Martin stopped on our way back. "The food wasn't that bad was it?"

  Blood dripped out of his mouth.

  "Well fuck."

  "Care to explain that a little bit? Did you get a cut? Am I about to witness something incredible or something terrible because I don't really want to see that right now."

  "Now it's not..." He paused, taking a second to step next to a wall. " These fuckers have the worst timing."

  Aether rippled next to us and several mages were immediately cornering us. I could have taken that moment to freak out. But they weren't looking at me. They were looking at him. That made each one of them a liability.

  To be fair, they briefly looked at me. "Ah the wayward master has returned."

  The voice was icy and unforgettable, like someone had taken a terrible rodent and asked it to screech. They undeniably had power but they also undeniably either hadn't hit puberty first before starting this life of crime or there was something else going on with them.

  "There are better ways to get my attention than trying to poison my food. And in front of my new friend?" Martin held up a hand. I could feel him preparing aether.

  I placed a hand on his shoulder.

  Martin jerked around, falling to one knee. His eyes were full on black. "Martin, come back to me."

  "Interesting that you've come back so fast. I suppose that now that you finished one job, you're back for another one?"

  "The deal was for that one."

  The cowled man sneered. "That's not going to hold up. We're going to need another one."

  Martin wiped his face with his sleeve. I focused my attention on the mages. They were pulsing with aether.

  Either he'd run afoul of some of the worst men available or they'd want to follow him and decided to get back at him. Either way, it looked like he was going to be having a bad time. Or at least he would have had a bad time, if it wasn't for me being around.

  For a moment I considered intervening but perhaps that wasn't the best idea. I would see if he wanted to do to let this play out.

  "You want him to take care of something for you."

  For the first time, they looked at me directly. They assessed me and I'm pretty sure that they looked at my ears. Those were definitely going to indicate that I was fae. I didn't know what they were going to do with that but that was on them.

  "In a manner of speaking. Do you speak for your man, or can he speak for himself?"

  “He’s not my…”

  Martin flashed a grin, grabbing my hand. He retched. Flecks of black bile hit me. I seethed, but this was his fight. I could leave at any time. The alleyways around me felt close as if the person who had decided to build it had nothing better to do that spit on open spaces.

  "What do you want?"

  The thrill was right under my touch, waiting to be used. I could feel it.

  "We have one more job for you."

  "Name it." Martin was breathless. Whatever they were using, I could almost feel it. It was close to one of the magics that...

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Wait was he just going to do it? I reeled. You didn't just do what the men with cowls said to do not matter what your situation was.

  "There's a problem we need you to deal with in the dark arts."

  "Well that's unfortunate."

  "They don't need to be killed. They just need to look the other way."

  My eyes darted between the men. There was definitely some blood in that bile. It was thick enough with it but the fumes... He was going to need to drink something substantial after this.

  I was going to need some fae wine after this if Martin didn't want me to level half this city.

  "No killing?"

  "That's not what I said."

  "Fine. Consider it done." Martin retched. "End this foul gaes then or she will be cross. You don't want to cross her."

  For the first time the aisle is between the cowls seem to consider me as something more than just a woman. I know there was a reputation that human and women had in their worlds. I didn't prescribe to such ideals of women being the weaker gender. They were strong in different ways.

  For this moment, I just wanted these guys to be out of our way. I didn't want to be squeezed by somebody. Heck, I just wanted to wash off my arm before I got too into this.

  They gave him something in a scroll. I assume they were going to want to talk to him alone but I was not letting Martin out of my site.

  The fact was that I didn't like them and I didn't like the amount of smells that there were here and it was pretty sure that somebody had pissed in the corner that I had intended to walk to up until 5 minutes ago. I'd rather deal with piss, honestly.

  "We'll drop it at the usual place."

  They disappeared just as quickly as they showed up. Around the corner and... The urge to chase them down and destroy them was strong.

  "What just happened?"

  "There was a reason I was out there. The fae that I killed?" Martin was up and looking around the corner.

  "Those guys were the fuckers that sent you in so ill-prepared?"

  He has shown up and what had to be a one week long trip over water solo and a canoe to kill one man. He probably didn't have enough supplies to return which is why I took pity on him and his rippling muscles and brought them back to land. Or perhaps it wasn't pity.

  Men like this? Thieves that took their pleasure having other men do their dirty work? We had those in the fae realm.

  I placed his arm around my shoulders. Martin was weak and having trouble walking. "There's two of us. Lean on me."

  "Thanks. The gaes always... It always takes it out of me. I hate being called. Fuck I should have stayed out there. Life would have been so much simpler."

  "You're not going to die. You going to live because dying is for young men and weak people."

  We limped down the street. I did my best approximation of a woman carrying her drunk husband after a morning of drunken partying. Of course, I assume that humans drank in the morning. When else would they drink. It was the perfect time. Before anything else started. It would be great to drink because then nothing else could really happen, right?

  "When this is all done we're going to go Day drinking for real."

  "Of course. I would have it no other way."

  I hated how the humans design their cities and these circles that slowly made their way up. This specific of course was on the side of a hill which meant that the further up we went towards the academy which was on the far side, the higher we got until it hit a plateau. This meant that the roads could go up down or just straight and curve. Of course. Curving roads are not great when you are drunk but they were still better than roads that were straight down so you can roll.

  It also looked like it would be fun to slide down if there was ever snow here.

  Of course the damn thing was that the cobblestones were unforgiving. If you tripped up on one then the others would back up their friends like if was their solemn duty.

  Several cobblestones try to trip me up but I was too wise to the game to do so. I would not make it all the way to the human lands to call it a day here. They would have to claim their own victims on their own time. I wasn't having it.

  By the time he got back to the boat, he stopped wretching. This was good for many reasons. Mostly because that meant he would finally be able to drink something and that I could finally check him out.

  It also meant that he was going back to the boat with us. He did not feel like it would be prudent to go back to his apartment with this weighing on him.

  "Hail. Oh! What happened to him?" Stuart said. He was in his normal state of undress, naked from the waist up.

  "He got into a... Disagreement with someone who... Well let's just say that a gaes was involved."

  Stuart and I both knew that this is always bad news. I didn't know if I was going to have to be the one to break it to Vivian. But whatever compelled Martin to act that was on him. If he wanted me to help him out. I could probably do it. I just did enough. Was going to be the best thing for me. He was cute and all but cute enough to follow around on some sort of death mission? Almost certainly not.

  He would have to ask for that kind of help. It came with strings, just like he did.

  Myself? I preferred to cut strings when possible.