You’re a burden. An inconvenience. You’ll just get in the way.
The words echoed in her mind unbidden, no place for her to shove them away or ignore like she’d been doing her pain.
Aofe reached for her crutch. “I’m going to check the back.”
Kizros finally turned, concern marring his kind face. “Aofe, wait?—”
“Excuse me,” Tholvich said loudly, just as the bell chimed to indicate another demon entering. “Another paying customer? Or a return?”
Ignoring the shop, Kizros reached out for her. “Please, Aofe?—”
“It’s fine,” she lied, using a surge of energy to dodge his grip and give him a deflecting smile. “I’ve got things I can do”—a financial disaster. Too demanding. Lazy—“in the back.”
She knew Kizros wouldn’t follow her, not with someone in the shop. She turned and…
Fled. She was fleeing, wasn’t she? After fighting so many battles today, this was the one that made her give up.
Aofe avoided the workroom. There was nothing moreshe could do to her contraceptive today, and she wasn’t about to taint any of the other potions Kizros was working on, even if she knew how to make them.
The first of the stairs was an effort, then there was pain flaring in her hip. She bit down on her excuses, fighting for the next step and the next. Over and over, until there was no recollection of how she’d made it back to her room. Sweat beaded on her forehead as she collapsed into bed, each movement more painful than the last.
Sleep. She just needed to sleep this off, and by morning, maybe her pain would be more bearable. Maybe she could think for longer than a few seconds as to how she might still help Kizros without hurting his business.
But as she looked out the window toward the moonlit street, shivering under the thick pool of blankets on her bed, she wondered how much longer she could actually survive here. If she could keep getting up every dark day and power through pain and sickness so Kizros wouldn’t see the truth about her.
When morning came, the answer was no.
6
MISSING
Kizros
Aofe didn’t leave her room the next day.
Kizros had gone upstairs as soon as he’d gotten rid of Tholvich, but she hadn’t answered her chamber door. Hadn’t come out for dinner. Hadn’t made a single noise all night.
When he’d knocked on her door yesterday morning to deliver breakfast, he’d heard the lie in her voice through the wall separating them.
“My monthly bleed came early. I think the demon realm is making it worse.”
All day, he’d twisted that lie over and over in his head, letting his guilt fester low in his gut. Thenhe’d tossed and turned all night just to find her locked away again the following morning, no sounds escaping her room.
No, it wasn’t her monthly bleed; he would have smelled her blood. And even if he’d wanted to place the blame on Tholvich for the disrespect he’d shown, maybe abhor violence a smidge less, he didn’t think that was the only reason she’d left.
Kizros sat at the front counter, leg bouncing as he ignored the empty shop. He had his books out in front of him, one with his financials, the other a human compendium that he’d dragged out from his back shelves.
Aofe had called his staring rude, but now it was serving him well. Something about her peachy skin losing that flush reminded him of the demons who lost their magic. While their skin lost color to a heartbreaking gray, they never lost vigor. It seemed that Aofe’s body was leeching colorandlife, and nothing in his books had prepared him for this.
But he noticed. He noticed the tremor in her hands, her difficulty in grinding some of the tougher components. He remembered her flinch of pain when he’d patted her shoulder, and the winces she sometimes disguised with a smile he was starting to figure out might not be so composed after all. Not to mention how she seemed to lean more heavily on her crutches instead of just using them for stabilization.
Maybe she needed better crutches? Or perhaps he wasn’t giving her the right nourishment. He’d made sure the meals they’d cooked were full of meats, veggies, and fruit, and she’d done well to eat them all.
Could she have been lying about the freckles? What if they were some illness she was disguising? Or had the healers missed something more critical that the slavers had done to her?
Anger burned in his gut, unfamiliar and sickening, but present enough to have him shoving away from the counter. He needed to move, tothink. Come up with some plan to bring color back to his tiny human.
He locked up the shop, watered Tim and the others on the shelves, then did another quick inventory check. By the time he’d walked the aisles and gotten his final tally, he knew what he’d do.
