“Hey-ho, Azo.”
“Hey-ho, Jay-Oh,” Azoth said. Even as he gave the words the same stress he always had, Azoth felt part of himself die. This was supposed to be one of his last outings as Azoth. Soon, he would have to become Kylar. He would walk differently, talk differently. He wouldn’t ever visit his old neighborhoods in the Warrens. But now he saw that Azoth’s world was already dying, that he would never connect with Jarl again. It had nothing to do with the lies Kylar would tell, and everything to do with Rat. It was different now. It always would be.
Azoth and Jarl looked at each other for a long moment in the common room of Momma K’s house. It was almost midnight, and the guild rats would soon be shooed out of the house. They were welcome in the common room all day, but they were allowed to sleep here only in the winter, and then only if they obeyed her rules: no fighting, no stealing, no going anywhere but the kitchen and the common room, and no bothering the adults who visited. Any guild rat who broke the rules got his entire guild banned from Momma K’s for the winter. Usually, it was a death sentence for the offender, because it meant the whole guild would have to sleep in the sewers to stay warm, and they would kill him for that.
Still, the place was always crowded. There was a fireplace and a floor covered with soft rugs good for sleeping on. Those rugs had once been clean, but were now stained from their filthy bodies. Despite the damage, Momma K never got mad at them—and every few months, new rugs showed up. There were durable chairs the guild rats were allowed to sit on, toys, dolls, and piles of games they could play. Sometimes Momma K even brought them treats. Here they gambled and bragged and gossiped freely with anyone who was here, even children outside their own guild. It was the only place the guild rats were allowed to resemble children. It was the only safe place they knew.
Coming back, it looked different. What had seemed so recently the very lap of luxury now was just a plain room, with plain furnishings and simple toys because the guild rats would ruin anything better. They would stain everything and break anything delicate, not from malice but from ignorance. The place was the same; it was Azoth who had changed. Azoth—or Kylar, whichever he was—marveled at the stench of the guild rats. Didn’t they smell themselves? Weren’t they ashamed, or was it just him, ashamed to see what he had been?
As he always did after his reading lesson with Momma K, Azoth had looked for Jarl. But now that they were face to face, neither could find anything to say.
“I need your help,” Azoth said finally. There was no way to cover what he wanted. He wasn’t here to visit a friend. He was here to do a job.
“My help?”
“I need to know what’s happened to Doll Girl. Where is she? And I need to know what’s happening with the guilds.”
“I guess you wouldn’t know.”
“No.” Guilds weren’t part of his life now. Nothing was like it used to be.
“Your master hit you?” Jarl asked, looking at Azoth’s black eyes.
“I got this in a fight. He does hit me, but not like—” Azoth cut off.
“Not like Rat?”
“How is he?” Azoth said, trying to cover.
“Why don’t you tell me? You’re the one who killed him.”
Azoth opened his mouth, but seeing two littles in Momma K’s front room, stopped.
“Blint made you kill Rat to see if you could do it, didn’t he?” Jarl asked, his voice low.
“No. Are you crazy?” In his head, he could hear the echoes of Master Blint’s voice from their training: “Word gets out. Word always gets out.”
Hurt filled Jarl’s eyes, and he said nothing for a long time. “I shouldn’t push, Azoth. I’m sorry. I should just thank you. Rat . . . he messed me up bad. I’m so confused all the time. I hated him, but sometimes. . . . When Rat disappeared and I saw you walking away with Blint . . .” Jarl blinked rapidly and stared away. “Sometimes I hate you. You left me with no one. But that’s not right. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just Rat . . . and me.”
Azoth didn’t know what to say.
Jarl blinked furiously again. “Shut up, Jarl. Shut up.” He dashed the tears from his eyes with fists. “What do you need?”
There was something Azoth should say, he knew it. Some assurance he should give, but he didn’t know what it was. Jarl had been his friend—was his friend, wasn’t he?—but he’d changed. Azoth had changed. He was supposed to be Kylar now, but instead, he was just a fraud straddling two worlds and trying to hold on as they tore apart. Whatever the cataclysm named Rat had left Azoth holding onto, one thing was certain. A chasm had opened between him and Jarl, and Azoth was afraid to even approach it, didn’t understand what it was, didn’t know anything except that it made him feel dirty and scared. Jarl was letting him put the walls back up by asking his simple question—a simple question that could be answered simply, a problem that they could actually resolve.
“Doll Girl,” Azoth said. He felt relieved to back away from his once-friend and guilty that he felt relieved.
“Oh,” Jarl said. “You know she got . . . ?”
“Is she all right now?”
“She’s alive. But I don’t know if she’s going to make it. They make fun of her. Without you around, she isn’t like she used to be. I’ve been sharing my food with her, but the guild’s falling apart. Things are too bad. We don’t have enough food.”
The guild, not our guild. Azoth kept his face blank, refused to show how much that hurt. It shouldn’t have hurt. He was the one who’d wanted out, he was the one who left, but it still made him feel empty.
You will be alone. You will be different. Always.
“Ja’laliel’s almost dead; turns out Rat stole his review money. And now they lost the waterfront to Burning Man, and others are closing in.”
“They?”
Jarl’s face twisted. “If you’ve got to know, they threw me out of Black Dragon. Threw us all out. Didn’t want buggers and Rat-lovers, they said.”
“You don’t have a guild?” Azoth asked. It was a disaster. Guild rats without a guild were fair game for anyone. That Jarl had stayed alive since being expelled was surprising, that he’d had food to share with Doll Girl was amazing, and that he was willing to was humbling.
“Some of us have banded together for a little while. They call us the Buggers. I’m going to try to join Two Fist on the north side. Rumor is they might get the market on Durdun soon,” Jarl said.
That was Jarl. Always had a plan.
“They’re willing to take Doll Girl, too?”
He was answered with guilty silence.
“I asked. I did, Azoth. They just won’t do it. If you—” Jarl’s mouth opened to say more, then closed.
“I’m not going to make you ask, Jarl. I’ve been looking for you to give it back.” Azoth lifted his tunic and unwrapped the sash full of coins. He handed it to Jarl.
“Azoth, this—this is twice as heavy as it was.”
“I’ll take care of Doll Girl. Give me a couple weeks. Can you take care of her for that long?”
Jarl’s eyes were filling with tears, and Azoth was afraid his would too. They called each other Jarl and Azoth now, not Jay-Oh and Azo.