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I slowly turn to look to where Vesper is struggling to their feet, leaning heavily on their cane. They barely glance at the Hermit’s dead body. “We need to get out of here. There should be Pentacles already coming to deal with the fire, and it’s best we put some distance between the building and us before they arrive.”

“Why?” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Empty.

“Because they’ll bring lights and more attention and it’s very difficult to move in secrecy when there are a large number of people watching your every breath.” They reach out and gently take my arm. “Come on, Kestrel. Come away from her.”

“I killed her,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“It’s what we’re supposed to do as champions.” Saying it doesn’t do a single damned thing to penetrate the numbness taking hold. One of my priorities during the Trials was to kill Death, but nowhere in all that plotting did I really stop to think about what someone else’s blood would feel like drying on my skin. To watch the life literally leave their eyes as their soul vacates their body.

Maybe Mouse was right. I should have trained for this. There are plenty of predators in the Dregs who deserve to die. If I’d given into his pressure to hunt them, I wouldn’t be standing here, staring at the Hermit while my body refuses to move and my mind can barely process that I ripped out the throat of the very woman I saved from the Fool a short time ago.

“Kestrel.” Vesper touches my arm. I don’t even have the capacity to flinch. What is wrong with me? “You saved my life. Thank you.”

“By taking hers.” She was so young. She looks even less like Mara now, but that doesn’t stop my mind from unhelpfully imposing my ex-lover’s face on the dead woman. “I killed her.”

“Yes.”

Distantly, I appreciate their frankness. I need to get past this strange cottony feeling wrapping me in a state of worthlessness. “What’s wrong with me?”

Vesper takes my hand and squeezes. The feeling of their palm against mine, a lifeline from last night, pulls me back to myself, just a little. Their soothing voice does it even more. “I suspect you just killed someone for the first time. There’s no way to prepare for how that feels. You can imagine it, can play out the scenarios until the end of time, but actually ending another person’s life is an experience that rocks a person to their foundations.” They almost sound like they’re speaking from experience.

I cough in the thickening smoke as they lead me. “I’m okay. Or I’ll be okay.”

“I know you will be.” We skirt a second table. The entire world around us feels hazy and strange, but not Vesper. They are real and present and holding tightly to me. “But the fire is growing and the smoke is very hazardous.” They keep speaking calmly, their tone tethering me to this moment as we reach the window. “We need to get out onto the street and to safety.”

Even as they speak, I find myself looking over my shoulder. I can’t see the Hermit’s body with the tables in the way, but I can see flames licking a path from one of the hallways and into the main room. The smoke is thicker, too, thick enough that Vesper coughs a few times as they knock the jagged pieces of glass from the bottom of the windowsill. “Hurry,” they say, tension bleeding into their tone for the first time.

Cato appears on the other side of the broken window, looking harried. “You damned fools.” He reaches over the jagged glass and scoops Vesper up, quickly depositing them in the street. I’m still processing the fact he’s here instead of waiting down the block—or running for his life—when he plucks me from the building and wraps me in his strong, warm arms.

“Don’t put her down. She’s in shock.” Vesper starts walking away, leaning heavily on their cane. “We need to put some distance between us and this mess. Did you see which way the Fool went?”

“No.” Cato curses. “But I hardly think that matters right now when she’s like this.” He gives me a light shake.

“Give her a little time,” Vesper snaps. “It was her first kill.”

“Her first…” He curses again, more viciously. “If I’d known that—”

“I can hear you,” I say.

“I’m aware.” Cato takes the lead, heading deeper into the Pentacles District. He’s walking too fast. Vesper won’t be able to keep up like this.

I tap his chest. “Slow down.”

His expression twists like he’s going to argue, but he curses under his breath and keeps cursing as he slows down. “This alliance feels more and more like a mistake.”

I can’t exactly blame him for his response. He didn’t leave us, and the first proper fight I ended up in, one that resulted in a champion’s death, has left me shaken to the point of being helpless. I clear my throat and try to regain control of myself. “Then put me down and go your own way.”

“I agreed to this alliance.” He grimaces. “And if I put you down, you’ll be even slower than Vesper. You’re still too fucked up to do anything but die.”

“I heard that,” Vesper mutters. “Your idea of comfort leaves much to be desired. Take the next left.”

He obeys without question. I don’t know if he and Vesper have spoken about the breadth of their knowledge, but last night more than proved Vesper was telling the truth about knowing all the less-traveled routes in the Minor Court neighborhoods.

Cato still hasn’t set me down. His body is so warm. No wonder he barely wears more than kilts. He must be burning up in the balmy summer evening. The heat is finishing what Vesper started, bringing me back to myself, one step at a time. We pass two blocks before I speak again. “Put me down. Now.” I finally sound more like myself and less like a person in danger of fracturing.

“In a minute.”