And so they drift, strangers in a strange place. Around them the city is working, talking, seeking pleasures. It is not, in some ways, unlike the bustle of a school corridor or of a holiday fair in a respectable village. Only here, every interaction — every word spoken, every coin that changes hands — hovers at the precipice of danger, and moods can shift with the gust of the wind. They walk through arguments; through drunkenness; through laughter; skirt a billow of raw lust, a couple kissing, her hands buried in his jacket, one naked hip bone sticking out into the cold. And at every step, Smoke calls to Thomas, a dozen shades of vice.

It happens like all accidents, suddenly and without warning. Perhaps it is no accident at all but an ambush, well-rehearsed and executed with aplomb. A group of running urchins splits them (the same group as before? another?), shoves Thomas up against the wall and Livia into the kissing couple. She loses her balance and all three fall hard into the street. And even as they fall the man’s hands slip into Livia’s pockets, searching them for coin. He discovers what Thomas did a day before; that the shapeless coat hides something softer than a boy’s frame; grins, his fallen lover’s skirts tangling around his legs, licks the length of Livia’s face, jumps up, is gone, dragging his woman behind him, her cheeks painted crimson in imitation of health. All this in a breath or two, while Thomas swims against the crowd, the last of their bread spoiling in a puddle by his feet. He reaches Livia, drops to his knees, finds her head twisted into dirt, the neck strangely tilted; scoops up her chin with outstretched palms, afraid. The moment they touch a jet of Smoke breaks out of her, dark green and dense. His own skin answers. They freeze, their faces conjoined by a twist of Smoke so dense they cannot see each other. It is Livia who recoils, shaking off his touch, kicking his legs in her haste to get away.

“Don’t ever touch me!” she shouts, her Smoke still oozing out of her in stark betrayal.

Then she runs down the street and out of sight.

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