The alley smelled of rot and copper. Kira pressed her hand against the brick wall, leaving a crimson smear that would puzzle the City Watch come morning. Not that they'd investigate too thoroughly. This was the River District. People died here every week, and no one asked uncomfortable questions.
Her side burned where the blade had caught her. Amateur mistake. She'd been distracted, thinking about the contract, about the man who'd hired her, about the dead woman now cooling three streets over. The target's bodyguard had been better than expected. Or perhaps Kira was simply getting tired.
She was always tired these days.
Twenty-three confirmed kills. No, twenty-four now. The Shadowstep Clan would be pleased. Master Vex would nod his approval and hand her the next contract. And the next. And the next. Until one day, someone faster or luckier would leave her bleeding in an alley, and the Guild would simply replace her with another weapon.
Because that's all she was. A blade wrapped in flesh. The Clan had made sure of that, training her since she was six years old. *A true Shadowstep never questions, never hesitates, never feels.*
The irony was that she'd felt nothing during the kill itself. It was only after—looking at the woman's face, seeing the half-finished letter on her desk—that something had cracked inside Kira's chest.
The woman had been writing to her daughter.
Kira slumped against the wall, pressing harder against the wound. The bleeding was slowing, but she needed to move. Her safe house was four blocks north. She could make it. She'd survived worse.
She pushed off the wall, took three steps, and nearly collapsed.
"Whoa! Hey, are you okay?"
The voice startled her so badly that her hand went to her knife—the one she kept in her boot, the one they'd missed when patting her down would've happened if anyone had been foolish enough to get close. But it was just a young man, early twenties maybe, with messy brown hair and the widest, most genuinely concerned eyes she'd ever seen.
He wore a delivery runner's gear—practical clothes, worn boots, a leather satchel slung across his chest. And perched on his shoulder, glowing with soft golden light, was the smallest spirit hamster Kira had ever seen.
The man was already rushing toward her, hands out like he was approaching a spooked horse. "You're hurt! Here, let me—oh wow, that's a lot of blood. Okay, okay, don't panic. I have bandages! And water! And—" He was digging through his satchel frantically. "And half a meat bun, but I don't think that helps with stab wounds."
Kira stared at him. She should run. Or kill him. Or at minimum, threaten him into silence. Instead, she found herself asking, "Why are you helping me?"
He looked at her like she'd asked why the sky was blue. "Because you need help? Obviously?" He pulled out a surprisingly clean roll of bandages. "I'm Renn, by the way. This is Mochi." He gestured to the hamster, which squeaked at her. "We were finishing my last delivery when I saw you stumble. You look like you got mugged. Did you get mugged? The River District is really bad for that. I keep telling people they should travel in groups after dark, but—"
"I'm fine," Kira said automatically.
"You're literally bleeding through your shirt."
She looked down. He was right. Damn it. "It's not as bad as it looks."
"It looks like you're about to pass out." He was closer now, and she realized she hadn't stopped him. Hadn't even raised her weapon. There was something about his earnest concern that had completely disarmed her—metaphorically speaking, since she was still very armed.
The hamster—Mochi—hopped down from his shoulder and approached her carefully. Its little nose twitched, and it made a concerned chirping sound.
"Even Mochi thinks you need help," Renn said. "And he's usually a pretty good judge of character. Here, at least let me wrap that. I'm not a healer or anything, but I've patched myself up enough times. I run into things a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Last week I ran face-first into a lamp post because I was waving at someone and not watching where I—sorry, you're bleeding and I'm rambling."
He was already kneeling beside her, and Kira found she lacked the energy to protest. The wound wasn't deep enough to kill her, but she was losing blood faster than she'd thought. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to accept help from this strange, chattering delivery boy and his judgmental hamster.
"This is going to sting," Renn warned, pulling out a small flask. "It's just water and some antiseptic herbs. Sister Elena at the temple gives them to me because, again, I injure myself a lot."
The liquid burned when he poured it over the wound, but Kira had experienced far worse during Clan training. She didn't even flinch.
Renn, however, winced sympathetically. "Sorry, sorry! Almost done. You're really tough, you know that? Most people would be screaming. This one time I got a paper cut and—"
"Do you ever stop talking?" Kira asked, but there was no heat in it. His nervous chatter was almost... soothing. Like white noise that kept her from thinking about the dead woman's letter.
"My mentor says it's my worst quality," Renn admitted cheerfully, wrapping the bandage with surprising competence. "But I think it's actually my second-worst quality. My actual worst quality is that I can't say no when people ask me to do things. Like right now, I should probably be getting home because it's really late and my landlady gets worried, but I can't just leave you here, can I? What if you pass out? What if those muggers come back?"
"I can take care of myself."
"Obviously! You're still conscious after getting stabbed. That's pretty amazing." He tied off the bandage and sat back on his heels. "But maybe, just this once, you could let someone help? Please? It would make me feel better. And Mochi is already worried about you."
The hamster had climbed onto her knee and was staring up at her with big, concerned black eyes. It squeaked again, more insistently this time.
Kira had killed twenty-four people. She'd been trained since childhood to feel nothing, to be nothing but a weapon. She'd walked through blood and shadows for seventeen years, and no one had ever looked at her the way this stupid delivery boy and his stupid glowing hamster were looking at her now.
Like she was a person worth saving.
"I don't have money for a healer," she heard herself say.
"That's okay! Sister Elena does charity work. She'll patch you up for free. She's always saying that healing should be available to everyone, regardless of—"
"Why?" Kira interrupted. "Why are you doing this?"
Renn tilted his head, genuinely confused. "Doing what?"
"Helping me. You don't know me. I could be dangerous."
"Well, you're hurt and alone in an alley at night," he said simply. "That's reason enough, isn't it?" He stood and offered her his hand. "Come on. The temple's not far. Can you walk?"
Kira looked at his outstretched hand. Calloused from work, but gentle. Honest. She couldn't remember the last time someone had offered her help without wanting something in return.
She took his hand.
Renn's face split into a bright, genuine smile that made something twist in her chest. "Great! Okay, lean on me if you need to. Mochi, can you light the way?"
The hamster scrambled back up to Renn's shoulder and glowed brighter, casting warm golden light down the dark alley. Renn put his arm around Kira's waist, supporting her weight, and started walking.
"So," he said conversationally, as if escorting bleeding strangers through dangerous streets was something he did every Tuesday, "do you live around here? I do deliveries all over the city. Maybe I've seen you before. I'm pretty good with faces. This one time I delivered a package to the same lady three times in one week, and—"
Kira let him talk. Let his words wash over her like a stream, babbling and constant and oddly comforting. She watched the hamster's glow bounce with each of Renn's steps, noticed how he carefully guided her around puddles and debris, how he kept glancing at her to make sure she was okay.
She should kill him. He'd seen her face, seen her injury. He could identify her if the Watch came asking questions. It would be so easy. A blade between the ribs, quick and clean. Leave him in the alley and disappear into the night like she'd never been there at all.
But Kira found she didn't want to. For the first time in seventeen years, she wanted something other than the next contract, the next kill, the next shadow to disappear into.
She wanted to know why this boy with the ridiculous hamster had chosen kindness when everyone else in her life had chosen cruelty.
"I'm Kira," she said quietly.
Renn's smile somehow got brighter. "Nice to meet you, Kira! Don't worry, we'll get you fixed up. Sister Elena is amazing. One time I fell off a roof—long story—and she healed me right up. Didn't even lecture me too much about being more careful, though she did make me promise to look where I was going. I'm still working on that."
Mochi squeaked what sounded like agreement, and despite everything—the blood, the pain, the dead woman's letter still haunting her thoughts—Kira felt the corner of her mouth twitch.
It wasn't quite a smile. She wasn't sure she remembered how to smile anymore.
But it was something.
And in the warm glow of Mochi's light, with Renn's steady arm supporting her and his endless chatter filling the silence, Kira felt something crack open inside her chest. Something that had been frozen solid for seventeen years.
It felt terrifying.
It felt like hope.