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Small Price
Author: Khanyaramone
last update2026-10-28 09:31:38

The fire went out the way a held breath ends.

One moment the dark cradle was there, humming in the smoke, and the next it folded into nothing and Pim dropped the last foot into Dorn's enormous arms.

She blinked up at the blacksmith, then at her own hands, then at Marcel. She did not scream. She was ten, and she was alive, and she was already working out whether she was in trouble.

Marcel's knees gave out. He sat down on the cobbles very suddenly, the way a building does, and looked at his palms
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  • The Carved Seat

    Marcel walked Raven to work in sunglasses and a baseball cap, because a man with no reflection should not wander around a hospital lobby.Cinder padded beside him in a red vest that said SERVICE DOG. The security guard stopped them at the door."What does he do?""Violence," said Marcel."He's trained for it," Raven added, not smiling. "Please let us through."They took the stairs.It was ten to eleven, and every stairwell light was dead. Raven stopped on the third landing with her hand on the rail."Marcel.""I know."Two men stepped out of the shadows above them. They wore matching gray suits and matching smiles, and neither of them blinked."Doctor Blackfire," said the taller one. "Mr. Pallow sends his apologies for the lighting.""Tell Mr. Pallow to go fuck himself," said Raven.Cinder dropped his head and growled.The shorter man lunged first. Marcel got a shoulder into his chest, and they went down the stairs together in a tangle of elbows and swearing."Shit! Shit, shit! Raven,

  • Earth Rules

    The basement door opened onto the smell of stale beer, and Marcel nearly cried.Earth. Real, grubby, wonderful Earth, with its sticky floors and its flickering exit sign and its extremely fucking questionable mop bucket."Don't kiss the floor," Raven said behind him."I'm considering it.""You'll catch something I can't cure."It was two in the morning. The club was dark and empty, and a single lamp burned behind the bar. Jules stood under it, pale as a candle, with a baseball bat held in both hands."Boss!" The bat clattered to the floor. He crossed the room in three strides and hugged Marcel so hard his ribs creaked. "You're alive. You're actually alive.""I'm mostly alive.""You look like shit.""You look worse. Is that a new gray hair?""It's five new gray hairs." Jules squinted. "Boss, what the fuck happened to your head?""Silver. Everyone's jealous.""It looks like a skunk got ambitious."Jules let go, wiped his eyes with his wrist, and turned to the bar. Then he stopped.The b

  • Jules Call

    Pim found the signal by accident."There's a bar on the chimney," she announced, bursting into the kitchen. "If you stand on one leg and hold it over your head.""A bar of what?" Marcel asked.Raven was already moving. She pulled her phone from her back pocket, a cracked black rectangle that had been dead weight since the Gate, and stared at it as if it had spoken.It buzzed in her hand. Then again. Then forty-seven more times."Oh my God," she whispered.Ten minutes later, they stood on the clinic roof, Marcel holding the phone over his head like an idiot. Raven stood beside him with her arms crossed, not quite looking at him.The roof was still the roof. Last night was still last night. Neither of them said a word about it."Twelve missed calls," Raven read. "All from Jules.""Put him on speaker.""It's on one leg, you'll drop it.""I'm a professional.""You look like a man trying to hail a taxi in a hurricane.""Is it working?""No. You're on the wrong leg.""There's a right leg?"

  • Cracks

    Marcel brought coffee, and Raven pretended it was a medical supply."Put it on the tray," she said, without looking up."I made it myself.""Then definitely put it on the tray."He put it on the tray. She wrote something on a chart. Neither of them mentioned the roof, the Bake Sale, or the way she had gone down the stairs without looking back.It was the politest fucking war he had ever lost."Do you want me to leave?" he asked."I want you to stand somewhere useful.""Like where?""Anywhere that isn't in front of me.""Morning, Doc," said a gruff voice from the nearest cot. The Collector with the split lip, a big man named Jory, was sitting up with his arm in a sling. "Any news on the arm?""It's still rotting," said Raven. "Come here."Marcel watched her unwrap the bandage. Under it, a long ragged gash from a Collector's chain wept thin gray fluid down Jory's forearm. It had been open for two days."That's not right," Marcel said."It's Hell." Raven's voice was flat. "Wounds from ch

  • Small Win

    Marcel slept until noon on a cot in the pantry, because nobody else had been brave enough to wake him.Skarn finally did it by setting his left boot on fire. Gently."Shit!" Marcel yelped, hopping. "What the fuck, Skarn?""Lord. Two hundred people wish to thank you.""Tell them to thank me quietly. Preferably with coffee.""They have brought bread.""Of course they have. Jesus, my head."Nobody had told the Quarter how to celebrate, so they improvised.By sundown, somebody had dragged every table in the street into one long line. Somebody else had liberated a barrel from a Collector's wagon, and nobody asked questions.Dorn stood on a crate, telling the story of the clinic gate to a crowd who had all been there."And then the doctor stitched the man while he was still trying to hit her, the crazy bitch!" Dorn beamed. "We kicked their asses! To the doctor! And to Lord Hart, the sneaky little shit!"The street roared.Marcel stood at the edge of the lantern light with a cup of something

  • Third Option

    The taste hit Marcel in the middle of a sentence.Iron. Cold and sharp, like a coin pressed against his tongue."Oh, shit," Marcel whispered.He stopped talking. Across the hall, Morrow watched him with polite interest."Something wrong, Lord Hart?""No." Marcel swallowed. The taste would not go away. "I think someone just said yes in my name."The second's word was his word. Every yes was a debt.Skarn curled out of his shadow, smaller than before. "Lord. The doctor holds the corridor. The exiles hold the street. The Collector Tally is at the gate with a writ.""Tally." Marcel closed his eyes. "Of course. Fucking Tally."He had no Flame, no second and no door. He was, to put it technically, fucked. Morrow had used up every exit in the building, and the minutes were running out like blood.So he did what he always did when cornered. He stopped looking for a way out and started looking for a third option."Morrow.""Yes?""You asked what I am." Marcel stood. "Hold that thought. I'm not

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