“Yes, yes, I’ll pay your price,” the nobleman said impatiently, dry-washing his hands. As dry as possible with how sweaty they looked, at least. “Name it, money is no object. Just heal me!”

We were still behind the curtain, separated from the Sizzle’s common room. Everyone out there was surely aware of the noble and his two bodyguards, because they’d just forced their way through and he was still carrying on in a very outside voice, but this was still less of an audience for this confrontation than I wanted. Much less. It was lucky he’d chased me down here in one of the central brothels; rather than dragging his complaining ass halfway down the street I just needed to move the scene right outside. Should be doable.

“Money,” I repeated in my flattest tone.

“Money, of course, however much you want,” he repeated, holding out one hand and snapping his fingers impatiently. One of his fancy bully boys took a hand away from his sword handle to produced a bulging coin pouch from inside his coat.

“Do I look like I need money?” I asked.

They all froze, frowning in confusion; the nobleman’s face twitched as he eyed my shabby cloak and coat and I could see him refraining from saying that yes, of course I did. Despite his agitation, he restrained himself.

“Well…what do you want, then? I am a powerful man; I can reward you far better than this Gutter trash.” He made a dismissive gesture at the cluster of prostitutes huddled at the end of the hall with one pox-marked hand. None of them reacted; all of them knew better than to offend a noble.

That was what I needed to change.

“I want nothing,” I stated. “And you have not paid the price.”

“Wh— How dare— Wait!”

Strategising on the fly and trusting Aster to play off my lead, I made right for the thin space between the nobleman and the guard who was in the process of handing him the money. Predictably, he jerked it back to protect his master’s property from the scruffy character pushing into his personal space; the noble also retreated from me, as if he might catch something even worse than what he had if he touched a poor person. In the confusion I pushed right between them and stepped out through the curtain.

“Stop! Stop him!”

They tried; the guy with the money tucked it away, freeing up his hand to grab at my cloak, but by the time he managed that his way was blocked by Aster’s sword. That thing coming out in such close quarters sent the other armed man into bodyguard mode, and he interposed himself between his boss and us, inadvertently clearing the path for both of us to press through and into the common room.

It had fallen silent, whores and johns all staring wide-eyed at the confrontation we were now dragging past them.

“I’m telling you, I’ll pay whatever you want!” the guy screeched, trailing along behind me while his guards awkwardly tried to keep themselves between him and everyone else while also not getting in his way. “Don’t you walk away from me, lowborn! I demand you use your magic on me!”

I got the feeling this fellow was not used to people turning their backs and ignoring him. That, of course, was what made it satisfying.

I strode through the Sizzle’s front room and pushed out the door, stepping into Yrshith Street. In front of me opened up the closest thing there was to a square here in the blue light district, the slightly wider segment of street fronted by the five best brothels in the Gutters. It was maybe an hour before midnight—prime time in this neighborhood. The street was thronged, buzzing with voices, laughter, shouts, and music from both street performers and clusters of drunken patrons singing off-key for the sheer joy of it. Rowdy patrons and bawdy whores catcalled each other, the latter competing to draw custom into their own establishments.

Into this, the Healer strode at a speed that set his cloak flaring dramatically, shadowed by his omnipresent silent bodyguard, while behind him a man orders of magnitude too rich to even be here trailed along, squawking helplessly.

In short, this was a show. We did not get immediate silence and attention—that’s not really how crowds work—but people began to pause their own business and turn to watch.

“Come back here!” the aristocrat yelled in a shrill voice. “So help me, I’ll have you seized by the guard! Do you know who I am?”

I did stop, finally. I had made it to the center of the street. A space cleared around us, as the surrounding Gutter-dwellers wisely removed themselves from the proximity of a highborn having a tantrum. I did not turn to face him, but twisted my head to one side, such that my face would have been in profile to his eyes had my hood not obscured it. My answer was delivered in a projecting tone, powerful enough to be perfectly audible to him and more importantly all the onlookers despite my mask.

“A man begging for help from someone who needs nothing he can offer.”

The gasps were audible; people backed up further and the ring of quiet surrounding us expanded as more onlookers clued in to what was happening. In another time and place, I would have expected laughter at the sight of a rich and powerful man being humbled in public—and undoubtedly I would, once the drunker elements of the crowd started paying attention. This was Fflyr Dlemathlys, however, and irritating a highborn could get you killed. They didn’t flee, though. Despite the danger, this was just too good not to watch, and there was a measure of safety in a crowd.

I let the nobleman splutter for another moment; poor guy was not coping well with not being catered to. What kind of upbringing must a person have to make them this unable to handle disappointment?

“You wish to pay the price, then?” I asked, finally turning to face him. Aster pivoted with me, positioning herself at my back on the other side of the street. Quiet was progressively descending upon the street, with the show I was putting on taking precedence over the various other diversions at hand.

“What do you think I’ve been saying?” the noble screeched. “Yes! Obviously! I’ll pay whatever it costs—I can make you a very rich man. Just work your magic, fool, before I have you flogged for disobedience to your betters!”

This time the gasps had a distinct hissing quality; everyone watching was familiar with the rumors about what happened when you pissed off the Healer, though nobody here had seen it firsthand. Now, the tipping point had been reached, and people were dropping their other various pursuits to gather closer, jostling and craning necks to see. A space had opened up in the street around myself, the aristocrat, and our respective bodyguards. All three had now drawn their weapons, Aster simply standing at the ready while his pair of guards were warily surveying the tightly-packed ring of people in which their boss had gotten us all trapped.

He didn’t seem to even notice the crowd, glaring at me and absently scratching at the sores on the backs of his hands. This guy was inconveniently late; I’d been counting on an event of this type happening at least a couple of weeks ago. I decided to forgive his tardiness, however, because he played his part so perfectly. Everything would’ve been much more awkward if the petitioner had been pitiful, appealing, or even slightly sympathetic to my audience, but there seemed to be nothing in this man but entitlement and aggression. He couldn’t have been a more ideal subject if I had designed him myself.

Blind luck, or Virya at work?

“Tell me.” Thanks to my years of musical training, I have excellent vocal control; it was child’s play to project my voice at a volume that resonated across the street while maintaining an even, calm tone. “How long do you think you could survive here on Yrshith Street?”

“What in Sanora’s blinding name are you babbling about?” His rage only appeared to increase with his incredulity.

“Have you ever toiled with every ounce of your being, every last iota of your strength, drenched yourself in your own sweat and bled for your struggle, only to be rewarded with nothing but one more day of bare survival?”

“How dare you suggest—I am highborn! One of the goddess’s chosen!”

“How much have you sacrificed, and for how little gain?” I began pacing slowly to the left, keeping my head angled so it was clear my gaze was fixed on him while I circled him like a predatory vulture. His bodyguards shifted warily out of my way, which properly professional bodyguards would not have, but I couldn’t really cast stones since mine remained where she was instead of following me. Ah, well, they weren’t really the focus of this drama. “What have you suffered?”

“Look at me!” he practically screamed, holding up both hands so I could see the sores along their backs, some now bleeding from just having been scratched.

“And what has that earned you, in the comfort of your mansion, protected by your guards, tended by your servants? Everyone suffers. Most suffer to an extent that would break you.”

“I will have you—”

“Can you even imagine what it would be like to submit your body to the depredations of whoever could pay, just to earn a meal and a roof over your head?” This time I pushed on, overriding his complaints. They were getting repetitive, anyway. “All with no prospects, no hope, and as punishment for no wrong you had done—only the accident of having been born? To rise each day and toil until you collapsed, with nothing to look forward to but another day of the same, and that if you were lucky. To live under the constant sneering eye of those who presume themselves your betters while refusing to be worthy of their higher station, to suffer abuse and condemnation from petty little men who never earned a speck of their good fortune? Can you even imagine it? The humiliation. The indignity. Is your mind capable of conceiving the reality with which most people live?”

“You are insane,” he said, eyes practically bulging with disbelieving fury now, but he seemed to have been reduced to whispering.

My prowling brought me back around to the point from which I had started, and I turned to face him full-on, standing still once more.

“The price,” I thundered, ensuring my voice reached every ear on the street, “is misery. And you, rich boy, have not paid it.”

I had apparently reduced him to silence, finally. The sick nobleman gaped at me, mouth half-open as if he’d tried to find words and come up with nothing. That was fine; he was just a prop in this drama, as far as I was concerned, not someone whose opinions mattered. With my eyes well-hidden beneath my deep hood, I looked quickly around at the crowd. Unaccustomed silence reigned over Cat Alley now, everyone within earshot having come to watch, and fallen silent to listen. People were even crowding at windows, peering out.

Many of those expressions were solemnly thoughtful; more than a few were angry. Of course, there was a lot of rage buried there. My task was to dig it up, through the layers of despair and fear piled atop these people by men like the one now staring at me in stupefaction.

“So I will ask you again,” I said after allowing the silence to hang for several beats. “Will you pay the price?”

“How many times do I have to say it?” he replied, sounding downright plaintive now. “I did not come here to listen to your deranged ramblings. Whatever your price, I will pay it. I demand that you heal me!”

“My lord,” one of his bodyguards said warily. Not being highborn, he had a more well-developed sense of danger. Alas, his employer cut him off with a slashing gesture rather than listen to sense.

“So be it.” My voice rang out as I raised one hand to point at the lordling.

All according to plan.

Immolate.

He was only the first to scream.

The sight of a man disintegrating in a column of fire right before their eyes would cause any sensible person to back up, and the crowd tried to do so, many with shrill outcries of their own. It was just a backward press, however; a few broke and pushed away through the throng to escape, but most stayed to stare in horrified fascination at the grisly spectacle, once they’d put a little more distance between it and themselves.

Lord What’s-His-Name, who had probably never experienced anything more uncomfortable than the symptoms of his illness, howled in the ultimate extremity of anguish as his very flesh exploded around him, fire bursting from every fresh crack that appeared in his skin from the sheer pressure and heat. He passed through the same cycle with which I had become depressingly familiar by now, eventually falling silent as there was nothing left intact which would enable him to scream. Having stumbled to his knees under the initial onslaught, he now tumbled over onto his side, burning limbs kicking and thrashing as he tried hopelessly to put himself out by rolling on the pavement, before eventually curling up in a smoldering fetal position.

His bodyguards dithered about in a way that would’ve looked downright comical under less horrific circumstances, completely at a loss what to do about this. One tried to grab his boss, then retreated, shaking his singed fingers; the other actually had the presence of mind to turn toward me and brandish his sword. That was where he stopped, however, between the sight of Aster with her huge blade out and the obvious reality that his rapier wasn’t going to do much against a sorcerer who could combust people from the inside out.

And then, as always, the flames receded. The noble’s voice returned, reduced to piteous, whimpering groans. His flesh restored itself as the fire faded, and soon enough, there he lay on his side. Still curled up with his arms over his head, shivering and weeping quietly.

Dead silence had fallen once again, making his soft whimpers stand out all the more. The crowd of whores, johns, and other passersby stared at the spectacle of a highborn, the living incarnation of the power that kept them where they were, sniveling at my feet. No one whispered, at least not yet; the pressure of the moment was like a physical thing keeping everyone rooted in place. But they saw, and they thought. I watched their faces, and watched them absorbing implications.

The nobleman finally, tremulously, shifted one harm to raise his head, peeking up at me with a terrified expression. One of his guards had knelt beside him now, uncertainly touching his shoulder, while the other brandished his rapier at the onlookers as if he feared they would try to mob him.

They wouldn’t, I knew. We weren’t at that point, yet.

With his face exposed, all could see that the nobleman had a healthy color. It was less obvious that his breathing was less labored, given how he was still crying, but his skin conspicuously lacked any of the lesions which had been all over it seconds before.

“The price has been paid,” I intoned into the terrified quiet, “and so, you are healed. Go in peace.”

He stared up at me, gibbering softly; the more assertive of the two guards took one faltering step in my direction.

Then the nobleman scrambled desperately to his feet, nearly falling over again as he set off at a run. He caught himself and stumbled directly into the crowd, shrieking “Get out of my way!” They tried, but the press of bodies was too tight to create sufficient room. He had to push through, managing it only because nobody seemed to want to inconvenience a highborn, even a fleeing one. The bodyguards followed, one hesitating with a long look at me as if he felt he should do something in retribution, but that lasted only a second. They caught up with their master has he vanished amid the crowd, the disturbance of their flight remaining after they were lost to sight.

Muttering and whispering had sprung up now, with all eyes still on me, but no one came closer. Good; whispering was exactly what I wanted. The word would spread that the Healer held power even over the highborn. This could not have gone more flawlessly if I’d scripted it.

I guess Biribo was right; not everything had to be an uphill climb.

Making my movements steady, even casual, as if nothing of any import had just happened, I turned and continued on my rounds. In this case, that meant proceeding across the street to the next brothel on my agenda for the night, which happened to be the Jostled Jugs. At my approach, people pressed back to clear a path for me, many making obsequious Fflyr hand gestures as they retreated.

In the door of the Jugs was the first person who didn’t back away from me after the show I’d put on: its owner, Gannit. She stood there, blocking the entry with her skinny body, arms folded, staring balefully at me. Behind her, patrons and prostitutes alike had been clustered near the windows, but now were in the process of retreating to the opposite side of the room. Still trying to peek past her at me as they went. I suspected she must’ve just banished everyone to give us space.

“I’ve got half a mind to bar you from my establishment for life, boy,” Gannit said in a tone as grim as it was quiet. With the bubble of space around us, it was unlikely she’d be overheard at that volume.

I paused, then turned and deliberately looked in the direction the lordling had fled, then back at her. “Friend of yours?”

“Don’t you get clever with me, you smug twerp. What the hell was all that jabbering? Healing whores is one thing—that was preaching rebellion. That’s the kind of talk that riles up the Clans and the Convocation alike and brings Kingsguard stomping through the whole neighborhood to put blades in anybody who’s been too friendly with you. Common sense tells me I oughta kick you between the legs before you get your stink on any of my girls.”

“But?”

The old woman narrowed her eyes. “But of course, you waited to bust out that horseshit until you’ve made yourself the hero of every cat in the Alley. Any madam who gives you the boot is likely to have a mutiny on her hands. Well played, you crafty little shit.”

I stood in silence, aware of the eyes on us from all sides, but focused on her. This confrontation was as important in a way as the show I’d put on with the nobleman. Gannit was one of the most successful madams, and among the most liked and respected, probably second only to Minifrit. Her word was law in her establishment and commanded significant weight even among the rest of the brothels.

If she did bar me, I might have trouble. But now that she could see the broad shape of what I was doing, if she threw in with me…

“You’re still not gonna spill the beans, are you?” she said finally, scowling. “You and your precious mystery routine.”

I waited.

“Tell me one thing, then,” said Gannit. “Have you planned past what’s inevitably coming down next? Do you really think you can survive the vakkir hive you just kicked? Much less protect any of the rest of us?”

“You have some idea how powerful my Heal spell is,” I murmured, “and how rare. Do you think that is my only asset? Or even the strongest?”

Her eyes cut past me to the vacant spot in the middle of the street, where people still seemed reluctant to pass through where I had publicly unveiled Immolate at the expense of the nobility.

“How many of my girls are you planning to get killed?”

“How many are you?” I countered. “Or are you going to tell me they retire to an idyllic life in the countryside when they can’t whore anymore? We’re all going to die, Gannit. Probably by violence; this is Ephemera. I happen to think people deserve to live with some dignity and pride before the inevitable happens. Dignity, pride, and the chance to hit back at those who would deprive them of it.”

Gannit’s eyes narrowed to slits. Now it was she who remained silent, all but demanding I come up with a better explanation. I was done explaining myself, though; the ball was now in her court.

“So the question is… Are you okay with the way things are? Just plan to live out whatever years you’ve got exactly like this? Or are you willing to take a risk?”

“What’re you, the Hero?” she grunted, but I detected wry amusement in her face now. “Gonna save the world, is that it?”

“I can only heal, and punish. That’s not going to save anything. But I still think it beats the alternative.”

“Hn.” She grimaced, then actually laughed softly, and shook her head. “Nightlady take my bony old ass, so do I. All right, you little freak, get your spooky butt in here. Let’s ride this crazy horse till it tramples us both.”

And just like that, after my long weeks of spinning my wheels, I was two big steps closer.