The Nameless Assassins

Waiting

Perhaps the adults-only common room was a good idea, because the conversation I walked in on later that morning was very much not rated suitable for all audiences (particularly not Moth, who seemed to be developing extreme spectro-phobia after her encounters with Cricket). The entire railcar was quiet except for murmurs drifting from the common room. When I silently placed my ear to the door, they resolved into Ash saying, "I read something about it in a book – "

Faith's high-pitched, drawn-out yawn pierced the door just fine. "You shouldn't believe everything you read in books, you know."

Obviously filtering that out as part of the price of her mentorship, Ash persisted, "Where can I find a demon to practice talking to? Do you know any?"

"Why, yes!" I heard a little thump, as if Faith had been perched on the bar and now jumped off. "In fact, I know a couple demons you could practice on! Have you met this friend of mine, by name of Ash?"

That friend of hers, who might be re-considering the title, huffed, "Ideally it would be a grotesquely inhuman demon."

Personally, I thought he was walking – no, diving headfirst – into a trap there, but Faith actually missed it and feigned sudden enlightenment. "Aaaah, you want actually demonic. Why didn't you say so from the start? Is having demonic parts sufficient? Like a demonic kidney? I hear Isha has this friend, whom you might also know! His name is Bazso or something?"

Even though no one could see, I rolled my eyes.

Ash must have done something similar, because Faith chirped, "Well, if you're looking for something truly horrific, there's this old friend of mine who would love to chat with you. In fact, I think she's one of Isha's friends as well! She lives between Six Towers and Nightmarket."

"Do you mean the tentacled canal demon, by any chance?" demanded Ash.

"The one with the giant, bladed suckers? Yes! She's very friendly – very nice. Tell her I sent you."

At that point, I decided to intervene before Faith got Ash eaten, drowned, or both. Tiptoeing back down the hallway, I re-approached the common room, treading heavily this time. Then I pushed open the door and said, "Good morning! Do we have any coffee?"

"Ah, Isha!" Ash greeted me with unsurprising relief. "Coffee is on the bar, if Faith hasn't knocked it over." Over the usual outcry ("I would never!" and "Coffee stains are even harder to get out of silk than blood, you know!"), he plotted out our day: "I suggest we start training the Insect Kids to be effective skulks, the sooner the better. A cohort of scouts would be most useful, especially after we teach them how to act like civilized human beings. Did you know that they're all illiterate?" Tycheros must have had a higher literacy rate than Doskvol or U'Duasha, because he sounded personally affronted.

Sauntering over to our shiny new coffeemaker, I poured myself a mug. "They did grow up in a tenement in Six Towers," I pointed out. "They're smart. They'll learn. It might be a little more frustrating for Spider and Moth, but Locust just hit reading age anyway."

Ash gaped at me. "You mean that in Iruvia, you don't start teaching children to read until they're five?"

"Savages!" Faith murmured, ostensibly to herself but at a volume that carried around the common room.

"There are plenty of other things to learn before then!" I retorted. Etiquette, for one. You wouldn't want your toddler to offend your third-cousin-twice-removed and trigger a blood feud that would end only with the extermination of one of your branches of the family, did you?