And Evie had already had enough of the pathetic, predictable exchange. She already knew he’d keep talking. She already knew she’d keep rebuking him. She already knew he’d get angry and belligerent. She already knew when she finally crossed some irrational verbal line he drew, somehow “offending” this clod who had invaded her sacred space, he’d progress to physical violence. She had no patience for such a tired back-and-forth. She chose instead to skip straight to the end of the story.

Evie moved faster than anyone that drunk is generally capable of moving. She stood up like a shot, her legs straightening so violently they knocked over her chair. One hand grabbed the man by his greasy hair and jerked his head back while the other took up the nearest bottle and smashed it against his cheek and jaw. The force and momentum were twin demons dragging him over the back of his chair to the stained floor of the bar.

Evie’s mind left the flow of normal time then, although her body proceeded to kick the man on the floor as around her the rest of the drunken assemblage took their cue to descend into a full-on riotous brawl. She was only vaguely aware when other bodies assaulted her own, and even less aware when the city Aegins arrived to break things up and cart the chief offenders, mainly her, off to the dungeons.

The cell was the next thing to cling to her awareness. It stank of shit and earth and unwashed bodies, as dungeon cells are wont to do, but it also smelled strongly of anise. In fact, it smelled mostly of anise. It may very well have been the sweetest smelling dungeon in which Evie was ever flung.

“They feed it to us,” one of the other drunks explained after several minutes of Evie’s befuddled sniffing at the air.

“Howzzat?” she managed, such as she was.

“Anise,” said the drunk. “It riots wild out the back there. They feed it to us. It’s in everything, even the water. Makes your shit and piss smell like soap. Easier’n cheaper than washing us, or the damned cell. Starts to taste like poison after a few days, though.”

Evie just nodded solemnly.

Everything, absolutely everything, makes sense to a drunk when they’re deep down the well of their bender.

“It’s not the taste that’s bad for you,” a much smaller voice assured them from the shadows. “Too much is bad for your insides. You can tell by how it changes the color of your water.”

Evie squinted into the corner of the small cell at a slight girl propped there against the rough-hewn walls. Her legs were impossibly withered.

“Did the Aegins do that to you?” Evie asked her.

The girl shook her head. “A cart ran over them.”

“How do you move yourself around?”