Barthim did not want to leave Lena. Ammas had been muttering to him, kneeling by the big man's side, for what felt like hours, though it could not have been more than a few minutes. The pain in his shoulder, the exhaustion opening the doors always left him with, and most of all the sight of poor Lena laying slaughtered on the Old Godsway had warped his sense of time altogether.
"Barthim, please, listen to me. There's at least one more of those things out there. We have to protect Carala, and Casimir, and all the other girls at the Lioness. Your man over there, get him, let us use him. At least he has a club." Ammas's fingers were pressed to the Beast's huge shoulder, heedless of the blood flowing from the jagged claw marks.
Barthim only shook, weeping still more clamorously. The girls on the Lioness's porch -- not all of them, but a good number, Ammas thought, and of course the patrons had all fled up the street, the cowardly little whoring shits -- shrank together, perhaps more unnerved by Barthim the Beast being consumed with grief than they were by the violent death of one of their own.
"Barthim, if Carala had so much as a sword, I could use her. She's tough and stubborn. But she doesn't, and these things might know how to rouse something in her she can't control. Casimir is brave but he's still a child. Help me. Help me so we can put a stop to this."
Distantly, hoofbeats began to thrum along the road. Ammas swore violently. But Barthim at least seemed to be pulling himself together, wiping his face on the bloodied rags of his vest. "All right, Ammas. I will break as many necks as you need me to break, and with pleasure."
That was as good as anything Ammas could hope to hear from Barthim, and so he sprang up and raced to the Lioness's porch. Madame Laurette was there in her dark red velvet dressing robe, but it was to Selene Ammas spoke. He had always gotten along with her almost as well as he had Lena. "Selene, listen to me -- "
The red-haired Lioness girl bent forward and grabbed Ammas's hand in hers, which were cold and shaking. The smell of perfume and wine hung about her in a cloud, but through it all was a red pulse of terror. "Ammas, what is that thing, what did that to Lena, oh gods, it's not a werewolf, are they? How many, Ammas, is it a pack, is it -- "
"Selene," he hissed. "I don't have time. The city guard is on its way -- "
"Yes, yes, Yula ran up to catch one -- "
"Fine. We need the guard. The more swords the better. But I'm going to be arrested. I can reason with some of them, but not all, and I have no idea who's on their way. Lena died trying to help that girl. I can't lose her to the guard, or Casimir either. Please. Hide them here. As far as you know Casimir never came to work for me, and my client is just a new girl named -- named Mari. Can you do that for me?" He spoke rapidly, trying not to give Selene time to come up with an excuse not to do it.
But he needn't have worried. Selene looked up from Ammas to Lena, Barthim still kneeling over her though his weeping seemed to have given way to prayers. "Lena was trying to help her?"
"Yes."
"All right. They can come here. We'll be glad to have Cass back anyway."
Madame Laurette sprang forward. "Now you both hold on here, this is my business and I get a say in this, and I don't want anyone associated with you in my house when the guard comes to haul you to Titansgrave, Ammas! You just march right back -- "
Selene rounded on Madame Laurette and seized her by the robes, slamming her against the cheerfully painted wall of the Prideful Lioness. Her tastefully sculpted gray hair flew askew. Even Ammas was shocked. "You just listen here, you hateful cunt. Lena was just murdered. Her blood is still warm. She died for something other than fucking the drunks you give us to every night. So you're going to make sure it wasn't for nothing."
Laurette's mouth worked silently, her eyes darting to the other girls gathered on the porch and finding absolutely no allies there. Ammas was privately delighted, but still anxious: the hoofbeats were only getting closer, and he doubted they had more than a couple of minutes before the guard arrived. At last the Madame nodded, slumping against the wall as Selene released her.
With a bright smile and sad eyes Selene raised a hand to the two small figures huddled together on the temple portico. "Come on over here, pretty. We'll make you look a proper Lioness girl. And Cass, there's fresh fruit and cakes if you're hungry."
The two of them scurried by, neither of them entirely pleased with the arrangement but at least recognizing its necessity. "Why are they arresting you?" Carala hissed as they paused by Ammas. Casimir looked up him despairingly.
"Because they're going to think I'm responsible for this. It's not the first time. Once I talk to the Captain-Commander it'll be done with. I'll be back here by morning. Just keep your head down over there. Don't give them a reason to take you into custody." His eyes fixed evenly on hers. "Imprisonment would have severe consequences for your condition. Severe."
Carala swallowed hard and nodded, trying not to think how the wolf inside her would respond to being caged. She turned and mounted the steps, Selene draping an arm around her shoulders and hustling her inside. Casimir, however, was not so accommodating.
"I don't want to go back there," he whispered, his eyes imploring Ammas. Casimir's eyes were wide and almost unblinking with shock, and kept flitting from Ammas to the sight of Lena in the street. There were no tears, not yet. He simply hadn't processed it. Maybe he even expected Lena would be all right, once Ammas had treated her. The thought nearly unmanned Ammas entirely.
Steeling himself, Ammas knelt down, hands gripping his apprentice's shoulders. "You're not going back there. You're just hiding there. I'll be back by lunch time at the latest. You don't work for Madame Laurette and you never will again. But I need you to stay there, Casimir, until I know it's safe."
Casmir nodded and turned, stepping into the brothel far more reluctantly than Carala had, throwing Ammas one uneasy glance over his shoulder before he did. Ammas's heart went out to the boy, but he had little time left for niceties. Hurriedly he went back to Barthim's side, glad to see the bouncer was getting back to his feet without assistance. "All right, Ammas. Where are you needing me? At the Lioness?"
"They'll never believe it. I'm treating you. You haven't been bitten. I may have to do a more extensive test to prove it to them -- "
"You are getting my pants off after all then." Barthim's smile was weak and quavery, and did not last long.
"If I have to. Go sit at my table. Look more hurt than you are."
Barthim nodded and swayed toward the temple, staring at the ground as resolutely as if he were daubed with spirit salve himself. Ammas swore again. Likely the guard would have something to say about the black smears on his face, but he wasn't going to risk washing it off until he knew he wouldn't need it again. Even now he could hear the whispers, and while the doors were closed more firmly than they had been a little while ago, it wouldn't take much for him to throw them wide once more.
At last he turned to Lena.
She looked smaller somehow; diminished. Her fine blonde hair was splashed with crimson and her blue eyes stared up blindly at the stars, a look of shock stamped on her features. The injuries to her throat and, he realized now, her belly he could not bear to look at longer than the seconds it took to confirm she could not have survived them. With a trembling hand he slipped his hat from his head. With his other he closed her eyes, gently. Unaware he was about to do it, he bent down to her, cradling her head in his hand, pressing his cheek to hers. She was still warm, and he could almost trick himself into believing that she heard, here or somewhere on the far side of the Veil of Ravens, what he said to her now.
"I would have said yes, Lena," he whispered. Tears stung his eyes, more from the realization than from the words themselves. "I would have said yes and I would have found a way -- a way to -- "
The words would no longer come, caught in the ache of his throat. Slowly he got to his feet, donning his hat with a precision that was almost military. The guard was almost here, and he couldn't be found kneeling at this girl's side. Although he had to turn his back on her for now, he never forgot the encounter between them in that sad and ruined garden, or the words he found himself murmuring to her in this dusty street. Nor did he think he would ever speak of them to another soul, no more than he spoke of his parents.
With as much speed as he could muster -- which wasn't much -- he returned to the temple portico, leaning over Barthim to examine his wounds.