I always found 'fade to blacks' at end of chapters to be a sign of laziness from authors. But it was a necessary evil, you can't just continue on writing after nearly dying. I went to college, I know how you end a chapter: with a cliffhanger steeper than my atrocity count. [Unintelligible words are scratched out and rewritten repeatedly] I must profess that bringing that book back home might've been the worst mistake of my life, no wait, I apologize, that goes to befriending a White Hand. It's not my fault, she's nice and has some rather [Written hastily in atrocious longhand is two words] alluring assets.

I distantly felt my body come into my consciousness, my heart weakly thudded but it felt like it was in my guts. My awareness spread through my fingers, and then my legs and toes. A vast whiteness spread before my eyes, enveloping the horizon— I realized I was staring at the ceiling.

The events of yesterday ran through my mind, meeting with Rade and his friend, getting the book, and… Nyx. My thoughts cracked like a thin sheet of ice over a lake, Nyx was somewhere.

I twisted my head to look at my right arm, I cried out at the sight of it. It looked like a pack of wolves had gnawed on my arm to get to the marrow. I tried taking a deep breath but the metallic odor of the sanguine ichor crawled through my nose mutilating my senses temporarily.

I tried moving the fingers of my butchered arm but I felt nothing, it was comparable to an amputee trying to operate their missing limbs.

I turned my head to the right, a chair sat in front of the window. The sun was peeking over the clouds just above the horizon. The rays illuminated what sat on the chair leaning against the backrest, the tome. I moaned internally.

Slowly, like a mummy, I rose from the bed, immediately a spell of dizziness took me. My head lolled around as I tried to regain my faculties. Pushing myself off the bed I took several steps before collapsing into a heap against the wall. Fucking hells. Darkness vied to curtain my sight.

Getting into the water room was a quest by itself, and I wanted to avoid the reality lounging on my desk chair, waiting for me, as long as possible. I slipped into the shower and watched my blood whisk away underneath the hot water. I let it pour onto my face, I stood there for what felt like hours.

I viewed my ruined arm with interest. I couldn't control it, it was limp, but it didn't seem to be as ravaged as I had perceived it. I Gingerly prodded it with my finger, it swayed a touch. I picked up my arm and turned it over, white spots littered it. White as the skin of Nyx, I studied the white spots, I pinned my arm against the shower wall and stared closely, the white was spreading, a lot like frost on a window. Was it a form of possession or was it sacrifice? Classes at the college were brief when discussing ex-magics, it was likely that she was utilizing Voodoo or an archaic form of Tyranny.

I rubbed my arm, my skin flaked off. That wasn't a good sign. I picked at my skin, the whiteness went deeper. I pushed my finger deeper into my arm and peeled away my dermis, it came off in thick strips. The flesh fell on the floor of the shower, making an audible squelch. Veins began latticing through. I tore off the rest of my… my arm fell off. It landed on the heaps of wet dermis, and it—disintergated into a slough of organic matter.

I retched several times. I think I was crying, but it was hard to tell. I wasn't one to cry.

Taking a deep breath I began to plot.

I suspected that she knew I wasn't going to release her and prepared a failsafe. If she was going to use my body as a vessel by infecting me with some sort of possession magic then I needed to stop it with whatever means possible. Which meant I would kill her. No matter what I said and how I acted, no matter what happened between us, I was going to murder that whore. It would take time, I knew that I pretending to befriend her was going to be loathsome, but the moment I plunged my knife, would bring a brilliant elation.

I grinned eye to eye and kept grinning until I got out.

I tied the towel around myself after turning off the shower, creeping out of the water room I fixated my eyes onto the book that sat on the chair bathing in sunlight.

"Ah, how are you?" said Nyx, "You seem to be, unarmed." Her laugh sounded strange, with the pages of the tome rustling along with it.

My right arm began to resonate, I felt it more than I heard it, my mind expanded, the sensation caused me to stagger.

Something cold writhed around my body, a winter zephyr was my guess, judging from the open window, or perhaps my imminent death, both possibilities seemed rather favorable at the moment. I rubbed my hands together as I drew clothes from my wardrobe. I grabbed my tailcoat from the chair.

We stared at each other. Well, that's how I perceived it.

My arm was already growing, I saw it out of my peripheral vision. It was shaping into a wiry structure. I couldn't move any parts of it though, but it rose on its own. The phalanges extended and retracted, bending towards the palm and then straight again. She was controlling it.

"My pseudo-ticket to freedom!"

I stretched, "Have fun." As I took my first step ab liber my ex-hand snagged it.

No escape.

It was crisp outside, snow blanketed the college grounds, and the lake had frozen overnight, I observed after exiting the front door.

I wasn't walking to someplace, I was simply strolling through the city. New technology was springing forth from the cracks, gas lamps now lit the streets of the city-states. The production of steel was becoming easier and more efficient, allowing the construction of structures more than two stories. What was leading all these discoveries? Scholars pointed out that the free education rolled out by the Saints was responsible. The Saints were locking away books they couldn't destroy and burnt what they could, and instead were preaching the merits of technology. Things like 'electricity,' 'black powder,' and 'engines,' were being developed and advanced. "For the advancement of Humanity!" They said.

How naive, magic was superior.

"What are those lights?" A voice asked from my coat inquisitively.

I kept walking. My right arm dangled lifelessly with every step. I was going to defy her every chance I got.

I peered at my right hand, skin was beginning to stretch over it, the fingers were first. Void colored nails, sharp as razors and pointed like barbs, protruded from the digits, snow-white skin covered the hand, I couldn't see how far up it extended. The color of the new arm contrasted with my olive skin tone. The hand reached up and withdrew the book. It flipped it open and I was greeted with the sight of Nyx posed on a chair, or rather, a throne. She didn't bother crossing her legs, she sat slouched against the back of the throne with her legs splayed out— how ladylike.

I diverted my attention forwards.

"I'm sorry for what I did." She said quietly. I quickly glanced downwards, she didn't look apologetic. Nyx reached behind her lustrous throne, it was a glass of wine... or— after last night, I wouldn't put it past her if that was my blood. She had squeezed my arm like a grape, I felt queasy thinking about it. She swirled the crimson liquid and took a sip shotting me a smug look. I shut the book on her and returned it to my pocket, after a brief and strange fight with my? Her? Arm.

Well, I had come to terms with my death last night, and waking up this morning had been a less than pleasant surprise. Prisoners didn't hold parties in their cells after finding themselves intact after being rendered unconscious from a night of nail-pliers and rusted hammers.

A carriage slammed into a wall as it turned a corner, a whip cracked and the creature was hurtling down the street with the carriage rumbling behind it, I threw myself aside to evade the death machine. A woman abaft of me shrieked.

The carriage had the Saints' flag painted on its side, a wolf gripping the moon with its canines.

I turned towards the woman that had screamed, I rose my eyebrow hoping she would rise to the bait and answer the obvious question, but she was lying in the snow with a man beside her. The two got up and brushed off the powder. The man shrugged at me.

I turned away and began to walk, but this time with a destination, the forum.

People milled about, most of them buying today's groceries from the stalls that turned the ordinary empty town square into a labyrinth of meats, fruits, vegetables, and irritating children.

A snowball smashed into the back of my head, I spun around but the perpetrators were already fleeing, giggling the whole way. I unclenched my fist, breath in, breath out, calm yourself. The children don't deserve your wrath, though perhaps next time I'll use Nyx as an improvised shield. The thought didn't scare me as it should've, sure, use the psychotic sorceress capable of killing you in the worst way possible as a shield against the bane of humanity: snow.

"The children seemed to have missed their friend and instead hit our dark-haired Prince." Nyx purred,"why don't you follow them down an alley and cut them open. Then serve their flesh at the market."

What the hell was she saying? She was fucking insane, it was obvious, but calling her insane seemed to have clarified what my future interaction with her should be limited to. I was alive because she wanted to be free, not because of luck or misplaced attraction.

"I'm kidding." She chuckled. A goat at one of the livestock pens sneezed.

"Your sense of humor is faultlessly tact," I replied, sarcasm dripping akin to my bloodied arm the night prior.

She started saying something but I was already tuning into what the the town crier was announcing, there had been two murders last night, one was found with his tongue and eyes missing, he had died from what the White Hands said, 'blunt trauma,' he been beaten to death by a book that was found bloodied beside him. The other man was found with his fingers missing and coins packed from the bottom of his stomach to the roof of his mouth— the crier went on explaining in-depth with the energy and enthusiasm that was demanded of town criers— that the latter man had bled to death from the slit across his guts. The amount of detail that came from him was incredible, the very fact he would go into detail about the murders showed how willing they were to inform the people.

Huh, if I didn't know any better, that was Chapped Lips and Rade, murdered… ironically. I had to appreciate it, I couldn't stop myself. My grief over the deaths of my two friends hurt a lot.

The whole time I had hardly trusted them, we had been only business partners, nothing more. They hadn't been friends I decided, the pain subsided a little. What we engaged in— what we had engaged in wasn't friendship. Huh, denial did have comfort in it.

"Huh, I wonder who did that."

"The Panacea," I said dryly.

She tittered "Not Its style, It likes statistics, not tragedies."

I didn't humor her with a response. The woman, according to Occam's Razor, was clearly responsible; But the implication of her being able to kill the two in a single night was unsettling. I unconsciously pulled my coat tighter. How had she done it? There was more to her abilities, and she probably wasn't going to share it, though it was worth a try.

I braced myself, "How did you do it?" I said underneath my breath, hoping that anybody listening wouldn't understand the context.

"You carried me through the city in the dead of night."

"Yeah, and while we were at it I paid my taxes, read my textbooks, and wrote my paper on possible uses for black powder."

Nyx can appear on the pages of the book, she can affect how the cover appeared, and she was able to stick out limbs out of the book. She was put into the book for good reason too, but why wasn't she dead? You don't put evil people into objects and hope that some idiot sorcerer doesn't listen to them when asked to be released. An ex-lover that couldn't bring themselves to kill her? An old friend? I tried recalling what Chapped Lips said when he handed the book to me, but I all dragged out of my cranium was a blank.

I leaned against the wall in sight of the crier who was yelling about the siege of Gruus. The Panacea was at work again, huh, funny, we were just talking about him.

Gruus was already dead. After the removal of prominent, powerful, and sophisticated mages, the strength of the Troika diminished severely. It rested on the Saints to help out with their 'Divine' magic which really was just up to the third tower of Abmian sorceries, and their experiments with black powder still yielded no results for use.

I sighed, it was time to eat breakfast and… it was a Monday, wasn't it? I had a class today. I looked up at the sun to gauge the time, there were clouds.

Food was far more vital than class. I began to walk towards my favorite tavern, The Hanging Sword.

There were large swathes of Saints swarming the streets, they walked in pairs, dressed in black ankle-length coats, the coats had simple red epaulets that were like shoulder straps. Underneath the overcoats, they wore white starched-collared shirts and brown trousers. The only official unifying thing was the armband, a white jagged tooth with a red crack in it, the background color was an unholy black.

The Saints happened to also be on my personal kill-list, though my feelings for them weren't as scorching as they were for the wild witch of the text.

I tensed up and watched several pairs pass us. I stared to the right, avoiding eye contact.

I continued into the tavern and sat at the bar where I could watch the chef cook through the hole in the wall. The girl working the bar turned to me, "Hey, Vassy, whaddya want today?"

"The special."

She nodded, wrote something on a notepad, tore it out, and handed it to the waiting hand of the cook. Her hand swiped up a glass and filled it with water, she placed it in front of me. She turned back to the chef to pick up a plate and carried it over to a man sitting several stools down from me.

"Excuse me, Mira," I said after she returned back to the bar, The girl turned back to me. "What are the Saints doing here?"

"The two-"

"Murders from last night?" I finished.

"Yeah, those." Her eyes trailed a pair of Saints crossing over the room to sit at a table where another duo waited. "Business is better, the murders brought a lot of attention, and they're hungry." She smiled.

"The locals love me alre-"

I quickly slid my arm across the counter sending my glass of water crashing onto the floor. "Whoops my bad, my bad."

That caught the attention of the whole bar, but no one spoke, I didn't notice that the volume of the bar had gone as silent as a mausoleum.

Mira leaned over the bar, "What are you up to this time, Vas?"

"Staying alive?" I smiled weakly.

She smiled back sweetly, "That'll be twelve dramu."

My right hand stuffed itself into my pocket and as quickly as it went in, the arm threw a handful of coins at her. The coins struck her in the face. She fell back, "What the hell is your issue, Vas?"

"I didn't do it!" I shrieked. She was doing this on purpose, wasn't she? Trying to get me into trouble. She probably was enjoying this.

A Saint stood up from one of the barstools and walked over to me.

My eyes widened, holy shit, this was not good.

"Issue?" His gravelly-voiced grunted.

I shook my head slowly, "No."

"My friend here," Mira smacked the bar with her palm, "Thought it was funny to throw money at me after I charged him for the cup."

I began to pry the coins off the table but the Saint's hand caught me after I picked up three. "That won't be necessary."

"I've just been having a bad day is all." I chuckled skittishly.

The events of last night and today were starting to catch up to me. "Excuse me." I stood up, but the man didn't release my working arm.

"I'm gonna be late for class, and if I'm tardy the teacher will throw me into the lake."

"Mr. Faust."

I quirked an eyebrow, "You know me?" I asked hesitantly.

"Come with me." He let go, but my guts were bubbling with anxiety.

What if they knew? Did they think I did it? I knew the Saints have a way of sensing magic, but, it wasn't that accurate! Perhaps my two partners left a trail to me?

"Wait, hold on!" Yelped Mira, "I was joking! Vasra!"

He lead me outside.

We were walking down the uneven cobblestone road, towards the crime scene. The two apparently lived, had lived I corrected myself, on the same street... huh.

Two Saints stood at the entrance of a two-story house. The man I was following nodded at the two sentinels and let us in, they eyed me passively.

The first floor was the landlords home, and the second was their home.

We climbed up the stairs, the wood creaked under our boots.

The Saint turned left into an open door.

I followed meters back, attempting an apathetic expression.

Rade and Chapped lips were—well—dead. Very dead. The nervousness that was beset onto me the entire way from the tavern paired with the sight of the two people I had worked with caused my nausea to flare up. I turned around and dry-heaved into the corner. My legs shook underneath me, and I was light-headed. I leaned against the wall, looking away from the scene.

"Our two agents are dead." The man said without looking back on me, "and you're the only one they've been assigned to.

What? They were agents? I leered at where the tome was hidden in my coat. She killed them, because, they were agents? It still didn't add up-

"Their last report, which was expected last night never came." The rough agent scuffed his boots on the wood floor. "All we found were shredded documents."

"So, this begs the question." I thought aloud.

"You are the obvious culprit," He started, "But you had no motive, nor do their reports on how you act, help solve this mystery since it's very unlike you. Unless…"

Woah woah woah, wait. I closed my eyes, he knew who I was, where to find me, and what I've been trying to get for the past year. This was planned. I didn't have time to dwell on my revelation as I was interrupted by Mr. Scruffy.

"How long did you know they were our agents, Mr. Faust." Said the White Hand detective.

"I-"

"Yes or no." He turned around.

"I didn't know!" I grounded.

"When the sun rose, we detected the use of magic barrel through the city, and it originated," He took a dramatic pause, "From your room."

"I," I blinked, "What?"

"Magic was detected, it trailed all the way here in mysterious patches above the buildings." The Scruffy Saint smiled, "Teleportation."

"I can't teleport!" I squawked.

He took a step forward, "Your desire to learn led us to deduce the fact that you've been finding real tomes and hoping that my agents would eventually get you something that made sense."

"They were feeding me useless crap the entire time!?"

His face was grim, he nodded once. "You're under arrest."

I couldn't tell him about— Could I? They could help me, even if I hated the bastards, the enemy of my enemy was somebody I still needed to kill later.

"It wasn't me," I yelled dragging myself off the wall and into the middle of the room, "it was," My right arm clamped onto my lips, "ah maaic bouk."

The Saint whipped out a long chain and threw it, I watched it spin vertically in the air, the silver chain wrapped around me and tightened like a snake. I fell onto my back uselessly. I tried talking but my hand was now tied down to my mouth, I flopped around like a fish. He came over and threw me over his shoulder.

My life was over.

They let me walk into the cell sparing me my dignity, but that didn't earn them a love letter and my kidney. The cell wasn't so much of a cell, it lacked the spartan look that most cells shared. There was a desk and two decent chairs, a painting of a Saint back-to-back with a sorcerer depicting them fending off a horde of monsters, engraved on the smooth-stone floor was a rather complex anti-echera formula; my paltry parlor tricks had no power in these lands.

There was a White Hand waiting for me inside, she sat cross-legged on the bed in the corner. White hands were officers of the Saints, it was the only position that allowed both men and women. They dressed similarly to the grunts but had gold trimming on the clothing as well as white wolf heads baring their teeth instead of a bleeding tooth on the armbands. The woman was slightly tan, wore her blonde hair in a bun, and had a heart-shaped face. She wasn't as intimidating as the man I met earlier, but perhaps they were going for a different approach.

Her head followed me as I walked into the middle of the room. I stared her in the eye, they were stern and a dark green, the lady also had a sharp nose.

"Please sit," She said gesturing to the seats.

"I'm alright."

"We've been keeping tabs on you since-"

"I got into the college."

"-you went to the library to check out books on magic."

I didn't let it show, but I was impressed, and a bit scared. I was a child when I started reading about stories about powerful sorcerers, which inspired me to learn magic as well. I hadn't gone anywhere, even after studying a surfeit of tomes. It had been excruciatingly slow learning from what did make sense. And then a librarian told me behind closed doors about the Saints taking tomes off the shelves, leaving the worst and nonsensical ones up to students and the general public.

It felt like a betrayal learning that the Saints were responsible for the loss of sorcery. Nearly every story I had read as a child featured the Saints as the heroes: the Sorcerer and the Saint, striking down heretics and monsters with magic. The Saints have been waging a shadow war since they were conceived a decade ago, and it was about time that somebody holds the torch to its face.

She pulled out a binder from her coat and began browsing through it. "We know quite a bit about you, you've wanted to learn some rather nasty towers of magic, right?" She smiled mirthlessly.

I shrugged, "I didn't want to be ignorant, it's important to be aware of how some of it's done, so I could recognize it."

"That makes a good defense." The White Hand responded without looking up from the papers in the binder.

"You're not my lawyer."

She peered up with a twinkle in her eye, "You're climbing the epicentra tower, and," She flipped through several papers, "and shifting." Her eyebrows rose. "Guess that makes it easier for us."

"What, why?"

"You learned teleportation from somewhere. Then you killed two of our agents."

"But I didn't!" I growled, "I was dying-" I stopped myself, telling them wouldn't earn me pity, my desperate cry for aid earlier hadn't worked, and I doubted she was going to let me say what I think really happened.

"Dying? So the blood on the bed was yours?"

"Y-yeah." I really was wishing they had searched me before walking into the room, but the formula on the ground was enough for them to not worry about magical artifacts or spells. I didn't want Nyx in my coat pocket to hear or censor me, I didn't know what she would kill me for, or if she would even kill me for letting the rats out of the walls but I—damn, I was going to have to improvise.

"Somebody attacked me last night," I made myself look downcast, to try and sell it, "all I saw was a woman and then I was bleeding from everywhere."

"Why are you still alive."

"Emergency potion kit underneath my bed."

"Why did she attack you."

Well shit.

"I don't know." I sighed dramatically. "It just, I don't know, it happened so quickly, one moment I was relaxing on my bed with my new book the next second it felt like my arm had been torn off." Good, sprinkle some truth in there, "My right arm rose and flaunted itself, "See, it didn't come back right!" I sat on the chair, "my life is ruined, I'm a monster!" I sobbed melodramatically into my hand, the right hand took a second to get the message and soon I was crying into both.

The officer stood up and approached me, "It's alright," I stiffened she wrapped me in an awkward hug, "Shhh, it's alright, we'll get her justice for killing your friends."

I wasn't one for crying but this was for the act, I had to sell it. But, as the tears flowed, I felt the stress that I hadn't noticed ease up and float away. It was nice.

No, you're a grown man, how embarrassing, you're being hugged by a Saint of all people.

No, this is important, it's the first step in destroying the Saints, by gaining their trust, starting with her.

I laughed feebly.

"Hic." I hiccuped.

The woman smiled and tousled my hair, "Feeling better?"

I nodded, staying quiet.

She opened the gate to the cell and stepped out, not bothering to lock it.

It might be some sort of test, I wasn't going to tempt them, so I sat in the chair and waited.

I felt dirtied after being hugged by a Saint, it was like walking into a slave market and appraising people like meats at the market, disgusting. Even worse, the hug had come from a white hand. A scowl twisted my face.

I took a deep breath and let my head hang from behind the chair.

After several minutes she stepped back in, "Several more questions and you'll be free to go."

I fueled an attempt to avoid smiling, but it was futile. It broke across my features, my cold glare shattered with the, rather creepy as Mira had put it, smile. "Sure, yeah, okay."

"We'll also excuse everything that our two deceased agents had you do," She coughed into her hand, "Because of a certain somebody."

I frowned, who would help me? I didn't have friends, not anymore. I wasn't friends with any of the students at the college and besides, they were there because they had no other place to go. Nobody went to the college because people saw sorcery as deviant. We were practically shunned! Making friends was difficult, keeping them, apparently, even more so.

"Anyway," She walked around the desk, "What's the strongest spell you can cast without completely depleting yourself?"

Huh, I thought about what I should tell them. "I can use tower two abmian magic, like fireball."

"A classic, but you're studying Epicentra and alexei, where did you learn fireball?"

"I asked a professor," I said flatly.

"But tower two?"

"Tower one focuses only on theory and basic hand channeling."

"I know."

"I knew some theory, so it was rather easy to figure it out. I can show you if you like." Take the bait I thought.

She waved her hand, "That won't be necessary."

Got her. I couldn't actually use fireball, but now they thought they had a general idea of how weak I was. I could, in fact, use fire orbs, fire blast, and several other tower three spells. Well, I knew how to cast them, but actually doing it was… difficult to say the least. Staying only in fire made it less stressful, it was important to learn something that could kill people, no defend myself. I wasn't going to fall to Nyx's level. She was a bloodless murderer.

I had really learned tower two spells when I had snuck into the forbidden section by simply pretending I was supposed to be there. I even nodded at the librarian and she simply smiled back, the memory was one of my favorites, the adrenaline that pumped through me then felt amazing. Tower two had simple ab body missile spells, tower three required much more complicated manipulation, each tower's spells was exponentially more difficult than the last. Anything higher than two required registration and licenses, as well as joining the Caster Corps. Fire was easy to control, once it struck any object it kept burning unless it was something I didn't want to burn or hurt, and it lasted as long as I still had echera, or the target was flammable. Burning Nyx had crossed my mind, but it couldn't be that easy, best not to risk angering her.

Shifting also known as Alexi to scholars, was mostly theory at the college, actually turning your body into different forms rarely ended well for anyone below tower three. I enjoyed studying it, especially when the theory made sense. Epicentra was also dangerous, but for a different reason, it required an ocean's worth of echera to power fatal attacks, and if you went over your limit, spells whiplashed. The best I could do with it was create a ten by six radii of fog. I couldn't affect any physical matter or create anything like a hail of knives. That wasn't even in the library, tower four and what not. I studied the Abmian Tower because it was the sister tower of Epicentra, and I studied shifting because I hoped one day I could sneak around in my fog kil-

A cough. My eyes focused on her, "What about the two towers you are studying?"

"Both tower one." I lied. I was just a tower two Epicentra, but a tower one shifter.

"You should be studying what you've signed up for," She shook her head, "Tower one in both? Just change your professors. If you're going to be studying different things."

I threw my hands up, "You guys have taken all the books, there's nothing worth learning but abmian."

The White Hand sighed, she actually wasn't that old, only several years older than I.

"I guess."

I nodded along with her.

"Before I let you go, you have to agree to always being accompanied by a Saint."

"What! Are you fuckin' serious!?"

"We have to make sure that you're not doing anything illegal." She coughed into her hand, "And also your friend is worried about your health."

"What friend?" I finally asked, curiosity burning.

"Miss Scilla." The White hand responded with a queer expression on her face.

Mira considered me her friend? Sure we complained about our lives to each other when she wasn't busy at the tavern, but friends? C'mon. There were several times that she invited me to picnic on a hill to gaze at the mountains that shadowed the city, but that wasn't friendship! That was— I tapped my fingers on the chair, that was— damn. Friends were people like Rade and Chapped lips, the two of them were always with each other. Mira and I rarely saw one another, and when we did, we spoke, except when she was busy, she didn't bother me when she was busy.

"Mr. Faust?"

"Yes?"

"Come with me."

"Buy me dinner first."

She shot me a venomous glare. I might've imagined it, but I also heard faint laughter coming from my coat.

We walked through the hallway, the other cells were vacant, not a soul around. I could kill her right now, I glanced at the back of the Saint's head, but that would net me a death sentence— as if that was a concern of mine anymore.

We arrived at an office, she opened the door and let me in first. Sitting on the chair in front of a desk was Mira.

"Vas!" She stood and hugged me.

It was like my gods had abandoned me.

"Vas you bastard, what happened?" She was crying now, getting my neck wet. The warm tears seeped into my collar, Ugh.

"I'm alright, they thought I was responsible for the murders."

"What!"

"Yeah, absolute madness, who would ever kill Saint agents?"

"This is no laughing matter, Faust." I turned my head to the White Hand.

"Thanks, Valerie," Mira giggled happily, "Why don't you visit anymore?"

The Saint sighed, "I'm busy."

"And so am I" She buried her head back into my neck. "Doesn't mean you can't not ignore work." The words came out muffled.

"Can you," I wasn't sure what to say, the shock of the hug was wearing off, and now I was left with an emotionally volatile female. "Eh, can you, mhm." I hesitated.

"Let the poor man go, Mira."

Perhaps the only time I gave thanks to a Saint, if I were a more devout man, I would have prayed my thanks to her every night for the rest of my life.

I extricated myself slowly from her prison. She rubbed her eyes of excess moisture. "Sorry, I was just worried why a Saint would arrest you. Even if you did break one of the cups, which you still owe me." She smiled through her reddened and tear-soaked face.

"We paid you though."

"We?" Muttered Valerie.

"You threw them at me, you cock!"

Shit, I said we, and worse, Mira was upset, I didn't have the energy to deal with any of this. I poked around my coin purse looking for a twenty, "here, Mira," I held the coin out.

"I don't want your money!" She slapped my hand away.

No mere mortal can fathom the peril that the Emotionally Volatile Female presents. I suspected for that even the Gods had created something too powerful, even for them to control. Bow before thy masters, ye heathens.

Wait, what happened to Nyx? I touched my coat to where she should be, yep, she was still there. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Mira stormed out of the office and plodded down the hall leaving the officer and me in the room. We stood there awkwardly.

"You know each other?"

"We're cousins."

"Oh." Well, that put a damper on my kill list. I supposed if I managed to get her to quit, I wouldn't have to kill her. I stood there trying to think of something to rend aid to the situation, "Can you go talk to her?"

"You're her friend." I saw that smug smile, damnable woman, as I stalked after Mira. Valerie followed me several meters back.

Mira was standing at the front door of the Saints' headquarters drawing attention with her sniffles.

"Mira, are you alright?"

"I'm fine," She didn't turn around, "I'll see you soon?"

Huh, that was easier than I imagined. "Yeah, I'll stop by tomorrow."

The Saint sidled up next to me, "I'll make sure he does, Mirs."

We watched her until she turned a corner.

"So— Vasra," She said, trying out the name on her tongue, "You have class today."

I did, but I didn't feel like going.

"I'm exhausted."

"You're wasting Saints coin, you're going to class."

The Saints funded the college?

And with that last thought, Valerie gently placed a hand on my shoulder and pushed.

As I strolled out, I heard the faint rustle of laughter from my coat.