What came next? Get the dead sinner out. Was he even dead yet? He’d gone still. Flies crawled about his face once more. The grim necklace of red bubbles popped one by one. His eyes were closed, just like in sleep.

Sleep. The sleeping mat. Get him on the mat.

Fie tried to grab a handful of bloody shirt. Crimson greased her slipping hands. The dead man slid a little deeper into the scum.

“Fie—you need help—”

Tavin’s voice rang much too close. She whirled round again and found him halfway down the steps, halfway to the sinner, halfway to her.

This close and he’d catch the plague. This close and she’d watch his mouth crack and bleed, she’d hear him cough up soft bits of his lungs, and if she was a real chief, she’d be the one dealing him mercy before it got bad. Her hands, his throat, his blood, her mercy—

The blade fell to the stone again.

Look after your own.

“Get out,” she hissed around a traitorous sob. Her empty hands rattled at her sides, shaking blood off in shivering droplets. She had no mercy left in her, not for him, not now. “Don’t touch me, don’t touch the sinner, just watch the damn pr—Watch your cousin, aye?”

“Fie—”

“Get out!”

No mercy, only blood on her hands, and fear of the part of her that wanted him to stay.

Another cackle from the crowd. Mostly Common Castes, they’d cozied up to the edge of the channel, too far to hear her, too close for her guts to settle. At the front stood that Sparrow butcher.

Too close. All of them were too close.

“Oleanders won’t snuff you so swift.” The butcher’s voice was flat, matter-of-fact. “We know there’s nowhere to spill that filth blood but the sewers when we’re done with you.”

“Ignore him and get back to your cousin,” Fie rasped. Light sliced across the glassblack eyes of Tavin’s mask. He didn’t move. “They just want to flash their steel because we sure don’t have any, aye, Pissabed?”

All it’d take to go sideways was one glimpse of Tavin’s short swords.

The Sparrow man licked his lips. “The sewers’ll run red for moons. Look at them. They know what’s coming. Aren’t even going to bother running, are you?”

Tavin uncrossed his arms.

“Ignore him,” Fie ordered, desperate. One fly, then another landed on her blood-soaked hands.

“Oh, noisy tongue on that one,” the Sparrow laughed. “How about your lads there? They got mouths worth using, too?”

A Crow would know how this game played out. Let them say what they will. Let them kick and curse and keep moving on, because the cost of cursing back wasn’t yours alone to pay.