The guild won't know what hit them. Death by aggressive care.
At least they'll die with all their vitamins.
Chapter 6
Ridge is swaying again. Fourth time in an hour, and his face has gone from pale to gray-green.
"That's it." I start packing up my paintings. Only managed to sell one today—the landscape with the wonky trees. Someone's aunt called it "art with personality."
Ridge straightens when he sees me closing early. Tries to look alert. Fails. He's sweating in weather cold enough to see your breath.
"You don't have to—" he starts, then grabs the wall.
"Come here." I abandon my half-packed canvases and march over. His forehead is burning. Actually burning. "You have a fever. A bad one."
"M'fine."
"You're not fine. You're basically a walking infection." I grab his arm. He tries to pull away but he's weak. "We're going to Crow's for medicine, then you're going to bed."
"Can't leave post."
"Your post will survive without you for one night." I'm already steering him down the street. He weighs nothing. When did these people last eat properly? "Unless someone's planning to attack me in the next hour, in which case they can wait until you're not dying of pneumonia."
He makes a sound that might be a laugh. Or his lungs protesting. Hard to tell.
Matthias takes one look at Ridge and starts pulling bottles off shelves. "Fever reducer, something for the cough, and—" He pauses. "This one's for the infection that's clearly setting into his chest. Two drops every four hours, no more."
"How much?"
"For you? Half price." He wraps everything carefully. "Boy needs rest and proper food. Soup. Nothing heavy."
"Soup I can do." I count out coins, then turn to find Ridge listing dangerously to the left. "Where do you live?"
"Can't—"
"Can't tell me, yes, I know. Super secret criminal hideout." I get my shoulder under his arm. He smells like fever sweat and leather. "Point which direction at least. I'm not letting you collapse in an alley."
He points vaguely northeast. We start walking. Well, I walk. He mostly stumbles and occasionally mumbles what might be directions or possibly fever hallucinations. We end up in a part of the city I've never seen before. The buildings get older, darker, pressed together.
"Through here," he manages, gesturing at what looks like a solid wall.
"Through the—oh." There's a gap, barely wide enough for one person. "Of course you live somewhere that requires squeezing through walls."
The passage opens into a courtyard that's seen better decades. The cobblestones are cracked, weeds pushing through. Windows everywhere, all dark. And the smell—mold and damp and too many people in too small a space.
"This is where you live?" The words come out before I can stop them.
Ridge nods, then immediately regrets the motion. I catch him before he falls.
"Right. Bed first, horrified questions later."
The inside is worse. Corridors that drip with condensation. Stairs that creak ominously. And cold—the bone-deep kind. No wonder everyone's sick.
We pass two guild members who freeze at the sight of me. One reaches for a weapon.
"He's sick," I say firmly. "Either help or get out of the way."
They get out of the way.
