“Living two lives, two identities—it takes its own toll. I managed for a few years, attending Tide meetings one day and off hunting with the Menagerie the next. But I became less reliable, less interested in taking jobs. I had money enough for the rest of my life, and the work made me sick. We’d known each other for so long—they thought I was merely feeling my age. I began to spy on them for the Tide. I helped the revolution gain more knowledge we could use against the Wardens. I wish it hadn’t felt like a betrayal, but it did. I knew what my old friends had become, but I grieved for the friends they had been.

“So, about a year ago, I began using Rail. The smallest doses at first.” She coughed a laugh, fingering a vial in her pocket. “I was already a monster in mind, so why not a monster in body? Nightmares plagued my attempts to sleep, so I stayed awake, euphoric and numb, so lonely and filled with secrets I could hardly function. I felt I’d lost and found myself all at once, but in pieces I couldn’t fit together.”

Kit swallowed, wiped a tear from one bloodshot eye.

“Kit—” Anji started, but the Hawkheld up a hand.

“Listen to me,” said Kit, her voice hoarse. She dug a Rail vial out of her leathers and took another dose, then nudged the leather case with one booted foot. “You’ll take half the Rhoda in there, get on a ship, and make for a northern town—wherever suits you. Find a man, a woman.” She flailed a hand. “Get a cat. Whatever you like. Just stay out of Linura for the rest of your life. Else I’ll have to find you all over again.”

With every word, a lightness filled Anji from her toes to her maimed hand; her throat swelled with an air she never knew tasted so sweet. “I don’t—” she sputtered, her eyes stinging. “Why?”

Kit’s jaw clenched, the blackening skin around her neck going taut. She flexed her hand and sat straighter on the bench. “I’ll not spend my last days as a mercenary—even if the cause is just. Besides, that’s twice you’ve saved my life now,” said Kit. “Fair is fair.”

“What about my bounty?” said Anji, hardly believing she was arguing the point. “Don’t you need me so you can get paid?”

Kit shook her head and pointed to the leather case. “There’s half a million Rhoda in there, at least. It’s not as much as I’d signed up for, but I’ll eat the loss to spare your life. Revolutions are underfunded by nature, even the successful ones.”

They sat together in silence. A crippled, directionless woman and her dying captor. Anji searched for something to say, her mouth working.