“At first, I don’t even know what woke me. Just the feeling of something being wrong.” Aster plunged ahead. “I was naked in bed, this is important because it delayed me for a minute putting on some pants and a robe. It was cold. I couldn’t figure out what it was so I thought maybe Eva was crying. In the morning her mother came and got her to feed but maybe it hadn’t happened yet. Sometimes I would carry her downstairs myself if she got fussy and wouldn’t quiet.

  So I went into the nursery, and all was well. One, two, three, sleeping moppets.

  Everything was quiet but something just didn’t feel right. I went down the hall to my mother’s room. She wasn’t there and the bed was made, it was dark but that’s what it looked like. It wouldn’t be unusual for her to be downstairs in her office adding up the night’s haul, or balancing the budget after the shop had closed. You know? So I didn’t especially think she would be there anyway.

  There was a door at the top of the stairs. It wasn’t hot or anything . . . I always heard the door should be hot . . .”

  “Aster, you don’t –” Prin said nervously. Now he felt like picking on something. He picked up a Glass statuette off the bed. It was a nude figure of a woman but red and gold like fire, like the flame on top of a candle. He had a thought of pushing on her head with his thumb until the fragile neck broke. But he didn’t. What was the matter with him? Prin put it back down on the bed and worried at the pile of silk scarves again.

  Aster ignored him. “I opened the door and smoke and heat came up to greet me. Not an overwhelming amount though, more of a hint? If it had been too much I wouldn’t have attempted the stairs. Though I’m not sure a jump out of a third floor window would have been much better.

  I went back to the nursery and shook the kids awake. I picked up Eva and got the other two to hold hands. I didn’t know what to do! I couldn’t carry them all.

  I yelled. I called for my mother like a mewling baby myself. Then, when that didn’t do me any good, I went to the stairs. There was more smoke now, I pulled my robe up over Eva’s head and we charged down the stairs. I yelled for the other two to follow, and miraculously they did.

  We made it to the second floor and the smoke was getting thicker. I could hear people moving around and screaming and yelling. We couldn’t really see anyone though? I looked down the stairway and . . . I sent Thomie and Beans down and told them to run out onto the lawn far away from the house. Was this the right thing to do? Probably not? But what was the alternative. I should have kept them with me.”

  Prin took Aster’s hand in his, uncurling it from around the stone animal she had been tightly clenching so that her fingers had turned white. He twined their fingers together. “You did the best you could.” He murmured.

  “The second floor is where my mother’s office was. I had to look for her! I went into her office and the light was burning but no one . . . I could have looked further. Maybe she was on the floor? There was a lot of smoke by this point.”

  Aster shook her head, sending beet red curls flying, and waved her hand. “Ugh. Long story short, I didn’t find her. I got out. And I didn’t see the other kids again. I was in a daze so I don’t know if they found their mothers outside and went away with them or if they didn’t make it out or what.

  The mess, everything was a mess, the house burned all the way up. The women all left, or whatever ones got out of the fire anyway. I thought we were sisters . . . but they left me. We weren’t family we were just coworkers at best.” Aster wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand. “I think people might have tried to talk to me . . . or get me to go away with them . . . Maybe? I couldn’t leave the fire. I watched the whole thing burn. It was really a sight with the sun coming up behind it.”

  “It was the end of your world. I get it.” Prin said softly. He wondered if he would have liked to see the Vulture burn to the ground, if he would have watched it go down to the very last cinder. Or if it would have made him cry. Stone wouldn’t burn like that anyway. Just crumble to dust over hundreds of years.

  “It gets a bit fuzzy after that. I think at some point someone from the village came and was scaring me and I ran away . . . It’s like I had been waiting for my mother to walk out of the fire. At the last moment. Making a dramatic entrance was just like something she would do.” Aster said. “Also I am a little confused why I didn’t go to anyone I knew from the village, or surrounding areas. It hurts now to think about it, I mean it gives me a headache.”

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  “The men who might have been your father? The one who sent you to boarding school?” Prin asked. It seemed only natural that he would have taken Aster in.

  “He had a family, a jealous wife. And we had sort of fallen out with him after that whole thing.” Aster commented, her face said it really was hard to see into the thick of this part. Like that pea soup fog which causes people to run their horses off the side of a mountain.

  “It’s alright.” Prin said quickly. “You’re here with me now, there’s no reason to force yourself to remember.” Privately he wondered if there was a reason certain memories might be blocked. Had the townspeople run all the women who had worked there out of town? He knew some people held really low opinions of such establishments, he had read about it in books. Had they maybe even set the fire? Prin wouldn’t say it.

  “Hmm.” Aster made a thoughtful noise. She squeezed Prin’s hand.

  “Oh!” Prin said suddenly. “What about Eva?” He regretted it almost as soon as he had asked it.

  Aster grimaced. “I had her with me. And I guess her mother never appeared again, just like mine didn’t . . . Thing is, I wanted to keep her. I really wanted to! . . . I had nothing when I got done running and I was somehow in an unfamiliar place? I tried to feed her. I did things I never thought I’d do to get her milk and fruit but she wasn’t doing well. And I . . . wasn’t doing well.

  I ended up leaving her at a temple where the priestesses ran a foundling home. I even wanted to go back and get her later when a man I was seeing, I guess you would call it, but of course he was a glorified client, you know, had put me up in my own apartment. He wouldn’t let me though . . . You should never let a man tell you what to do, bunny. But sometimes you have nothing and he has everything . . . Needless to say he was too possessive and too controlling, it didn’t last long. That’s a whole ‘nother story though.”

  “At least she didn’t die!” Prin said, momentarily forgetting that had been a private worry best kept to himself.

  “That we know of.” Aster said glumly. “And no thanks to me if she didn’t.”

  “Well, you did carry her out of a burning building.” Prin felt compelled to point out.

  “There is that.” Aster agreed.

  “I wont ever ask you about it again.” Prin said softly, unsure if he was lying or not, but wanting to be forgiven.

  “No, no, it’s okay.” Aster smiled at him and patted his arm with her free hand. “We all have our dark moments, eh? I’m – I’m mostly over it I think. Although I have always wanted to know what started that fire, and if – Never mind.” She squeezed his hand before wriggling hers away and stretching her arms straight up with a big yawn.

  “Never mind what?” Prin wondered. Already breaking his vow of ten seconds ago. Oh well, it was bound to happen.

  Before she could answer, there was a knock on the door downstairs. It must have been loud for the sound, or maybe it was the vibrations, to have carried all the way upstairs.

  A door opened and slammed shut as someone hastened to greet them.

  “Could just be a delivery or something?” Prin said warily. He put his hand on Aster’s shoulder, as though somehow afraid she would leap up and go to the door.

  “Crow.” Aster said.

  Prin jumped up. “I’m going to go see if I can listen in. Stay here, please, and lock the door behind me.”

  “Wait, why am I hiding?” Aster asked. “Oh yeah . . . he was in my room, wasn’t he. I guess it doesn’t look good.”

  “Right.” Prin said. Not adding that they were hoping people would think Aster was dead. Could that be a possibility? Dead people aren’t searched for, found, and dragged before the courts. Or, at the very least back into their outdated and dangerous “old lives”. “I’ll be back as soon as I can to let you know what’s going on.”

  “Okay.” Aster said. She held out a hand as Prin was leaving. “Wait.”

  Prin looked back over his shoulder. “I have to—"

  “I know. Just, my captain can handle it. Don’t worry that you have to help . . . or intercede. Just keep yourself safe and hidden.” Aster said.

  “I will.” Prin assured.

  Prin went immediately to the kitchen door. If it was Crow, the captain would let him get no farther. And if it wasn’t . . .?

  Prin could hear multiple voices, though none seemed to be raised in anger, so at least there was that. What if it was Crow but he brought reinforcements. Did he know where his partner had been going that night?

  Luckily, this was an easy room to spy into, practically designed for that purpose. Prin slowly opened it a small crack.

  Two cloaked figures faced the captain, one very tall and the other, only carrying herself that way. An all in black bodyguard stood by the door to the outside, as though to prevent anyone from leaving.

  The presence of these three seemed to diminish the captain slightly, and Prin was suddenly worried by the fact that he was completely outnumbered.

  Not, as outnumbered as he thinks. Since I’m here! Prin thought, having to choke back a snort of laughter.

  The woman put back the hood of her cloak, and it was Kristianna, Mama Kris. And she smiled with cold eyes. Prin could imagine this was the look her employees got when they had done something wrong and she was considering their punishment.

  Her son followed her lead and put his own hood back. His expression was more blatantly angry, but was he ever any other way?

  Prin couldn’t tell if the captain was matching their energy since his back was to him. He would not like to face these two himself and actually, this was worse than Crow, if you think about it.