Chapter Text
Midsummer had just passed, Eleasis promised to be as sweltering a month as Flamerule before it, and night had fallen over Baldur’s Gate. Thick fog had rolled into the lower city, as it so often did when the tide came in. The city was quiet under its hazy blanket, the hours ticking ever closer to midnight. The entire populace had been made lazy and sleepy by the heavy summer heat. Light and music poured from taverns all across the city, but beyond those islands of excitement, the city slept on in the humid summer air.
In the affluent district of Bloomridge, in the flat above Lintu’s Fine Lutes, a small figure stirred. It toddled through the flat on unsteady legs, fearless in the dim light of a single candle set to burn high on a stone shelf, out of reach of tiny hands. “Nana?” the figure asked a blanket-covered lump curled up on a fine chaise lounge.
The lump answered with a loud snore.
The figure stumbled on, heading towards a wooden door hanging on well-made, well-oiled hinges. After a few attempts, the small figure opened the door and found itself in a narrow stairwell. No light reached the top, the black depths of the stairs frightening the figure at first, but soon enough it noticed the glimmer of light at the bottom of the stairs, fitful lamplight entering Lintu’s Fine Lutes through leaded-glass windows. The figure sat heavily at the top of the stairs and proceeded to journey down the steps, one at a time, on its bottom.
“Oooof,” the figure giggled to itself once it reached the bottom of the stairs. The entirety of Lintu’s Fine Lutes lay before the figure, a treasure trove of instruments, tools, supplies, and all the forbidden things a small child should never touch. The figure tottered around the shop, the fog-hazy light from the street illuminating it in a square of soft yellow light.
The figure was a small, human child. Barely old enough to walk, the child toddled her way through the shop, poking at all the things she was never allowed to touch in the light of day. She immediately headed for her favourite instrument, a tambourine made of pale wood and dark leather, jingling metal cymbals adorning its side. The tambourine jangled in a damp grip as she explored the rest of the store. The child plucked at strings, blew wetly into flutes, and tapped lightly at the tight leather skin of a set of drums, laughing quietly when the largest drum produced a most excellent thump .
An answering thump, not of her own making, had the child windmilling her arms in the air, fighting to stay on her feet through her surprise. The tambourine clanged in her hand all the while. “Mama?” The child called out, once she was sure she wasn’t going to fall.
There was no answer in the dark shop.
“Mama g’way,” the child reminded herself, nodding sagely. “Songs w’Papa.”
The child looked around the shop, feeling lonelier by the minute. She wanted her parents. “Find Mama.” She told herself, toddling over to the front door of Lintu’s Fine Lutes. This door, she could not open. Locked and barred, the heavy oak door was an impenetrable barrier for any two-year-old human. The child sniffled, a tear sliding down one plump brown cheek. She wanted her parents and they were outside, somewhere.
She thumped her tambourine a few times and sang “Door open! Door open!” in an off-key wail. Locks clicked, the bar vanished – reappearing on the ground at her feet – as the child knew in her heart it would when she sang like Mama. The door swung inward on silent hinges.
“Mama!” the child whispered to herself. She stepped towards the opening, taking wobbly but determined strides, only making it a few steps out of the shop before running into the legs of a grown-up. She bounced off the legs, falling to the cobblestone street on her behind. Her tambourine spilled from her hands to lay forgotten on the ground.
“Oh, Gods, absolutely not, ” a strange accent caught the child's ears. She looked up and up, to see the grown-up was a pale man with white curling hair and pointed ears. He was pretty, like all the elves she had seen before. He seemed to glow like an angel in the hazy fog; she just knew this grown-up could be trusted.
“‘Lf!” She announced, struggling back onto her feet.
“No. No no no,” the pale elf shook his head, delicate hands gesturing at her in a shooing motion, “Get back inside.”
“F’nd Mama?” She asked the nice elf.
Strangely, the elf looked back over his shoulder, up towards the heights of the city where the big houses were. That’s not where Mama and Papa went to play music, she knew. No one was up the street, everyone was listening to Mama and Papa sing. He sighed heavily, running a hand over a tired face, muttering to himself about children, not this time, and not if I can help it . She blinked at him, not understanding a word.
“What’s your name, little one?” the elf asked her, dropping one knee to look her in the eye very seriously, like grown-ups do. His eyes were as red as her favourite ball.
“Shay!” Shay answered. She liked the elf’s voice, he sounded like music when he talked.
“Shay, there are bad men out tonight,” the elf told her in a slow, patient voice with a hard edge, “Very bad men. I need you to go back inside and be safe.”
“Mama? Papa?” Shay was afraid. This had all gone terribly wrong. The tears welled up in her eyes again, she sniffled.
“I’ll… I’ll bring them here,” the pale elf sounded panicked, scared and angry at the same time like when Mama caught her climbing out her bedroom window onto the roof. Mama told her that voice meant things were important. His eyes kept darting up the street. “Alright, Shay? Just go inside. Shut the door.”
“‘Kay,” Shay nodded. The nice man would bring Mama and Papa home. She patted him on his pretty hair, it felt like Mama’s best silk scarf. “Pretty.”
The elf looked stricken, not knowing how to respond. Shay turned to go back inside, assisted by a gentle push from pale hands. She made a beeline for the stairs, wanting to go up where Nana slept. A crash of cymbals caught her attention, her tambourine sliding across the wooden floor boards to stop at her feet.
“Shut the door, little one,” the elf’s lilting voice called out.
“Door,” she repeated, turning back to push the door to the shop closed with all her might. It got most of the way there, the latch just didn’t catch. That was good enough.
She heard a soft growl of frustration, the click of the latch and the metallic thunk of the locks turning as she crawled carefully back up the stairs.
*****
“You hungry, love?” Keena Akanu asked Shay as she passed through the backstage area of the Elfsong tavern on her way to the kitchen, arms laden with a heavy tray of used plates and mugs. “I’m bringing up an order for table four, I can grab something for you.”
Shay hardly had attention to spare for the spritely blonde barmaid, avidly watching her parents perform as she was. Her hands twitched as she imagined herself playing along with her mother, fingers dancing along the smooth neck of the violin they shared. The word hungry echoed in her mind, starting a hollow rumble in her middle that reminded her she had yet to eat. Shay thought she should probably ask Keena for whatever food may have been destined for scrap rather than order a meal that would take money away from the night's profits. Papa had said money had been tight lately, that they would have to sell the last of the instruments left over from the sale of Lintu’s Fine Lutes. Though he said it with the glassy eyes of a man deep in his cups; if they could afford drink, why not food? Soon, they would have to survive on performance alone. With Nana gone, there would be no more instruments made for sale.
“Yeah, is there anything, um… cheap?” Shay asked, sticking a hand in her pocket to appear as though she was looking for coin. Her pockets, she knew, were empty.
“I got you, love,” Keena winked her chocolate-brown eyes, disappearing into the sweltering depths and clashing sounds of the Elfsong’s kitchen.
Shay returned her attention to the stage, completely forgetting about the hollow in her middle until a bruised apple dangled in front of her face. She grabbed the fruit, making a face at Keena, as the barmaid turned to draw pints from a cobwebbed barrel.
“Kitchen’s slammed, love, Chef’s in the weeds. I’ll have more for you later,” Keena explained, over her shoulder. She hefted another tray of full mugs, then hesitated, glancing nervously at Shay’s small form. “Have you… have your folks heard from Hokeo?”
The sweet ballad her parents played clashed with the sorrow in Shay’s heart. Hokeo had disappeared a tenday past, abandoning his young wife for no reason anyone could think of. The barmaids and bards of the Gate all knew the gossip, even Shay had heard things as an annoying ten-year-old not really in the circle of those who made the nightlife lively in Baldur’s Gate.
“No, Keena, I’m sorry,” Shay didn’t know how to comfort the woman, whose marriage had fallen apart so quickly. Her parents were a romance for the ages, she’d never know how it felt to have someone just leave like that.
Food never came that night. Keena fell behind, intermittently appearing to rush to the kitchen then back out again, pulling pints with more speed than accuracy. Backstage began to smell like old beer and sweat.
Shay glanced out to the bursting tavern, trying to see how the crowd were enjoying the set. Everyone seemed happy, all the barmaids run off their feet to keep the patrons well served. In a corner near where the door to the cold winter streets was set in a dark wood panelled wall, Keena was speaking with a pale elf in a fancy coat, embroidered in gold, with puffy sleeves. She laughed brightly at something that was said, touching the man’s arm with a strange familiarity that wasn’t familiar at all. Shay felt like she was intruding, as she watched Keena smile up into the handsome elf’s dark red eyes. The two seemed in a world of their own, sharing an intimate moment alone in a crowd.
“So much for Hokeo, eh bird?” Papa’s voice in her ear made her jump.
“Papa! Is the set done? Is it time to eat?” Shay asked, excited to finally get a meal in, to hear how her parents felt about the evening’s performance.
“Not yet, bird, they’re tipping well tonight.” Papa answered, his teal eyes scanning the crowd, “I need to wet my whistle, you get up there for a bit, would you?”
Shay froze. Papa wanted her on stage .
“Yes, Papa!” Shay breathed, dashing onto the small wooden platform that served as the performer's stage in the Elf Song, taking a seat behind Papa’s drums to play along with Mama.
Shay lost herself in music and applause, forgetting all about Keena and Hokeo until the night was finally over. She packed up Papa’s things, then helped him down from the bar stool where he had spent the last hours of the night. Mama collected their coins and a small sack of bread and fruit from the kitchen.
“Where in the nine hells is Keena?!” one of the barmaids shouted, “This place ain’t gonna sweep itself.”
“Keena’s gone?” Shay asked as she spun around on the spot, her sudden stop causing Papa to stumble beside her. He grumbled, but needed Shay to stay upright; he leaned heavily into her as she queried the barmaid, “What happened?”
“Suppose she walked out with that pale gent,” the barmaid sighed, beginning to lift chairs onto tables, a thick straw broom resting against the nearby bar, “Get Hokeo out of her system, anyway.”
Keena, like her husband Hokeo, was never seen again.
*****
The flat at the edge of the district of Brampton wasn’t nearly as nice as their home over Lintu’s Fine Lute’s had been. Brampton was an alright area, not as safe as Bloomridge, certainly not as affluent. In Bloomridge, she had a proper bedroom, not a mattress in a closet. Shay missed the home she hadn’t seen for five years. Even as she entered the Basilisk Gate for what seemed like the millionth time, she still had to fight her feet that wanted to head west through the Lower City, return to Bloomridge, to home . Instead, she turned south, to the small flat she shared with her parents close to Cliffgate and Tumbledown beyond. Shay’s bright teal eyes kept a sharp watch on every person she passed, her hands clutched tightly at mama’s violin case. The small amount of coin she had earned in Rivington all afternoon was scattered about her person; she had learned to hide what money she had after the first attempt at busking had resulted in her being mugged on her way home. Desperate men, to take a few coppers from a thirteen-year-old girl. Shay was glad they had only taken her coin and not the violin, had only given her a black eye and not worse. She tried to think of it as having paid a few coppers for a valuable lesson. A lesson she had learned well; she hadn’t been mugged in the year since.
On her way through Brampton, Shay stopped at a small corner shop, buying bruised and rot-spotted vegetables, cheaper for being long past their best, and a stale bit of bread that hadn’t sold that morning. After leaving the shop, she increased her pace, staying in the middle of the streets to avoid passing too close to dark alleys. The closer she got to home, the rougher the district grew, the people more desperate for even the half-rotted carrots in her rough hemp sack. She could never tell if the people who lived in the dreary, fog-covered Tumbledown were sad, desperate souls with nowhere else to go, or if the decrepit, haunted neighbourhood turned its own citizens into ghosts of themselves. She had told her idea to Mama, and they agreed it would make a great song.
Once she got to their flat, a rickety wooden walk-up where they lived under the steep rafters of the third-story, Shay crept silently up the steps, taking care to avoid the steps that creaked too loudly. It wasn’t time to wake her parents, not yet. Shay carefully placed Mama’s violin on a ladder backed wooden chair, her sack of food and the day's earnings carefully placed on a wobbly table that doubled as the kitchen workspace. She started a fire in the small hearth before grabbing a bucket heading back down to draw water from the nearest well. On her way back up with the water, she stomped her way up the stairs, making the loudest ruckus she could. She didn’t want to go into Mama and Papa’s room to wake them up, she hated seeing them in their room, more unconscious than asleep, surrounded by whatever bottles they had brought home from the Blushing Mermaid the night before. It seemed each week they brought back more bottles and less money. Shay hoped that being loud as she entered the flat, louder still as she poured some water into an iron pot hung above the fire and started preparing the vegetables for a stew, would wake her parents. They’d come out on their own, perhaps they’d be happy, for once.
By the time Papa hauled himself out of his room, the sun was a glowing orange memory to the west and the stew was ready, cooling in bowls on the table. Shay had eaten a small amount herself, saving the bulk of it for her parents. The fire was out, another full bucket of water waited near the hearth for everyone to wash with. Shay grinned, quickly setting the table for Papa’s meal, a mug of clean water ready for him.
“The Mermaid again tonight?” She asked, as though she didn’t know. Few other taverns in the Gate would have them play these days.
“Yeah,” Papa muttered, blinking bloodshot eyes at the meal Shay had prepared. He didn’t look quite ready to eat, but forced it down anyway. Shay had another bucket, this one empty, set on the floor near Papa’s chair, in case dinner decided to revisit them. That happened, sometimes.
Mama came out of the room in slightly better condition, though her hair was an absolute mess. Shay went to a beetle-eaten cabinet to grab a wooden comb and the jar of special grease they both needed to tame their wild curls. It was too expensive to buy, prepared by an apothecary in Bloomridge. To Shay, it smelled like memories of better times in better places. She had stolen a jar a tenday ago, hoping its appearance would please Mama. And it did, for a time. Things were almost like old times. Almost.
“Thank you, bird.” Mama said around mouthfuls of stew as Shay combed and braided her hair. Her dark eyes appraised the jar in the middle of the table, copper and silver coins glittering in the dim light of their flats one window. “Where did these come from?”
“I went to Rivington today,” Shay explained while she worked, “Did some busking outside the Temple of Ilmater.”
“Dangerous.” Mama observed. Shay heard a frown in her voice and didn’t like it.
“I’m fourteen, Mama,” She protested, “I’ve been busking safely for a year .”
“We just want you to be safe, Shay.” Mama said, stealing the wind from her sails. Of course they did, they were a family, they loved each other.
“Fine. Yes. I was safe.” Shay muttered, perhaps pulling a little too hard on Mama’s hair while she braided. She decided to change the subject, “The weather is lovely tonight. I bet the Mermaid will be busy.”
“Let’s hope the Sailor’s are in a tipping mood,” Papa answered, sounding more human with dinner settling into him. He rose from the table, heading back towards the bedroom, “I’m going to get ready.”
Much later that night, Mama stumbled into the flat muttering angrily about Papa flirting with handsome pale men, her words slurred with drink.
Shay waited up for Papa.
He never came home.
*****
The rooming house in Sow’s Foot, where Shay lived with Mama, was misnamed. It wasn’t a house constructed for living, but a converted warehouse, built close beside Hamhocks Slaughterhouse and replete with all the stenches that could come with living in what amounted to a fancy horse stall, jammed cheek-by-jowl beside fifty other people. But the house was dry and, if not warm, out of the wind and cold fog that rolled off the Chionthar. It kept Mama’s violin from warping and kept them alive through the night. Their landlord, Pester Longshine, was tighfisted with all his tenants, but didn’t mind if the Lintu’s were a little late on rent, as long as Mama or Shay – preferably Mama, the halfling thought Shay was too young, at sixteen, to have any stage presence – performed for his large family. It would do, until they got back on their feet.
Shay thought the day where they got back on their feet and moved back behind the walls of Baldur’s Gate would come soon. Money had been so tight lately, Mama hadn’t been drinking. She was almost her old self, her singing voice clear and bright, rather than sad and slurred. Shay still remembered to keep her eyes low when they were together. Mama still felt heartbreak when she saw Shay look at her with her father’s eyes, though without alcohol she was no longer cruel about it. The man had been missing for two years but no body had ever been found, Shay kept a secret hope in her heart that he was alive and would find them again, one day. Surely he loved Mama, loved them both, too much to leave for good.
She hardly busked anymore, that was Mama’s job. Instead, Shay found work wherever she could, often helping the farmers who brought their animals to slaughter at Hamhocks. One old widower, Vadin Korsk, had gone so far as to set an appointment with Shay every second tenday. She would meet him in Rivington to help him bring his pigs or chickens to slaughter or help him take his produce to market. He paid in food, coin and – almost as important to Shay – friendship. Shay liked the old farmer and the sweet stories he told of his husband, gone now for three years and counting. Vadin seemed grateful for her friendship as much as her labour; Mama’s heartbreak and loneliness had taught Shay how rough the world must be when one was alone. Vadin, like Mama, was heartbroken and lonely out there on his farm with only his husband’s grave for company.
“Glad I could give you a lift home,” Vadin announced over the creek of the cart’s axel and the clomp of Rose’s hooves, “Pretty young thing like you shouldn’t be blistering your feet on the road.”
“Pretty young…?” Shay repeated then burst into giggles. “Vadin Korsk, you old charmer. I’m filthy , not pretty.”
“Well, you’re pretty filthy!” the old man said with a wink, “Do you have enough for your Mother? You said she was performing tonight, right? At the Circus?”
“Yeah, she is. We have enough, we’ll be ok.” Shay reached beside her to clutch a rough sack full of produce, “Thank you, Vadin.”
“You work harder than I could pay you, girl.” Vadin said with a warm smile, “Now we’re almost there. Wash up ‘fore you see your Mama, ‘hear?”
“Yes, Grandpa.” Shay smirked. She hopped from the cart and gave the old farmer a gentle kiss on his cheek. “See you next time.”
Shay rushed to clean herself up at the well that stood between the slaughterhouse and their rooming house, then she prepared a small sack of food – apples, cheese and bread – to take the Mama at the circus. The sun had long since set and Shay felt the exhaustion of a long day's work, but she was still energised by anticipation. Mama would be on stage soon. It was a short walk through the twilight-dark districts of the Outer City, Sow’s Foot, then Twin Songs, then on to Wyrm’s Crossing and Rivington beyond. The Circus performed in a festival space beside the Temple of Ilmater, their animals not allowed into the city proper, as few animals were unless destined for slaughter.
A gnome in heavy clown makeup, dressed in clashing colours and patterns, stood outside the gates to the circus, juggling an odd assortment of items, a free performance to entice more people inside. The line to get inside grew ever longer, but Shay went straight to the gate.
“Get in line, kid!” The gnome called, never dropping a single item. It was an impressive feat of dexterity.
“I’m Shay Lintu, I was told to drop something off.” Shay declared, as Mama had told her to.
“Lintu, right.” The gnome nodded while wooden pins and bright coloured balls circled her face, “I know that name. Let her in!”
“Thanks,” Shay said with a grateful smile, ducking through the gate and making her way, quiet and unobserved, to the space set aside for backstage. She passed Dribbles, one of Lucretious’ most popular acts, touching up his makeup in a warped mirror. Music floated into the backstage area; Mama was performing. Shay quickly found Mama’s station, her violin case open on a table. She put the meal she had prepared beside the case, then darted to the curtains separating backstage from the crowd. Mama was deep in her music, but not as lost to it as she usually was. Mama’s honey-brown eyes would crack open, now and then, to gaze at a pale man in the audience and smile softly. The man, a handsome, well-dressed elf Shay noted, smiled back. She hadn’t seen Mama smile like that in years. It felt good to see her smile, but it also felt wrong. Like she was betraying Papa somehow.
“Her set will be over soon,” Dribbles voice behind her startled her from her contemplation of this new wrinkle in her life. “But I don’t think she’ll want to see you, kid. She’s been flirting with a patron the past few nights and he keeps coming back for her.”
“She wants to see me.” Shay argued with the clown. Of course Mama wanted to see her.
“We’ll see.”
Mama’s song came to an end. Applause sprang up, the evening crowd quite pleased with her performance. After a number of bows and murmured thank you ’s, Mama hopped off stage and… went straight into the arms of the elf. They moved away from the stage, heads tilted close to one another. The elf said something and Mama laughed brightly.
Shay felt her heart break. For Papa and for herself.
She fled the circus, running all the way to the roominghouse to throw herself into their tiny room and cry on their shared pile of straw. She wanted to yell at Mama, to demand how she could betray their family like that.
She never had the opportunity. Shay never saw her mother again.
*****
“We have work! Wake up, Lintu!”
The high, musical voice brought Shay to consciousness. She blinked bleary eyes in the dim confines of the river-side cave in Gray Harbour where she had been staying the past tenday with a few other homeless youth. The tide had gone out, which was a double-edged sword; it left them all vulnerable to thieves but gave them the ability to leave the cave. She checked for Mama’s violin case, still beside her, always beside her, then began preparing to head out, turning to answer Misha Jithum’s call as she did.
“What work, Misha?” Shay gathered a handful of river water and sniffed it – more fresh than salt – before drinking and washing her face. She strapped the violin case and her dagger to her body, tucked her lockpicks into her boot and decided she was ready to face the night.
“Nine Fingers has a mark for the lower level thieves and that means us!” Misha explained cheerfully, tucking her straw-straight brown hair behind a softly pointed ear. The half-elf girl was as homeless as Shay, but made it look so easy, finding connections and friendships all over the Gate. Shay envied the girl for her easy friendships. Other than her every-second-tenday appointment with Vadin Korsk, Shay had a hard time trusting others. Misha Jithum wasn’t a friend; watch each other's backs through the night as they occasionally did, she was more of a colleague. People at the bottom, like Misha or herself, were disposable, so often they died or just disappeared. Over the past two years, Shay had learned it was easier to only trust herself.
“What’s the mark?” Shay asked as the two made their way out of the river cave and began to climb the rocks of the rivers edge, their secret path behind a dilapidated mansion at the edge of Grey Harbour. It was hard going, climbing in the dark of night where only Misha could see, but it was the only time to come and go from the cave that guaranteed they wouldn’t be caught by the Flaming Fist. Often the tide and the night didn’t line up, so someone was either trapped in the cave or out of it. It wasn’t the best place to stay, but they made it work; one of many way-stations the homeless youth of the Gate used to survive.
“Some fancy alchemist shop in Bloomridge got them something called Noblestalk, ” Misha explained during the climb, “special mushroom what cures anything. Sells for ten times its weight in gold and they got a whole crate of the stuff! It’s a two person job, needs a lookout and a lockpick. And I don’t know a better lockpick than you, Lintu.”
“Sounds easy, what’s our take?” Shay inquired, the two slipping from shadow to shadow, taking alleys and all the secret paths the low used to not be seen by their betters.
“We get to keep one for ourselves!” Misha answered, so excited to share the news, her voice squeaked shrilly out of tune. “We can eat it, sell it, anything we want. I hear that redheaded twat at Sorcerous Sundries will pay through the nose for fancy ingredients.”
The two made their way through the city, heading towards the job The Guild had put up, hoping another pair hadn’t got there first. Shay had been trapped in the cave almost all day, waiting for the tide to go out, hunger clawed at her middle. If this noblestalk sold as well as MIsha promised, it might net Shay a hot meal, maybe even a trip to a bathhouse rather than a cold wash-up in the Chionthar. If she was clean and well fed, she could busk. If she could busk, she could get back on her feet. Maybe find a room somewhere. A good job could give her a reason to go on for another tenday.
The Apothecary was dark and locked up tighter than a Patriar’s vault at the Counting House. Shay and Misha strolled past the shop casually, talking about other things while they both eyed the shop. The wide glass windows were filled with plants and other tools of the trade. This couldn’t be an easy smash-and-grab. Shay and Misha made their way down the well maintained cobblestones until the apothecary was out of sight, then they ducked into an alley to double back. Sure enough, the back door wasn’t as iron-banded as the front. Misha set herself up at one end of the dark alley, keeping watch, while Shay took her lockpicks to the door, singing softly under her breath while she worked. Like magic, the tumblers moved, the door opened. They were in.
Shay was barely three steps inside, when Misha gave the alarm. Half the alarm. One whistle instead of two that cut off strangely. Shay had her dagger out and was running into the alley before the last note of the whistle had stopped echoing off the walls. She expected to find a second crew wanting the take but was instead shocked to find Misha struggling with a pale human with long, dark hair. His eyes seemed to glow red in the night, probably a spell to help him see in the dark. Shay rushed to help Misha, but a strike to her back sent her sprawling into the broken garbage that cluttered the alley.
Shay heaved herself over, just in time to be set upon by a second attacker. Another pale man, this one in a noble’s garb; a purple leather jacket, golden embroidery sparkling in the dim light, the white lace at his collar and cuffs practically glowing. The man reached for her and took a slash to his fancy coat for his trouble. Shay couldn’t tell if her strike had drawn blood, but the man backed off. She got to her feet, ready to face off against her attacker, then a scream from Misha caught her attention. Misha was down, unconscious on the ground. The long-haired attacker was coming for her now.
“Fuck this,” Shay muttered. She dodged around the crazed nobleman that had attacked her, running for the apothecary and its still-open door. If she could get inside, she could bar the door behind her. It would be better to face arrest than whatever these men had planned. Shay made it, breathing out a prayer to any god that was listening as she spun to slam the door behind her. A heavy, broken bottle, thrown with unbelievable strength, smashed into her face. Half the world went dark, pain made her want to vomit, but she pushed onward. The door shut, she shoved a wooden chair under the latch but didn’t take a moment to breathe easy. If she was lucky, she could wait the men out. Surely they wouldn’t wait for her forever, they’d be off to find another mark to rob or whatever their plans were.
Shay found a cloth to hold to her lacerated face, then checked on the violin, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw it was unharmed in the tussle. She tucked herself into a dark corner to wait patiently for the dawn, praying to Ilmater that Misha wasn’t suffering out there, that she had gotten away or died quickly. Shay prayed that she would make it out in the morning without being arrested. Tomorrow was her scheduled meeting with Vadin. If she could find healing before she met him, perhaps she would finally take him up on his offer to work on his farm. The Gate was just too dangerous these days.
It was time to leave the only home she had known.