Jasreal winced when Uril grabbed at the ear muffs and snapped them against his ears again. The sound cracked through his skull like thunder directly inside his head, reverberating through bone. That was the very end of his patience.

  "That's it," Jasreal said. "You're getting down."

  He let go of his son's legs and grabbed him under the arms, hauling him off his shoulders. Uril kicked angrily, small feet drumming against Jasreal's ribs. The ear muffs came off as he screamed bloody indignation directly into Jasreal's unprotected ears.

  The world became pain.

  Jasreal fell to his knees, unable to cover his ears while holding the thrashing child. He tried to shove Uril off without hurting him, tried to find the ear protectors while his son's screaming deafened him. Every shriek was a nail driven into his hearing, white-hot and blinding. His vision blurred at the edges. His other senses drowned under the assault.

  The cries stopped with a slap.

  Jasreal looked up to see Gret standing over his little brother, hissing, "Dad's hearing skill!"

  Lazil bless that boy.

  Jasreal snatched the ear muffs and shoved them back on. The overwhelming input lessened but didn't stop. Footsteps shuffling against stone came through like drums. Sniffles whistled in the air. Overlapping voices grated against each other, a hundred conversations at once that he couldn't fully quiet. A cough somewhere down the street hit like a percussive blast. He could still hear everything, just slightly less.

  Then there were his sons.

  "No hitting your brother," Jasreal said firmly, breathing hard.

  Gret bowed his head. "Sorry, father."

  Gret was five and already too much like Benjera. Hit first, think second. Uril sat up, lip quivering, all three tesera of him ready to dissolve again.

  "He hit me!" Uril started to bawl.

  Even muffled, it was too much. Recoiling from your own crying child was bad parenting, so Jasreal picked him up and wiped his tears with teeth gritted. He tried for sympathy.

  "When you scream in my ears, you are hitting your father," Jasreal said quietly, holding the small, warm body against his chest. "I know it doesn't make sense right now. Please watch your voice. Gret had no right to hit you, but he saw me hurting and wanted to help."

  The boys gave each other hard looks.

  Jasreal sighed deeply, the sound of his own breath too loud in his ears. Maybe he wasn't doing this right. Every day got harder. He couldn't remember the last time he'd slept through a full cycle. His back ached. His head pounded. He was hungry but the thought of eating made his stomach turn. This skill was making a death fast sound appealing.

  He stood up, swaying slightly, and held out his hands. His sons walked with him the rest of the way to their street, their small hands in his. If he got the skills sorted, then things could change. Around them, the city hummed with noise he couldn't escape. Vendors calling. Cart wheels grinding. Water flowing through the aqueducts overhead. Voices layering and competing until individual words became meaningless.

  When he got to their street, as soon as he was in view, he heard his name.

  "Jasreal Erlansin, you drop those boys off at Javeno's and sort Benjera out this instant!"

  Gods below. Even angry, his wife's voice was a balm. Sharp and accented, full of inflection and emotion that cut through the noise like a melody. She was at home on the second floor of their building, and he could pinpoint her exact location by sound alone. At least if Rasha was fiery she wasn't sick.

  Just two more cycles. Two more cycles and then… Then everything would get harder, not easier, but the baby would be born and Rasha would recover. Small victories. That's what he had to focus on. Get through the next cycle. Then the next. Finish his skill.

  Jasreal explained to the kids and brought the boys to Javeno’s apartment on the bottom floor of the building beside his own home.

  The patio fence was near invisible as the dense garden spilled out between bars, the food that grew outside the boundary was considered free to anyone on the street and the edible parts were picked clean. Javeno had four kids to feed, he didn’t have a choice but to take the loss so he could make more room, and Jasreal’s shoulders were swept with leaves and hanging branches as he ducked under hanging planters and past raised garden beds with mushroom boxes in the dark beneath them.

  Jasreal went through the jungle of food and into the apartment of his friend. Inside the space was extremely inviting, if not a bit messy.

  When Gret and Uril got through the door they immediately charged in to find the two youngest Liis kids. Jasreal couldn’t help the smile as they immediately picked up some toys and started running around the open space and jumping on couches. Javeno was in the main room to the side at a table with his armor.

  "Some things never change,” Javeno Liis sighed. He was putting on his Watch armor, the blue eyes painted on the shoulder were worn with scratches in them that needed to be touched up. His uniform was also the traditional Lazil blue, but more faded than any of Jasreal’s own uniforms and a little threadbare in places. Even after five tesera Javeno stood without the rigid posture trained into most of them, like he was an imposter well used to putting on a Watch costume. Jasreal decided to take a moment and collapse into Javeno’s couch, pressing the earmuffs to his head even though it didn’t help.

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  “I thought things were finally over,” Jasreal agreed with Javeno.

  Inside their kitchen, Javeno’s wife was cooking with two of their children. He could hear them, hear the pot bubbling, hear the murmured instructions and the wooden spoon scraping against the side of the pot as the contents were stirred. Jasreal couldn’t see them or smell what they were cooking, but he knew. The younger kids all darted into the garden together and he listened to the swishing of leaves as they giggled and ran through out of sight.

  Javeno turned to him and frowned, his cheeks were a little gaunt. Which said a lot to Jasreal because the kids were all healthy and fed. Javeno was Dashworn. Working too many shifts.

  “What?”

  “Benjera,” Jasreal said with resignation.

  “What? No, me, Jasreal! I’ve been called into the temple,” Javeno stressed, “I’m getting kicked out.”

  “What did you do?” Jasreal asked. Javeno shook his head like he didn’t know. Jasreal could think of five reasons Javeno should be kicked out, but Jasreal wasn’t going to rat on him. He had ratted on Javeno’s wife. That was why he made no move to greet her, and she hated his guts.

  “I’ve got to see what mess Benjera’s gotten himself into.” Jasreal sighed. Javeno kept putting his armor on in silence, withholding whatever opinion he had of Benjera. Jasreal slapped his knees and stood up and patted Javeno’s shoulder.

  “Give me a kiss before you go!” Javeno joked.

  Jasreal rolled his eyes and gave his thanks before he turned back toward Benjera's building on the corner, already reaching out with his skill.

  [Listen 11 ^^^]

  Four distinct conversations about Benjera within range, overlapping but separable if he focused. He parsed them simultaneously while he walked. Not the setting his skill was meant for, but it was effective.

  Disappointment settled in Jasreal's chest like a stone. Benjera had done it again. Went on a quest and came back with a frog. He thought his cousin had grown past this. It had been tesera since he pulled this. Almost funny, if it wasn't going to cause so much trouble.

  Jasreal ground his teeth in frustration as he approached Benjera's building. He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and listened up instead of climbing. Better to know what he was walking into.

  [Listen 11 ^^^]

  Heavy breathing from the third floor. Jasreal was about to assume they were being intimate and walk away. Just one set of lungs working hard, labored and desperate. A thump, then a whine of effort. Two heartbeats registered, but one was thready and weak, barely there beneath the stronger rhythm. And the strong one wasn’t familiar. He knew Benjera’s heart.

  "Wake up, Benjera!"

  A woman's voice, panicked and unfamiliar.

  Fear hit him cold and sharp. He needed Benjera. Needed him healthy and alive. Not just him. Everyone.

  [Dash 9 ^^^^]

  Jasreal took the stairs in a burst of speed and threw the door open. A wild-eyed woman looked at him, arms hooked under Benjera's as she tried dragging him across the bare floor toward the bedroom. Benjera looked dead. Skin pale, lips faintly blue. Only the sound of his shallow, raspy breathing said otherwise.

  The apartment was empty. Where was all the furniture? Jasreal looked at the dusty, barren apartment baffled and had to drag his eyes back towards his collapsed cousin. The anomaly could be sorted later.

  The woman was barely dressed, wearing only pink underclothes. Her figure was objectively attractive, supple in a way that would catch any eye. He wasn't looking at her like that, gods, he loved his wife, but he could acknowledge facts. More relevant were her arms, covered in the worst mana burns he had ever seen. Bright red skin threaded with silver scars crawling from fingers to elbows.

  Benjera bait. Of course.

  "What happened? What did you do?" he demanded.

  Fear flashed in her green eyes. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest. Her breathing was tight, she was hyperventilating. He was guessing a panic attack.

  "He drowned earlier, his lungs are inflamed! He needs... He needs a hospital, damn it! He needs oxygen!" She shouted at him, still pulling on Benjera with shaking arms. "I wasn’t paying attention! I know better than this! I don't have a hospital, I have to— I have to—"

  She was trying to help. Panicking, but trying. More importantly, she was not killing him. Jasreal calmed down. As long as Benjera was still alive he didn’t need to stress.

  "Inflammation? Let him go," Jasreal said, crossing to them and hauling Benjera into a sitting position against the wall. He braced himself and slapped Benjera awake. The crack of it sent fresh pain stabbing through his own skill.

  Benjera's eyes lolled open, unfocused.

  "Benji! You need four quest points," Jasreal shouted at him.

  His eyelids fluttered shut.

  Damn it. Jasreal was saving his points. For Rasha. For complications with the birth. For the baby if something went wrong. He couldn't spend them on Benjera being reckless.

  "I can use quest points," the woman said through tears beside Benjera. "How do I use them?"

  Relief washed through Jasreal. This frog could pay. Good.

  "In your DIS, select remove one infection and use it on him," he explained, keeping his voice level.

  She wiped her eyes on her bare shoulder and navigated something invisible. Her hand began to glow with yellow light, silent but bright. She looked at him, bewildered. A fresh frog.

  "Put it on his chest," Jasreal said, leaning away. Accidentally using it on him would be a waste.

  She did. The light seeped into Benjera's skin and he sucked in a large, ragged wheeze of a breath. Then another. His breathing normalized quickly, color returning to his face. His eyes opened, glassy at first before sharpening.

  On her. Only her.

  "Noa?" Benjera said, sitting up straighter.

  And of course Benjera didn't even register that Jasreal was in the room. He grabbed the Lost woman by the face and kissed her.

  Jasreal sat back, annoyed. At least Noa reeled back after a moment, looking at Jasreal with obvious embarrassment. Then Benjera finally noticed him.

  "Jay?"

  "Alright, you're good," Jasreal said, standing and grabbing Noa by the elbow before this got worse. She whined with pain and he winced internally, but he had a job to do. He started pulling her toward the door. "Thanks for the quest points. You've been a great frog, but you're not allowed in the city."

  "Stop!" she said, stumbling. "My clothes."

  Jasreal cringed but didn't stop. He couldn't. The sooner she was out, the less trouble Benjera got in. Every second she stayed made the situation worse. He could apologize to Benjera for being rough later, after she was gone. After she wasn’t ruining everything.

  Benjera's hand landed on his shoulder with a heavy thud. The grip tightened, squeezing hard enough to force Jasreal to let go of the woman. He tugged his arm free and glared up at his cousin.

  "She stays," Benjera said.

  Violence burned in his eyes. Real violence.

  Jasreal hesitated, his own heart suddenly loud in his ears.

  Benjera had never looked at him like that before.