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“Want a drink?” Xavier asked. She glanced at him shaking the dregs of his clear bottle. “It’ll warm you up.”

Lily smiled softly to herself despite the knot twisting up in her belly. She couldn’t lose too much inhibition if she wanted to be gone by daybreak. “I think I’ve had enough.”

Xavier’s eyes widened. “You’re not the only one.”

“Ready to go, whores?” Reina threw herself onto Lily’s back, wrapping her arms around her neck with a waft of sour breath.

“Ettan’s light, Rey, you reek,” Lily heckled, fighting against her hold. “What’d you drink? Failen sludge?”

Reina mocked a laugh, choking Lily once more. “The only places I couldn’t check were those clubs you death licking souls hang out in, Lil. Y’know, the ones where they suchubate rats er’ whatever.”

“Suchu…? You mean, subjugate?”

“That’s the one! They’re so picky about who they let in. And all the reapers hanging around wore masks. I thought death smelled like sugar to you shades.”

“You mean shards,” Lily told her. And it’s more spicy than sweet. Like cinnamon sugar.

“That’s what I said.”

Lily chuckled. “Sober you knows I don’t have a shard.” Technically, not a lie. Shards were souls blessed with one of their corresponding gods’ abilities. Being a vessel for a Flare, Lily had all three of the Wraith’s abilities and then another that only her and the Guardian’s vessel shared. “I hear pain smells like a dying fire. You don’t smell it on me every time you crush my feelings by acting out, do you?”

“Fine. Be mean to me and my boring ole soul,” she slurred then giggled, releasing Lily. “Come on. I got us into Aarin’s club with the help of our new friends.” She dangled a crescent-filled bag, embroidered with fine silk, carelessly in Lily’s face.

Lily snatched the money from her. “Where did you get this?”

“Sometime this morning,” Reina hiccupped.

Lily sighed, placing the bag inside her own beside a ghosted pistol and the drugs. “All right, my escence slinging queen. You did good, but let’s not flash this around here, please and thank you.”

She placed a hand over Reina’s back to guide her the way she came. Not long after turning a corner, whatever liquid courage Reina had consumed surfaced in an alley next to some poor soul who looked like he’d suffered the same fate. Lily rubbed her back while Xavier bought her a concoction that would ease her stomach and subdue her breath.

“Screw you both.” A sobering Reina groaned, gripping her stomach. She still wore the long overcoat from this morning, but through the unbuttoned top, Lily could see a tight brown corset hugging close to her breasts over a mustard pair of billowing pants and laced, heeled boots. Her eyes, the color of a freshly squeezed orange, stood out against her skin like treasure in a jewelry box. She was a shade of the Gnaw, god of pain and strength; the latter quality Reina embodied perfectly.

“Us?” Xavier laughed. “You insisted on this!”

“You should’ve talked me out of it.”

Lily and Xavier shared a pointed glance.

They came to a halt in an area riddled with glass windows. Behind each of the bottom panes was a man or woman undulating their bare flesh behind yellow tinted, frosted glass to a steady, low rhythm that thumped indistinctly behind the walls. Beneath the display was a set of stairs descending downward. A stark blue light lined the angles of the corridor.

Xavier made a disapproving sound. “These places give me the creeps.”

“Aarin’s a shard,” Reina said, exacerbating the last word as if to prove she was more level headed now. “And this is where shards spend their time. Don’t be judgmental.” She fluffed her hair and extended her arm to Lily who linked it with hers. “Ready?”

Lily offered hers to Xavier who waved it away, standing behind them.

At the bottom of the stairs, Reina rapped her knuckles against a steel door. A single black orb poked out from its niche in the metal, shifting until it found what it was seeking. Reina waggled her fingers at the camera.

“I’m back! Remember me? I have an appointment with Aarin.”

After a few seconds, the camera sunk back into its position as silent as it arrived, and the door swung open.

“Do you think he’s excited to see me?”

Lily’s sip turned into a guzzle, the sweet, tangy liquid completely worth the cost to help numb Reina’s fawning over Aarin. She peered through the calm but crowded space, spying Xavier beyond bodies and upholstered leather couches. Illuminated from the pink glow of the lighting, he had struck up a conversation with a group near the entrance. He seemed at ease, so Lily tried to follow suit.

“Lil.”