Hunger had always been there—not sharp and fleeting, but settled deep, permanent as the grime beneath his nails. He didn’t remember a time before it. Didn’t remember a mother’s voice, or a home, or walls that stood straight. His world was made of crooked streets, quick hands, and eyes that watched too closely. Meals were never certain. Nothing was.

  And then, one day, the world tilted.

  The sky hung pale and washed out, the air thick with damp stone and brackish water. Pip worked the market streets, not like a child, but like someone who knew the rules—if you wanted something, you took it. Nobody gave freely in the Slag.

  And then she was there.

  She didn’t belong. Not in the Slag. Not anywhere near the market. The world around her was grey and grime-streaked, but she was red. Red hair, red cloak, like a flame standing against the filth. Her boots were clean, her clothes too fine. And on her wrist—gold, gleaming, easy.

  Pip moved without thinking. Small, quick, hands light as breath. She’d never notice.

  But she did.

  Fingers caught his wrist. Not tight, not angry, just enough to stop him cold. Pip braced for a slap, a yell, the call of a guard. None came. She just looked at him, eyes dark, measuring.

  “And who is this?” she asked. Soft voice. Amused. Worse than anger. Worse than anything.

  His gut clenched. A trick. Had to be. But she just let go, like it had never happened. Pip ran. Didn’t look back. He rubbed his wrist where she’d touched him, his palm suddenly cold, aching for something he had never held, but knew intimately all the same.

  And then she came back.

  He was chewing a scrap of week-old bread, half-watching the market, when he felt it—that shift. That stillness. One second, the alley was empty. The next, she was there. Pip’s breath caught. Had she always been there? He blinked. She didn’t move. Just watched him, like she’d stepped in from somewhere else, somewhere he couldn’t see.

  She held out a cloth-wrapped bundle. “For you, Pipfinzinder.”

  She named him. She said it like it mattered. Like she’d carved it from the world just for him. The words settled heavy, like something she’d pulled from the air and pressed into his skin. Made him hers in a way he didn’t quite understand. Had he always been that name? Or had she just decided it, and now it was real?

  He shouldn’t have taken the bundle. Didn’t trust gifts. But when he reached out—slow, waiting for the trick—he felt warmth. And suddenly, he was starving.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  She kept coming back. Never asked where he crawled from, never flinched at the stink of the Slag. Just talked to him like he was a boy, not a shadow.

  The smell lingered. Parchment and oil. Clean. Warm. Wrong.

  He was the Slag—grime-deep, rusted inside. She was something else. Not light exactly. Not clean. Just... different. And different was enough to hurt.

  Was he always this small? Or did he become it by wanting more?

  He never saw her coming. She was just there, pulling him out of the dark with a smile like it cost her nothing. Like he was worth it.

  No one spoke to them. Guards didn’t even glance their way. Pip waited for someone to drag her from him, but they never did. She was his. His alone. And he did step from the shadows. Not just hunger and cold pushing him forward. He had tasted something warm, something good, and he needed it. So, day after day, he searched the streets, the alleys, hunting the red lady.

  Then she was there, and he was full again.

  The last time he saw her, the day was cold and grey, thick fog rolling in off the sea. A few shadows drifted through the streets, slipping between tilted houses. Pip curled in a corner, scraps pulled tight around his frame, shaking from the chill. He must have closed his eyes, because suddenly she was kneeling before him, brushing dirt from his cheek like she didn’t mind the filth, like he was something more than a half-starved thing wrapped in rags.

  From her sleeve—like magic—she pulled something that caught the light. Pressed it into his palm.

  A coin. Firelite-flecked gold. Like bottled sunlight.

  “I think you should have this, Pip,” she said, smiling. “Something of your own.”

  Pip had never owned anything before. His dirty fingers reached out, toward her face. She didn’t flinch. But then—something inside him twisted. Something he hadn’t known was there, hadn’t known could move. It happened in an instant. One second, she was there, red hair falling over him like fire. Then—

  A pull. A hollowing. The air stretched thin, like the world had exhaled and forgotten how to draw breath. Cold slithered under his skin—not the kind that came from wind or damp, but something deeper, something that took. The coin in his palm felt heavier, like it had stolen something unseen. A whisper brushed against his thoughts—too faint to name—then was gone, leaving only silence.

  Her smile faltered. Her eyes dulled, like something inside her had dimmed. A shiver ran through her, a stumble, like she’d lost something without knowing what it was.

  Whatever she had been… faded.

  Pip’s breath hitched.

  Her eyes passed right through him, empty, like looking at a street with no one standing there. Like he wasn’t real.

  Panic clawed up his ribs. She had always seen him. Always. But now—now she didn’t. He reached, but she was already stepping back. The scent of honey and firelight slipped away, fading like warmth from cold fingers.

  Then she turned and walked into the fog.

  Gone.

  No sound but the hush of the sea, the shifting silt beneath his feet. No trace but the damp where she’d stood, the last curl of her scent bleeding into the rain. Like she’d never been there at all.

  He never saw her again.

  No one spoke of her. No one remembered her. Pip asked, once, if anyone had seen the woman with red hair. They only stared at him, blank, waiting for the punchline. Like he’d made her up. Like she’d only ever existed for him, pulled from the fog for a moment and then swallowed back into it.

  He didn’t cry. Couldn’t. The world was cold again, sharp-edged, but tears weren’t something he knew.

  That night, he found a wrecked hovel and made it his. A narrow, broken thing wedged between two leaning walls, damp stone at his back, just enough space to curl into. There, he turned the coin over in his fingers. Again. And again. And again. Until the edges burned warm against his skin.