The Nameless Assassins

Helping Tess

Far from being devastated by Faith's bargain with Mylera, the orphans gleefully organized a canal-side-pink-bow-removing party that involved scuffles on stepladders, mudball fights, and shredded bits of pink satin that stuck everywhere until the rains swept them all into the canal. (I opted not to meet privately with Mylera after my next class.)

"Perhaps we should move out of the railcar into Strathmill House?" Ash suggested hopefully while the two of us were supervising Faith supervising her little revenge party. In reply, I raised one eyebrow at the confetti-like fabric dotting the canal banks.

Ash persisted, "We should live in a style that's more appropriate to guild members of our status."

By which he probably meant windows that actually shut and kept out the damp, rooms larger than the space of one train compartment, and beds that weren't thin mattress pads scavenged from the Brickston dump. Tempting, but – "No," I answered flatly. "This building has had pink bows on it for a week. Everyone in Crow's Foot knows that we own it."

To that, Ash could only sigh in assent and surrender his dreams of opulence.

As compensation for his shattered aspirations (and over Faith's protests of "But the orphans, Isha! You're interfering with their education! Do you really want them to wallow in ignorance for the rest of their lives?"), I did help Ash remodel one schoolroom. Although the original intent was to create a decent meeting room where we could host allies and contacts, the room quickly turned into his private study. There, away from the grubby little hands of his beloved orphans, Ash would periodically sequester himself to update his account books and agonize over each coin he'd spent.

Just about the only sum he paid out willingly was a handful of slugs to the Insect Kids for the life essence that they'd collected from dead Crows. Privately, he confided in Faith and me that the children hadn't exactly done a stellar job at scratching out the appropriate runes, and the life essence they'd collected was weak at best, but he wanted to encourage them. So he doubled the amount his mother had paid him for the little vials and handed a pouch of slugs to Spider, who immediately dragged the other Insect Kids plus Azael and few of their special friends off to the nearest bakery. (At some point, Ash was going to have to teach a class on savings and investment.)

By this point, the Insect Kids were splitting their time between the railcar and Strathmill House. On the one hand, they had friends at the orphanage, but on the other, they took their runner duties seriously. Also, while Sleipnir sometimes hopped along with them on their errands, he lived at the railcar with me. At first, I suspected that his presence drew them back as much as their sense of duty, but I soon noticed that where the children slept correlated strongly with the crew's mood. On evenings when Ash, Faith, and I were bickering amiably in the common area, we'd hear little thumps, barks, and squeals of delight from the Insect Kids' compartment. But on nights when Ash, Faith, and I were genuinely fighting, the children would mysteriously vanish, to reappear in the morning. It was a little sad, but perfectly sensible.

In the midst of all these changes, Faith found time to track down the Charterhall priest at whose service we'd murdered Skannon Vale and Tocker Helker. Months later, the clergyman was still in disgrace because two people had died under his supervision, plus – horror of horrors – he'd surrendered control of his body, however briefly, to an unholy abomination (i.e. gotten possessed).

"The poor fellow was starting to worry that he'd get demoted to somewhere truly terrible!" Faith cried after she returned from her little mission.