Telik’s foot came down, crushing the demon’s head underneath. With a final unearthly shriek, the crimson and sable fiend dispersed into a fluttering black fog, which itself quickly faded, leaving behind only the panting crimelord.

  Gone was Telik’s casual confidence. His suit was torn and shredded, revealing oozing wounds and savage burns. One such burn had scarred his face and taken half of his lank hair. His shoulders sagged as he tried to collect himself.

  [Gift of the Void] experienced gained

  Experience: 57%

  Tenebres watched with wide eyes, stunned. The slaughter demon had been nine-feet of obsidian death, built like an oversized, heat-warped skeleton wrapped in muscles of burning tar. It was the same kind of fiend Tenebres had summoned moments after he received his gift of the void, an avatar of bloody-minded death that had cut through Kellen, his enforcers, and everyone else in that accursed underground cult.

  Telik had defeated it by himself. At no small cost, admittedly, but he had done it, and Tenebres wasn’t at all sure what to do next. He had paid close enough attention to know that Allana hadn’t been sitting on her thumbs. He had seen the small cuts open on Telik’s skin, when the crimelord had been too distracted to notice the extra damage. But he had no idea where she was now, leaving him facing the crimelord apparently alone.

  Telik spat to one side, a wad of blood landing on Geoffrey’s corpse. The late assassin’s office had been wrecked by the fight between the major fiend and the crimelord, and after all of that, there was no doubt the assassin was well and truly dead.

  “What… in the Rogue’s name… was that?” Telik’s every word came with a deep, gasping breath, his abilities unable to counter the exhaustion of such a fight.

  “A demon.” Tenebres’s voice sounded high and flat in his own ears. He was terrified. He had never considered that anyone, even the much-maligned crimelord, could defeat the slaughter demon. The cost for summoning it, even buffed as he had been from Sacrificial Victim, left the boy all but immoble, his every physical attribute drained to near empty.

  “Oh a demon, is it?” Telik’s gruff laugh had an edge of madness to it. “Fine then, don’t tell me. Once I have you bound, I’ll have that same power under my control… then even the goldshites won’t be able to loom over me! I’ll rule this thrice-damned city!”

  “No you won’t.”

  Another slash opened on Telik’s already marred chest, the wound dripping with thick green-black poison even as Allana shimmered into being a few feet in front of him.

  Telik laughed at the girl. “You don’t get it, do you? I spent a small fortune buffing my resilience for tonight, so that I could kill Geoffrey. If he or that Tyrant-damned demon couldn’t do me in, you think your pathetic little poison can do it?”

  Allana smiled–and Telik suddenly sagged, falling to one knee, clutching his chest.

  #

  Elation lit the acid pool of Allana’s rage into incandescent flames. He had fallen for it.

  “What? What did you… What did you do to me!?”

  Telik’s rage was a pale shadow of itself, a good match to his rapidly whitening face.

  “I knew you’d boost your resilience,” Allana told him, the words as sour as they were sweet as they rolled from her tongue. “You’re a cockroach, Telik. First and foremost, I knew I could count on you to buff your resilience, to make sure nothing could kill you. So I didn’t poison your resilience.”

  “Impossible,” Telik growled. His legs shook as he forced himself back to two feet, glaring blunt daggers at her.

  “It would’ve been, not so long ago,” Allana agreed, watching her obvious delight drive yet another dagger into Telik’s mind. “You had no way of knowing I hit Initiate with my gift of poison. I only just leveled up, after all. After I killed Vernen.”

  “You… you what?”

  “Oh yes.” A wide smile stretched Allana’s lips. Despite everything that had happened that night, she couldn’t help herself. Everything else was forgotten in the fog of bliss at the crimelord finally getting his fitting reward. “And it turns out, at Initiate level, my gift of poison can make a whole bunch of different poisons. I can target any attribute I want now, not just resilience. And I got to thinking… see, a few weeks ago, Tenebres and I went to kill this monster. A darkmaw, not that it matters. And I had a scare afterwards. Tenebres got a big, big dose of stamina poison. It left him exhausted, and I thought it might kill him.

  “See, you can’t just heal away a stamina poison. Resilience doesn’t matter. We had to keep feeding Tenebres stamina potions until the poison ran its course–otherwise, if his stamina got too low, his body wouldn’t have the energy to keep itself alive. His heart itself wouldn’t be able to keep beating.”

  Telik’s bloodshot eyes went wide, and he looked down at the hand still clutching his own heart. Sweat beaded on his brow. The smell of his fear was the sweetest perfume Allana had ever known.

  “Exactly. See, I figured, knowing you, you had never really pushed yourself the way the slaughter demon forced you to. You had no frame of reference for how exhausting it can be to fight at your limits, especially given your habit of buffing yourself. So I figured you wouldn’t notice the stamina poison doing its job, even as you kept burning stamina to use your special attacks, spending like your purse had no bottom.”

  “That’s what you don’t get, you little bitch! As long as I have my gold…” Telik’s face lit up as his hand flashed down to his belt–and found nothing but air.

  Allana couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled up out of her throat as she lifted a hand–and bounced Telik’s money pouch casually in her open palm. “As long as you have your gold, you have power. Is that what you were going to say? Yet again? But you spent so much during that fight… Do you even have any left?” More laughter. She couldn’t stop it now. “It was my first lesson, remember? I was nine. You taught me to cut purse strings–then cuffed me and took the money for yourself once you saw gold in the purse.”

  Telik froze in place, stricken. She had done it, Allana realized. Patience, preparation, perception, and performance. Just like Geoffrey had trained her.

  Telik had built her to be his weapon, and the same skills and gifts he had given her had been the tools that had brought him down. But it had been Geoffrey’s careful, subtle lessons that had truly undone the crimelord. In the end, he really had killed Telik, even if it had cost him his life.

  Telik’s eyes flashed to the door, and Allana knew what he was thinking. Even without the gift of affluence, Telik had a speed boost from the gift of the thief. He could make a run for it. If he could find a potion in time, he could bolster his stamina, make it to a healer, get his revenge later.

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  Telik was a cockroach. A survivor. His own life was more important than anything else.

  Allana had been like him, not so long ago. The Allana of the previous winter wouldn’t have hesitated to run for it when Tenebres had grabbed Telik’s attention. But she had found something more than mere survival. Through the chandler, the darkmaw, the fishmonger, Tenebres had shown her that some things were worth dying for, even as Geoffrey showed her that other things were worth killing for.

  She couldn’t let him flee.

  “Geoffrey, now!”

  #

  Tenebres was as surprised as Telik when Allana signaled the assassin.

  Telik whirled around, turning away from Allana, lifting his dagger in a vague defense, only to see that Geoffrey’s broken body hadn’t moved an inch.

  The crimelord still looked confused when Allana reached around from behind and cut his throat from ear to ear.

  It turned out even Telik’s resilience had limits.

  A gout of blood shot from the man’s neck. His arms twitched feebly with small, aborted motions, as if he was trying to use his little remaining strength to strike back at Allana. But the girl stayed in his shadow, holding him in place by the hair, until the strength left Telik’s body and he collapsed to the floor, blood still draining from the wound in his throat like a broken wineskin.

  Silence. Too much silence. It felt like Tenebres had to force himself to break it.

  “Are you okay?” he asked Allana. His voice seemed too loud in the quiet left behind by Telik’s death.

  Allana stood in place, her eyes vague and unfocused, staring into the middle distance. Her fingers opened, seemingly without her noticing, and her dagger fell from her grip, vanishing before it hit the floor.

  “Allana?”

  The girl still didn’t respond. Her eyes finally moved, drifting down to Telik’s body. Her mouth twitched with half-formed feelings, a frown murdered as it was born, a smile killed and dragged from her lips, leaving her face blank and confused.

  Slowly, cautiously, Tenebres approached the girl. His body still felt weak, every step clumsy and awkward from his drained attributes. He kept moving anyway. “Allana? Are you okay?”

  Her eyes traveled from Telik’s corpse to Geoffrey’s, still laying facedown, undisturbed and unmoved by the vicious fight that had gone on around it. Composed and unflappable even in death.

  A shudder ran through Allana as Tenebres wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace.

  The dam broke, and they both fell to their knees, tears of rage and joy and fear and relief and loss shared between them both.

  Neither spoke. Neither needed to speak.

  #

  “Even if I had arrived with you, there was little I could’ve done.” Alleghy shook his head solemnly, his already long features drooped further into a mask of grief. The master healer looked up from Geoffreys body, from the pulp that had been made of his chest. “Telik must’ve feared Geoffrey was as dedicated to survival as he himself was. He was disgustingly thorough.”

  “I understand. I appreciate you coming anyway.” Tenebres said solemnly and looked to Allana, still standing next to him. The girl looked as blank and lost as she had since she had killed Telik. She had kept right next to Tenebres since, refusing to leave arm’s reach of him even when they had gone to fetch Alleghy. But still, she had said nothing since she parted Telik’s neck.

  “Of course,” Alleghy said. The aged wraith heaved himself to his feet, brushing off the hem of his gray apron. “Geoffrey was an old friend. Are you two okay?”

  Tenebres noted the way the healer’s gaze lingered on Allana specifically. “Physically, yes. A potion got me up and running again. Mentally…”

  Alleghy nodded a silent understanding. “Well… the least I can do is get them out of here.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. I have a crypt I can get Geoffrey to tonight. Somewhere that will safeguard him against the deprivations of scavengers, enemies, and necromancers alike.”

  Tenebres’s eyes narrowed at the mention of necromancers. “Alleghy… just how much did you know about what we and Geoffrey were doing?”

  A tidy little smile danced across the healer’s long features. “More than you might think. No matter. He will be safe. And I can take you to see his resting place whenever you like.”

  Tenebres looked at Allana. The girl’s eyes were still unfocused, but she gave a small, trembling nod.

  “Sounds like a plan then. What about Telik?”

  All three of them looked to the corner where Alleghy had brusquely pushed the crimelord’s corpse. The healer’s face wrinkled in distaste.

  “I’ll leave him in one of the well squares. I imagine word will spread through most of the city before the sun rises.”

  “I hope the rats find him first.”

  Tenebres turned to look at Allana, surprise obvious on his face. Those were the first words she had spoken in hours, and they lacked the acid he had expected. More than anything, she just sounded tired.

  “Works for me,” Tenebres told Alleghy. “We can’t be far from dawn at this point in any case, right?”

  “No more than a couple hours,” the healer agreed. “I should be about it.”

  Tenebres took a step forward, towards the bodies, but Alleghy lifted a long-fingered hand.

  “No need. I will take care of them.” He gave Allana a pointed look. “I know Geoffrey kept a couple spare bedrooms. Go. Rest. I will handle things from here.”

  Tenebres nodded his gratitude at Alleghy and took Allana’s hand. Her fingers were limp, her palm clammy. “C’mon Allana. He’s right. Let’s get some rest.”

  #

  The room was blessedly dark, without even a pinprick of light coming through the closed door and pulled drapes. The sounds of Alleghy’s movements downstairs had died away after a few minutes, and Allana found her traitorous body relaxing, the cessation of stimulation intoxicating to her overwhelmed, beleaguered mind.

  A message tried to push its way into view, demanding attention as it had been since she had killed Telik. And as she had since then, she pushed it away, not ready for what she knew it would say. She didn’t need to read it. Just as Telik had always planned, she had no doubt earned the gift of the assassin. That she had earned it from Telik’s murder was but a small comfort.

  What was the point? She didn’t want to be an assassin anymore. She didn’t want to kill to survive. She didn’t want to end up like Geoffrey, dead at the hands of an evil man.

  But if she wasn’t an assassin, what was she? What did she have left? Whether she knew it or not, her entire life had led her to this point, a road pointing unerringly to her destiny as a killer.

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  Tenebres stirred next to her, curling up more tightly against her side. His head, rested on her shoulder, turned so that he could leave a small, affectionate kiss along the taut skin of her neck. “I know.”

  “I don’t know who I am, Seo. I don’t know who I want to be.”

  “I’ve been there.” Another kiss, gentle and loving, and another tracing down towards her collarbone. A small gesture, almost casual, but a meaningful one all the same. There was no sexual urgency in the kisses, merely reassurance and affection.

  “I know who I don’t want to be though.”

  “Telik?” Tenebres guessed.

  “Or Geoffrey.”

  A moment of silence, then Tenebres moved again, sliding an arm under Allana’s neck, hugging her without breaking their closeness. “That’s a good place to start then.”

  “What do I do now?”

  “Now? Sleep. Everything else can wait until morning.”

  Allana wanted to argue, wanted to tell him that there was no way her whirling brain could get any sleep, no matter how comfortable it was to have him pressed against her.

  Somewhere between having the thought and opening her mouth, she fell asleep.