“Are you alright?"

  The question made Jewel blink, and she realized that she had completely spaced out. She had been staring at the same line on Alleghy’s ledger for several minutes without moving.

  The girl looked up to find Lain eyeing her from across the room. Jewel was working at the counter in the kitchen, bent over Alleghy’s ledger book, while Lain was reclining by the broad window of the apartment, a book sitting open and ignored on her lap.

  It was one of the ones Jewel had bought after arriving in Lowrun, a sequel to one she had owned back home in Highwalk. Unfortunately, the cover art had made its salacious contents obvious, and Jewel’s father had forbidden her to purchase it while she had lived with him.

  Lain wasn’t much of a reader, but after Jewel credited some measure of her… ah… romantic success with Lain to her books, a small interest had been sparked in the thief. Of course, she cared little for any story content, and Jewel had often caught her flipping ahead to get to the next explicit scene.

  Lain’s arched eyebrow segued into a look of genuine concern as she finally stood up. “Are you alright?” she repeated.

  “Ah… Yes,” Jewel said, before amending, “I think.”

  Lain nodded. She spoke her next words carefully, like she was tiptoeing over broken glass. “You’ve been a little off ever since that fight yesterday.”

  The fight. Could it really even be called that? Lain had put Elena down with the calm confidence of a butcher at work, the skilled swordswoman not even seeming to have a chance to defend herself.

  To Jewel, who had come up reading stories of heroines being saved by the brutal will of their lovers, it had been a ring novel scene come to life, one of the most thrilling, and appealing, moments of her life.

  “I suppose the memory is somewhat… distracting,” Jewel admitted, hoping Lain wouldn’t notice the way her thighs came together on the last word.

  Lain nodded, her face a mask of sympathy. “I get that. The first time you see someone die… it can be a lot.”

  Yeah… a lot. That was one way of describing it.

  “When was your first time?” Jewel asked. “Seeing someone die like that?”

  Lain leaned down, her forearms resting on the counter surface while her upper arms lovingly framed-

  Jewel jerked her eyes up to meet Lain’s, her lover lifting an eyebrow and smiling at Jewel with obvious accusation.

  Caught, Jewel thought. She couldn’t bring herself to feel guilty over it.

  “It’s hard to say,” Lain said. “I’ve been on the street a long time–as far back as I can remember, I don’t really recall being particularly fazed by death.” The thief paused, considering, and the smile fell from her face. “I suppose the first time I really processed someone’s death, though, was Vamilla.”

  “Greyveil?” Jewel asked. “The master thief?”

  Lain tilted her head. “Yeah. You know about her?”

  Jewel looked back to her ledger, little points of heat building on her cheeks. “Yeah. I mean, I was just a girl when she died, but even so… she made an impression. My father still curses her name when his goods go missing.”

  Lain snorted a dry laugh. “That would make her happy, I think. She was my mentor, when I was younger. Me and a few others worked for her, ran support on her jobs, and picked up some tips from her.”

  Jewel frowned, considering the words alongside what Lain had told her in the past of her history with Jewel’s betrothed. “Kolaven… she was one of those others, right?”

  Lain’s face fell, something hard and flinty showing itself in her expression, and she nodded curtly. “Kole. Yes. She was a little older than the rest of us. An Apprentice level mage, with the scoundrel and evoker gifts. She was Vamilla’s second, the face and fence for her little organization. I was young then. I had only just come into my first gift–thief, of course–but I wasn’t even a true gifted when Vamilla got overbold. She tried to rob the wrong person. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Telik?”

  Jewel drew in a sharp breath. Even she knew about the infamous crimelord that had, for most of a decade, dominated Lowrun. He had been powerful enough that even her father had dealings with him–right up until his sudden death the year before. “Yes,” Jewel confirmed. “Even uphill, he… Well, yes, I’ve heard of him.”

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  “Something went wrong,” Lain continued. “I doubt anyone knows exactly what, but word got around that someone had betrayed Vamilla. The general suspicion fell on Kole–she was one of the only people with enough knowledge to be able to give away Vamilla’s plans in the first place–but word spread that she was dead before anyone could dig too deep.”

  “A lie, I guess?” Considering that the woman Lain remembered had returned to the city within a few years and begun courting Jewel to win her dowry, she was fairly sure Kolaven was alive.

  Lain’s frown twisted into an expression of pure hate, like she had bitten into a lemon dusted with poison. “Apparently. She claims she skipped town because Telik was after her, but wise people don’t go around trusting anything a scoundrel tells them.”

  “Scoundrel,” Jewel noted. “You’ve said that a few times–I take it that’s not just an insult?”

  Lain shook her head. “It’s a gift from the outlaw. The gift of con artists, charmers, and liars. Anyway, one way or another, Vamilla got caught. Telik could’ve killed her–but he turned her over to the wardens instead, along with the location of our hideout. A way to get some favor up in Highwalk, probably. Vamilla had done a few jobs uphill. They came down on the rest of us without warning; rounded us up.

  “They had erected a stocks in the middle of town. An object lesson of sorts–a public execution, reminding everyone to keep their hands off of Highwalk money. They went down the line, kicked the blocks out one by one, making sure the crowd got to see each one of us die before they moved on.” Lain swallowed, her face hard. “Vamilla was next to me. I was crying, and she was trying to reassure me. She spit in the face of the hangman when he came–it took two wardens to throw her off the block. One moment, she was alive–vital, fierce, real, breathing. The next… she was gone.”

  “Lain…” Jewel said. Like the rest of Lowrun, the story was different from what the sheltered girl had imagined; different from the Lowrun her books had told her about.

  The words were clearly paining the thief, but she continued, in the empty monotone of someone reciting distant events. “Then they came to me, and I knew I was going to die. They kicked the box out–and the top beam of the stocks broke. Vamilla’s struggling had splintered it.” Slowly, Lain’s face changed, taking on another expression Jewel had never quite seen before, showing an emotion simply beyond her lived experience, a mixture of melancholy sadness, distant reminiscence, and guilty gratitude.

  “That ended up being my Primal trial,” Lain explained. “I faced my end on a gallows of splintered wood, and survived. I ran far and fast, and when I woke up the next morning, I had the gift of wood.”

  It was often that way, for Primal gifts. The archetype of the wild elements was different from the others, not shaped by humans in the same way, and many gifted earned the Primal’s blessing from happenstance, rather than choice. Jewel, too, had survived in the face of raw natural power, that of chaotic flames, and had similarly earned the Primal’s favor.

  “Can I ask you something?” Jewel made her voice as gentle as possible.

  “Always,” Lain responded, without so much as an instant of hesitation. It had been less than a month since they met, and already, so much had changed between the two.

  “Elena was a skilled battle-gifted,” Jewel said. “She had the Warrior’s gift of the vanguard, the Elder’s gift of the hunter, and had even gotten to Initiate and received an ensouled item from my father.” Initiate was the third level of power for gifted, achieved after passing through Novice and Apprentice with their first two gifts, and allowed for a third gift to be received. “But you put her down so easily…”

  Lain nodded. “You know I’m an Adept, right?”

  Jewel nodded. She had put that together weeks ago. Adept was a level past Initiate, representing the consolidated power of three gifts together, and was considered to be the point where a gifted truly left behind human limitations.

  “So that was your third gift you used?” Jewel asked.

  Lain nodded–but she held up a hand before Jewel could ask anything more. “I don’t talk about it,” she said simply. “Not with anyone.”

  “O-oh. Yes of course, I’m sorry…” Jewel looked down, surprising even herself with how that refusal had stung her.

  “It’s nothing to do with you,” Lain apologized hastily. “I trust you, Jewel–but you never know who’s listening.”

  “Even here?” Jewel looked around the dim loft, trying to imagine how anyone would spy on them here.

  “Especially here,” Lain confirmed. “I’ve gone to great lengths to keep this place hidden, but I’m not stupid enough to pretend no one has figured out where I live. And the nature of my gift… Let’s just say that it’s powerful, but it relies on surprise. The more people who know about it, the less useful it becomes.”

  Jewel felt her brows come together. “But… you used it in the middle of the Claw?”

  “Quickly and suddenly,” Lain said. “No one else could make out what I did better than you. Only the speed and coordination of my other gifts, and my Adept level, let me do that.”

  Jewel considered that. “But… If anyone else came for m–for us, again, you could use it?”

  “If I have to,” Lain confirmed with a wink. “You’d be surprised just what I can manage without it, though.”

  “Okay…” Jewel felt something in her chest relax just a little, some of the fear that Kole and Elena’s appearances had left lingering fleeing from her.

  It often surprised her just how capable her partner was.

  And, Jewel reflected as Lain held a hand out to her, the thief’s apparent love for her was often just as surprising.

  Without an active thought, Jewel slid closer to Lain, planting a soft kiss on the curve of her cheek, down to her jawline, then the taut skin of her neck.

  “Can I ask you one more question?” Jewel asked.

  Lain hummed a vague noise of assent, and Jewel couldn’t help a little giggle. As confident and skilled as her rogue was, Lain tended to buckle the moment Jewel laid hands (or lips) on her skin.

  “Can you tell me more about some of your other fights?” Jewel asked, blushing a little at the implied confession.

  Lain hummed again, the sound amused this time. “Seriously?” Lain asked, laughter bubbling and mixing with a little heat in her voice. “That’s what had you so distracted?”

  Jewel nodded hurriedly, pecking more kisses along Lain’s sensitive neck, tracing closer to her ear.

  “Yes please…” she breathed.

  “Well…” Lain considered for a moment, laughter and something darker, hotter, mixing in her words. “There was this one job I did, hitting a vicelord that had rubbed a few doxies the wrong way. They paid me…”