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I can’t rightly say how long I was imprisoned in the basement of that tower. Time’s a strange thing, especially when you can’t see the sun. All I know is that I was able to retrieve my sword and pilfer some intact clothes from whatever Cerenites happened to call the upper levels home, and that when I emerged into the world outside I had to blink a few times before my eyes adjusted to the midday sun.
The clothes weren’t made for my size, and they was uncomfortable on my person. I had to ignore that for now, as I made my way deeper into the city. At first, I was limping my way along, and every step I took brought with it a sharp stab of pain in my legs. But by the time I was making my way down Perin Street, the pain had faded and my strut had become steady.
“Am I healing like this because of you?” I asked under my breath.
No sooner had the words left my lips than Ferengris was walking alongside me. “You are,” he told me. “We’re getting closer and closer to becoming one. The barriers between us are fading faster every day.”
I kept on walking. I turned onto Merod Lane and strode into the Muck Quarter. I was headed for Miss Nora’s, and Ferengris knew it because he was in my head and the more we merged, the less of my thoughts could be kept from him.
“You know we’ll be one within eight days or so at this rate,” he told me. “Faster if you draw on my powers again like you did back there. You’ll fade away within me, no longer an individual, gone for good. Ain’t that what you’ve been trying to avoid?”
My heart sank. The awareness of my approaching oblivion crept into my thoughts, and I pushed it away. “There ain’t much chance of avoiding it now though, is there?” I asked, and I almost choked on those words as they left my throat. “We got no clue where the mask is. I got one last thing I intend to do in this city, and then I’ll... I guess I’ll just leave. I’ll head out deep into the wilderness, where I can’t do nobody any harm. I’ll die and you’ll... you’ll just have my body then.”
I walked on, kept my face forward and my jaw tight. I didn’t look at Ferengris, and he didn’t do anything to make me look at him neither. We didn’t speak again as I continued on my way through New Alms to the place I’d called home those past few years.
Soon enough, the building stood tall before me. In the daylight, it didn’t have none of the splendor or allure that it showed off in the nighttime. The colored lanterns that lined the doors and windows were unlit, and there was no music and no sounds of revelry or gasps of pleasure drifting their way out onto the street. All it was, was a great big square of bricks, once red and now well on their way to becoming black with the dirt and grime of a modern city. Miss Nora’s stood silent and still, just another dull building in a sea of dull buildings, with not a thing about it to mark it as different from all the others.
Except that wasn’t quite true, was it? There were marks, so long as you knew where to look. This was my home, and I knew my home. I knew the crack on the sidewalk near the front steps, the stain on the curtain in the second-floor window from when Quinn had that mishap with the scented oil. I knew that one of the four steps leading up to the front door had been set wrong and was slanted just slightly to the left—the second step, that was the one. When I put my hand on the doorknob, I knew the feel of the cold metal in my hand, and when I turned and pushed I knew the way the door would swing open, anticipated exactly how much resistance the old thing would give me, and knew precisely how soft of a creaking noise to listen for.
Some stranger out on the street would never be able to pick Miss Nora’s building out from all the others on the block, but I could. I could because I knew it, because I knew the ins and outs of the place I called home.
And what’s more, I knew that I was never gonna see it again.
I stepped inside, closed the door behind me, and made my way down the hall. I could smell cooked meats and baked dough—Quinn was making a pie. I paid no mind to it and headed up the stairs, to the second floor, and I went past all the bedrooms to the place that Miss Nora used as her office.
My knuckles rapped on the wooden door twice, and after a moment I heard Miss Nora call out from within: “Come in.”
Taking a deep breath to try and calm my fraying nerves, I opened the door.
Miss Nora sat at her desk. She was looking over a notebook filled with all sorts of numbers. I’d met countless more legitimate businessmen—and robbed quite a few of them blind—who didn’t keep ledgers near as complete or meticulous as Miss Nora Promise. If even a single Crown was misplaced anywhere, she’d know.
She lifted her gaze from the ledger, and her eyes went wide when she saw me. “Jackson!” she exclaimed, and stood up, a relieved smile breaking out on her face. “I was getting worried! We haven’t heard from you for three days, and that night you went out on that mysterious job...”
“Some fool blew a hole in the Temple?” I asked, and I felt the corners of my mouth curl up into a smile, despite myself.
Her face went red. “What happened?” she asked me.
“I got tangled up with some pretty dangerous people is what happened,” I told her. “I tried to get some help, but, well... Turns out there’s less folks around I can trust than I thought there was.” Eric’s betrayal hurt. It hurt real bad. It was yet another bad feeling that I pushed away. I couldn’t let anything like that distract me, not right now. “And it gets worse.”
“What happened?” Miss Nora asked again, the color drained from her face.
Before I could answer, I heard someone behind me. “Jackson! You’re home!”
I turned around, and before I knew what was happening, Lilly’d thrown her arms round me and was squeezing me tight. Down the hall, I saw Rita climb up the stairs looking curious. She saw me and Lilly and flashed us a knowing grin.
“Where’ve you been!?” Lilly demanded. She pushed away from me and gave me a glare that didn’t suit her face. Her glasses had started to fog, and she took them off and wiped them on her dress. “I’ve—we’ve all been worried sick!”
“Sorry,” I said. “Didn’t mean to worry y’all. I would’ve been back sooner but, well, I was arrested.”
“What!?” Miss Nora asked.
I sighed, then stepped further into her office. Lilly followed me, and half-closed the door behind her. It was open enough that anyone in the hallway could probably still hear us loud and clear—and I’m sure that included Rita and half the other girls Miss Nora employed. Oh well. This concerned them all, so I saw no harm in letting them all hear it.
“Listen,” I said. Part of me was shocked at how steady my own voice sounded, considering. “It’s not safe for me to be here. Not safe for anyone, I mean. I’m leaving New Alms, and all y’all should too.”
“Jackson, what happened?” Miss Nora asked for a third time. She’d put on her serious face, her business face. It was an oddly comforting sight.
“I stole something for the Cerenites,” I explained. “And then I was hired to steal it back from them. Only I failed, and I got caught. I ran, tried to get help, but Eric...” I cut myself off, gulped, closed my eyes and took another deep breath. “Nevermind that. I was captured. I managed to escape but... well, all y’all need to know is that the Cerenites are planning something big. The law’s about to come down hard on everyone. They have these new weapons—machines that move on their own and can hunt people down—and they’re fixing to use these machines against the Muck Quarter. Anyone on the wrong side of the law is in danger. You’re in danger—all y’all. Please, just... y’all need to get out of New Alms and go someplace safe, and do it fast. Please.”
The office went silent. Lilly’s eyes were big and scared, while Miss Nora was staring at me with a worried expression. It was the same kind of expression you’d wear if you were looking at a raving madman.
“My whole life is here, Jackson,” said Miss Nora at long last. “I can’t just leave—not because you say so.”
“Just give it some thought, alright?” I wanted to yell at her, to scream that she had to pack up and run and she had to do it now. But like I’ve been saying, Granny didn’t raise a fool. I could see plain as day that yelling at her would just make her dig in her heels. “Make sure you’re prepared to run if you need to. And then, if anything happens, or you hear anything about any new peace-keeping machines...”
I let the words hang in the air between us. Miss Nora regarded me solemnly.
“Alright,” she said with a nod. “I’ll keep that in mind, Jackson.”
“Thank you,” I told her, and before I could freak her and Lilly out any more, I turned round to march out of that office, but Miss Nora grabbed me before I could, and pulled me into a hug.
“I don’t know what you’re fixing to do,” she said. “But don’t you go getting yourself killed, alright? We may not be blood, but we’re kin. Don’t be doing anything foolish.”
My hands came up, and I hugged her back. “You were always a better mom to me than my real one,” I said.
She snorted. “That ain’t saying much.”
Even with everything weighting heavy on me, I still found it in me to chuckle. “True.” We ended the hug. There were tears in Miss Nora’s eyes, and I was surprised to realize I had tears in mine too. I left her office.
Just as I’d figured, the hall was filled with eavesdroppers. Girls watched me wide-eyed and scared as I passed them by. Near the stairs, Rita stepped out in front of me.
“You serious?” she asked. “You really think the Cerenites are gonna crack down on us?”
“I know they are,” I told her. “You got money hidden away you can run with?”
“Of course I do,” she said. She always liked bragging about how she was the most popular girl in the brothel, but she weren’t bragging now. She frowned and looked past me, at all the other girls. “Most of them don’t.”
There wasn’t anything I could say to that. I pushed past her and headed up the stairs.
I made my way up to my apartment—or my old apartment now. Wasn’t gonna be living there anymore, was I? I rifled through my things, found some new clothes, a cloak, and my backup set of picks. Strapped my sword to my new belt, then moved a loose brick in the wall to retrieve the coinpouches hidden away in there.
They was my payment for the Lugh manor job. I held in my hands the very same Crowns that Reverend Crane’d given me for starting this whole mess. It was a strange thing, to think that I’d upended my whole life just for a handful of shiny metal pieces. But I reckon most folks would’ve done the same, faced with the promise of that kind of money. It made me think that maybe Ferengris had a point when he smirked at us and our civilized ways. Maybe we’d gone and built our society all wrong, and now we were in so deep we couldn’t see any way to make it right any longer.
I hid one pouch in a pocket in my cloak, then counted out some money from the other before hiding that one too. I stood up, stretched my legs and my arms and my back, and I took one last look at the room I’d spent a good chunk of my adult life occupying.
My eyes were watering again. Damn it; I sure was gonna miss that place.
Behind me, Lilly pushed open the door and slipped into my room. I sensed her before I heard her, and I could tell without looking that she was a storm of conflicting emotions: scared, upset, yearning, sad, excited, confused... It was the whole package. I couldn’t help but feel responsible for that.
“You’re different lately, Jackson,” she said in a small voice.
I couldn’t help it; I laughed. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“You’re really serious about everyone leaving town?”
“Yeah.” I turned and looked at her. She was holding her glasses in her hands, rubbing them something fierce. Her eyes were all red and wet and puffy. “I am.”
For a moment, it didn’t seem like Lilly was gonna react much to what I said. She just kept looking at me, and then she looked away. She rubbed her thumbs against the lenses of her glasses in that nervous way she did. Finally, she looked back at me, and she said: “We could go away together. The two of us. We could run off with each other.”
I weren’t expecting her to say that, nor anything like it really. It was my turn to just look at her without saying a thing. In the back of my head, I felt Ferengris’ amusement, and at the edges of my consciousness, I was suddenly aware of Lilly in ways that I’d never been before.
She thought of me often. She wanted, and she hungered, and she desired. Her heart was beating so fast it was hurting her, and her stomach was all twisted up with anxiety and aching something fierce. It had taken all her effort and will to speak the words she just did—to force herself to say them—and now she was terrified of what I’d say in response. She didn’t want me to say no, and she was damn scared of what would happen if I said yes.
But the yes was what she wanted. By Perdition, she wanted it bad.
And here I was, the object of her desire and affection, the bastard about to break her heart.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and I really was. I knew what my future held, and I knew I wasn’t about to be around long enough for Lilly to enjoy any kind of life with me. Jackson Balor would be dead in just a few days, and only Ferengris would remain. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Lilly, I...”
The words failed. I didn’t know how to explain. So I just settled for repeating myself: “I’m sorry.”
She nodded. She blinked, and the tears in her eyes rolled down her crimson cheeks. “Was it Eric?” she asked. “Did he sell you out?”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. The pain of Eric’s betrayal stung me hard, but I still had this sense of loyalty to him that wouldn’t go away. Call it misplaced, call it foolish. But it was still there, and still holding firm. I couldn’t say the words to condemn him in her eyes.
But I didn’t need to. She looked at the expression on my face, and she understood.
Without another word, Lilly spun around and rushed out of my room. To her credit, I didn’t hear any sobs coming from her as she hurried down the stairs. Her crying was a private thing, an intimate thing, and maybe y’all wouldn’t think it, but women in her profession are perhaps more skilled than anyone else at keeping the private and intimate private and intimate.
I reckon she was already locked away in her room by the time I stopped staring at the empty doorframe. My heart was heavy, and my spirit was weak, but still I forced myself to gather my things.
In the end, I left Miss Nora’s without much other fuss. A few of the girls watched me head out, but not one of them said a thing. I was down at the corner of the street when I stopped and looked back at the place, and then and there I beheld my old home with my own eyes for the very last time.