A lot of people shouted when they were very angry. Celia didn’t do that. Celia left you sitting in frigid silence. She did not growl threats. She let you imagine what she was thinking, how you’d disappointed her, what your punishment might be. Vision trembled in place as she envisaged all of the horrible things the woman might say to her. Celia had raised her, loved her. Would she take that love back? Her mind galloped wildly ahead of her and she reined it back in with some effort.

To distract herself, she looked around the room. She had not been in Celia’s room for a long time and it unearthed vivid childhood memories. Her feet still dangled off the bed when she sat, so she swung them and focused on that. She thought that under any other circumstances, this room might have felt like the safest place in the world. It was a sanctuary, so out of place in a brothel. The smell of Celia’s favourite perfume filled her nose and the soft, muted drapes on the walls lent a sense of warmth and luxury that seemed improbably given the setting. More importantly, it was where Celia was. It was home.

“Why do you think I’m angry at you, Vision?” Celia asked finally, shattering the deathly quiet.

Vision swallowed the lump in her throat. Celia stood above her and suddenly, she was a child again. She shook her head to clear it.

“For leaving? Or for not telling you I was gonna leave?”

“I ain’t mad at you for leaving. Ether, girl. I’m angry you made it so you had to leave. Your mam didn’t leave you with me so you could spend your life running from men.”

Vision sighed, folding her hands in her lap as she fell into the old argument, “I can’t take a job here. Couldn’t then, can’t now.”

“Why not? You’d do well. Make more money than you do thieving, I’d wager, and you know how much Gretta wants you.”

“That don’t matter.”

“Because you don’t want to do it? Or because Fox says no?”

“Fox wants what’s best for me.”

“I love that boy to pieces, Vision, but he doesn’t know everything and you can’t keep relying on him the way you do.”

Vision shifted uncomfortably. The courtesan sat down beside her.

“Alright, girl. Alright. Either way, thieving ain’t a job for a woman. Especially not a woman who looks like you.”

“I’ll be fine,” Vision insisted stubbornly, reciting the same lines from all the other times she’d had this very conversation, “No man whose attentions I didn’t want has had his way with me yet.”

“Luck,” Celia insisted gently, “It’ll happen, Vision. I can’t stop it. Fox can’t stop it, not forever, and neither can you. Only thing you can do is make sure you decide when, where and how it happens, and get paid for it.”

Vision’s stomach knotted uncomfortably and she wrung her hands. Celia’s words struck a chord, as they never had before. When they’d left, Thumbs, her old crew leader, had been overt in his intentions to take her. She’d been becoming a woman and he’d considered her his. Fox had always seen it coming, though, and been there to stop it. When it had become too dangerous, they’d had time to leave. Red, though… he was a different story. How could anyone protect her from him if they refused to recognise him as a threat?

“Whoring isn’t what my mam would have wanted for me,” she whispered.

It was her last line of defence and Celia batted it away like it was nothing.

“Your mam? Your mam bought me my courtesan’s licence when I couldn’t pay for my apprenticeship any more. She never had a problem with whoring.”

“Yeah, well, she didn’t grow up in a brothel.”

Celia hissed under her breath and snatched up a hairbrush, too fine for a woman of her station. It was a relic from a time when Celia Bellini would have become an important mage and she brandished it like a rapier.

“Your mam left me with you for a reason. Do you really think she would’ve picked a thief’s life for you? Do you think she wanted you to sleep with one eye open, watching to see that no Ether-blighted thug takes advantage of you while you wait for the crown to scar that pretty face of yours with a thief’s brand? I’m trying to keep you safe the best way I know how. Stop fighting me, girl.”

Vision hesitated, “I can’t. Fighting’s all I’ve got.”

She flopped back onto the bed, ending the conversation. She stared at the ceiling as tears slid silently down her cheeks. Celia went to rummage in the vanity across the room. Then, her gentle hands coaxed Vision into her lap. She pulled a comb gently through her hair, massaging her scalp and separating tangles. It felt good. It felt safe. In that moment, she knew that despite everything, she was forgiven. Celia was scared, not angry, not really. She still had a home.

Sighing, Vision relaxed into the care of the only mother she could truly remember. From beneath her lashes, she glimpsed the ornately carved ivory comb that Celia had always used to comfort her as a girl. She had used it that very first night, when two very frightened, very alone children had been deposited on her doorstep. Then, there was a startling crack. Celia exhaled sharply. Vision opened her eyes.

The comb had broken.