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It doesn’t have an answer to that.
Brief nips of pain quiver through my nerves, but nothing I can’t tune out. The magic only really lashes out when I’ve had a particularly good reason to use it and still defied its call.
The fits of agony only started a year ago… and they’ve become more frequent and intense by the month. I don’t want to think too hard about what that might mean for my future.
I have to keep going forward, one foot at a time, making the most of the days I have.
The taller, slanted wooden buildings give way to smaller but equally lopsided shacks. Here and there, twists of stems and errant leaves poke from gaps where vegetation has merged with the frames.
Every neighborhood has a few eager gardeners who’ve sacrificed a bit of themselves in exchange for a gift of encouraging plants. Trading favors so they’ll coax a sapling or a shrub into patching up a deteriorating building is often cheaper than buying the supplies and skills for a more traditional fix.
Half of these buildings would be heaps of debris if not for the intertwined plants holding them steady.
I slip past a doorway, stepping over one of the tiny dishes left out. Even though the people of Slaughterwell don’t have much, many never fail to put out bits of fruit or dried meat in offering to the local spirits.
I don’t think anyone has ever witnessed a daimon partaking of the edible endowments. Common thought is that even if the invisible beings that flit through our lives in their chaotic ways never touch the stuff and it’s only stray cats and dogs chowing down, they appreciate the generosity all the same. They might treat the households that made the gesture with more kindness in their rambling folly.
When I reach the row of houses I’m aiming for, I veer into the dingy back gardens. I’d rather no one can ever identify the person behind my anonymous donations. I’m hardly repaying my past sins if I go into this looking for glory.
At each home, I leave a small stack of coins on a window ledge. Here and there, I glance through the ragged curtains at the signs of life within.
At Marta’s house with the drooping shingles and the tufts of thistledown protruding along the edge of the roof, I hear a familiar grunt. Beyond the bedroom window, the avid lover rocks with some new man. He ruts into her as she arches back against the sheets.
Her eager moan sets off an unwelcome pulse of heat between my legs. She sounds like she’s having a much more thrilling time than any of my hasty roll-abouts have given me.
Of course, I haven’t exactly had a broad selection of potential partners. It’s been a couple of years since the last time I dared get that close to anyone.
I slink on to the next house, shedding the private image and the pinch of longing it brought. One by one, I leave coins for Bogusi the cook, Anielle the seamstress, and Oska the butcher’s assistant.
These people have never properly met me, but I’ve spent years watching over them. Sharing their joys and sorrows in snippets of conversations overheard.
They’re the closest thing I have to a family now—a very large family, even if they barely know I exist.
At the last house in the row, two little girls scamper around the patchy yard. I crouch by the refuse bin, the previous pinching sensation expanding like a clawed hand squeezing my heart.
The younger girl trips and tumbles across the gritty soil. At her yelp, I sway forward before I catch myself.
It isn’t my place. I’m helping in my own way—the way that doesn’t risk anyone getting more hurt than they already are.
The older girl has already dashed to her sister’s side. “It’s okay. I can look after you. Let’s get a bit of water to wash the scrape.”
I remain frozen until they vanish through the back door. Then I breeze by as stealthily as a spirit, leaving an extra coin in the stack on their window.
I’ve only gone through half of my plunder. Not a bad take, considering how the theft nearly turned into disaster. But as I pause at the crossroads, a hollow forms in the pit of my stomach.
My hand lifts of its own accord to my left arm, where I keep the ivory ribbon tied just above my elbow.
Is any of this really enough? Or am I scribbling with a dry quill across ink that’s already long set?
I jerk my fingers to one of my still-full pockets instead, forcing a grin to chase away my unsettled emotions. I’m accomplishing more than nothing, anyway. I’ve seen the little bits of happiness a few extra coins can spark.
I head across the street to the next row of houses. As I reach a low fence I can hop over into another garden, a cry splits the air from farther up the road.
A rough, pained cry cut off an instant later with a gurgle.
My feet stall, my gut twisting. A shriek like that can’t mean anything short of horrific.
But I don’t get involved—not directly. If I try to step in…
