn’t bring this with you?”