“Aye,” Mia said. “Apologies. I lost track of time. My ship puts out at tenbells.”
“Why’d you come here, Mia?” Sidonius asked.
“I told you,” she said, cool as autumn breeze. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. I have and you are and that’s the end of it. So I’ll be off.”
Mia took a step away, felt his hand on her arm. She twisted, quick as silver, slipping free of his grip. And ripping up a handful of shadows, easier and swifter than she could’ve done even a few weeks back, she vanished before their wondering eyes.
She squinted in the worldblur, Stepping to a shadow farther down the street,
and then another
farther still.
Her head swam from the burn of the suns above, but she stayed on her feet. And finally, content they’d not be able to follow, she began groping her way forward, blind to all the world, waiting for the familiar whispers to guide her back to the waiting Maid.
Except no one was whispering.
“Mister Kindly?”
She blinked, feeling about in the shadows for her friend. Realizing he’d not come with her.
“Mister Kindly?”
Mia cast aside her mantle, turned back to the alley mouth a hundred feet away. And there he sat, a ribbon of darkness at the gladiatii’s feet, tail twitching side to side as he spoke. She felt a swell of rage in her chest, raising her voice in a shout.
“Don’t you dare!”
The not-cat ignored her, and by the time she’d run back across the cobbles, the Falcons were all looking at her like she was someone new. Disappointment in their eyes. Consternation. Maybe even anger.
“Mister Kindly, shut your fucking hole!”
“… i do not have holes, fucking or otherwise…”
Mia aimed a kick at the not-cat’s head. It sailed harmlessly through the daemon, of course, but she tried to kick him again regardless. “What did you tell them?”
“What you were too ashamed to ask,” Bladesinger scowled.
“You little shit!” she cried, kicking the cat again. “I said we’d manage!”
“… and i said you cannot do this alone…”
“That wasn’t your decision to make!”
“… no, it was theirs…”
“You hateful fucking—”
“Mia,” Sidonius said gently.
“Sid, I’m sorry,” she said, looking among the Falcons. “All of you. I thought about it, but then I thought the best of it, and I never should’ve thought it at all. This isn’t your fight, and I’d no right to drag you into it. Don’t think the lesser of me, I—”
“Mia, of course I’ll help,” Sid said.
“Aye,” Bladesinger nodded. “My sword is yours.”
Bryn folded her arms and glowered. “Always.”
Tears stung Mia’s eyes, but she blinked them back, shaking her head.
“No. I don’t want your help.”
“Crow, you saved our lives,” Bladesinger said, nodding to Mister Kindly. “And if the daemon speaks true, yours is in greater peril than ours ever were. What kind of curs would we be if we left you to swing after all you did? What kind of thanks is that?”
“What about the theater?” she demanded.
Wavewaker shrugged, gave a sad smile. “It’ll be there when we return.”
“No. I’ll not have it.”
“Mia, you risked your life for us,” Sidonius said. “Everything you’d worked for danced on the edge of a knife. And still you gambled it all to see us to freedom. And now you’d stand there and tell us what we can and can’t do with it?”
“Damn right I do,” she snarled. “You owe me your lives? Go fucking live them. You want to give me thanks? Do it when you tell your grandchildren about me.”
She spun on her heel, glaring at the shadowcat.
“We’re leaving. Now.”
“… as it please you…”
She began stalking away down the street, heard Bladesinger affect a yawn.
“You know, that last glass of goldwine just went straight to my head,” she said. “Think I need to walk it off down by the harbor.”
“Aye,” Bryn said. “I could take a stroll on the boardwalk.”
“Sea air,” Sid crooned. “Think I’ll come, too. Book a cruise, maybe.”
Mia rumbled to a stop. Shoulders slumped.
“I hear Ashkah is lovely this time of year,” Wavewaker said, strolling past her.
“Never been to Ashkah,” Bryn mused, hooking her thumbs into her belt.
“Hmm,” Bladesinger pouted. “Nor I, come to mention it…”
She watched them wander down the street toward the water, the tears back to burning in her eyes. They stopped at the end of the road, turned to look at her, slumped and scowling on the cobbles.
“Coming?” Sidonius called.
She looked at the not-cat in the gutter beside her. Betrayal like a knife in her chest. He’d always been one to question, aye, push