Tibs ran the roofs.

He ran hard without a destination. The need to escape the thoughts running through his head pushed him.

He’d left the party as soon as he’d made sure Lamberto was fine. He told himself he was going after the assassin, was ready to give that as explanation for his hurried departure if one of the noble demanded he stay.

He just wanted to be away from all of them.

Away from Lamberto; that idiot for throwing himself between Tibs and the knife meant for him. He’d have been fine! He didn’t need saving! Especially not by some kid who thought Tibs was some grand hero that deserved protecting.

He ran harder.

He didn’t care if the nobles complained to Tirania. Tibs had saved one of their lives. How much more goodwill did hes expect from him? And it wasn’t even needed.

He’d made it to his room without letting what Lamberto did crowd his mind, but as soon as he was on his bed. That, and how Tibs had treated him, rushed in and wouldn’t quiet. He’d put on his armor and climbed to the roof and ran.

“I am not a bigot,” he growled into the wind.

Of course he wasn’t. Tibs had reasons to hate nobles. Good reasons. They were horrible people. They came to his street, his town, and took over everything. They forced people to defer to them for no other reasons than they were owed deferment for being nobles.

There. That was proof there was no such thing as a good noble.

Only…

Amelia wasn’t all that bad. Not bad at all, when Tibs allowed himself to be honest. Her friends weren’t horrible either. He didn’t care for her brother; the man was too full of himself. But in the way of people who knew a lot, not in the usual noble’s ‘give me what I want’ way. And he helped the town as much as Amelia did without asking anything in return.

A handful of them versus all the other nobles Tibs had encountered didn’t mean he was wrong in thinking they were all bad.

He stopped running. His breath wouldn’t come to him. How could he be having trouble breathing?

He wasn’t a bigot, he told himself. He’d been under the heels of too many bigots to ever be one himself. He knew better!

Bigots were one step below nobles when it came to people Tibs considered bad.

“I am not a bigot!” he yelled to the sky.

Then why had he been so horrible to Lamberto? What had the young noble done to deserve that? Been born a noble?

Was his annoying over-eagerness justification for how Tibs thought of him? What he said? Had his enthusiasm at having Tibs meet people Lamberto considered friends made him such a horrible person?

Had the way the boy looked at Tibs, awe and hope, been the thing that made him irredeemable?

No. Tibs had looked at him, branded him noble, and that had been the end of it. Exactly how nobles branded Tibs as not worth of their attention without ever learning anything about him.

What had Tibs branded Don as?

Asshole, liar, opportunist, manipulator, irredeemable.

Base on what? Who the sorcerer used to be? On one manipulation Tibs hadn’t been willing to let him explain? The lashing out the man did after the fact?

And how did Tibs act when he was hurt or angry?

Maybe if he’d cared while they shared a room, Tibs would have been able to see the lies and manipulations earlier and not find himself in this position. But he’d been iced and hadn’t cared about Don’s motivation beyond how the sorcerer could help him.

Hadn’t that been Tibs using him without caring for what Don might want?

Wasn’t that what he was blaming the sorcerer for doing?

The scream was formed of pained anger.

He didn’t want to know Don’s reasons. His side of this didn’t matter. He had lied and hurt Tibs. The man was nothing more than an wanna be noble who put himself first no matter who suffered. There was nothing more to be had about that!

And Tibs was a fucking bigot.

Why couldn’t light go about blinding him for thinking that? Like it did every other time he told himself such a large lie?

The answer was self-evident.

He scanned the dark roofs, wondering where the sorcerer was. He stretched his sense as far as it would go, but other than the pool, he didn’t sense anyone with corruption as their element. But he couldn’t sense the whole town.

When had that happened?

He had a passing thought about the pool, and why its owners weren’t here looking for ways to make coins from it, then set that aside for more important matter.

Like talking with Lamberto; apologizing for how he treated him. But that would have to wait, since security would be higher after the attempted assassination. And Tibs would guide his team through the dungeon. He could talk with him there.

Which only left him with one thing to do.

He ran. Only this time, he sensed ahead for someone to run toward, instead of blindly running away.

* * * * *

This was not where Tibs expected to find the sorcerer.

He’d expected to sense Don among one of the better parts of Kragle Rock, not here, in one of the poorer parts. Any poorer and it would be included in Broken Place. He couldn’t be in that building because he was out of coins to pay for something better. The loot from the runs had been good, and if there was one thing Tibs had learned about the sorcerer, it was that while he liked nice things; it wasn’t so much that he’d throw all his coins at them.

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So why was he in this rooming house for workers, when there were much better options only blocks away? The only thing Don had arranged, from what Tibs sensed, was to have a room to himself, instead of sharing it with a dozen other people.

The sorcerer sat, a tankard half filled with a drink brimming with corruption. Alcohol, something stronger than ale. Of course, the man would like more refined drinks.

Tibs looked into the dark room from the window. Not even a candle for him to read by. Clearly Don wanted to be left alone, and Tibs should respect that.

He tapped the window.

With darkness as his element, Tibs had no problem seeing Don turn, look at him, outlined in Clara’s almost fully opened eye’s light, and frown. He took the lack of protest as acknowledgment, along with the unlocked window, and entered, sitting on the windowsill.

“Like my day couldn’t get any worse,” Don muttered, draining half of the tankard’s content before putting it down. “What do you want?”

“How much have you had to drink?” There was an empty bottle next to the tankard. Don didn’t sound drunk, but this wasn’t a conversation to be had if the man wasn’t at least close to sober.

Don threw the tankard at Tibs, who caught it with water, along with the splashed content. He deposited it before the sorcerer, leaving it filled with water, and absorbed the rest, leaving the corruption to dissipate.

“Do you have any idea how hard it is to get drunk with corruption as your element?” Don demanded. “No. Of course you don’t. You don’t know anything. You just like to think you do. Too fucking good for anyone.”

Tibs forced himself to remain seated. He wouldn’t give into his anger and—

“Fuck off, Tibs,” The sorcerer snapped. “I’m not dealing with your condescension tonight.”

“What happened?” he asked in as calm a tone as he could.

“Like you fucking care?”

“Fine.” Tibs was halfway out before realizing he’d moved.

“Go on, get out of here,” Don said at Tibs’s back. “You don’t want me here anymore than anyone else.”

Tibs sat down, silent. Anymore than anyone else? The sarcastic thought wanted to be voiced. Didn’t Don proclaim how much he was liked? How people clamored to be on his team; if only Tirania would let him have one of his own. Didn’t he deserve a little sarcasm at the condescension he’d thrown Tibs’s way?

“I’m sorry.”

“Oh, fuck off. You think I need you pity? You think that if you’re nice enough to me, I’ll swallow the bullshit and return to your team so you can treat me like some Street-rated replacement for that—” He snapped his mouth shut, and Tibs swallowed his pain at her memory. He didn’t have time for it now.

Don looked away. “I’m sorry. That’s not fair to her.” He took a swallow, made a face, then took another.

“You aren’t—” he stopped at the sorcerer’s glare.

“Why are you even here?”

“To say I’m sorry for how I treated you.”

“I get graced by Tibs’s apology,” he replied sarcastically. “Hurray for me.”

“Oh, will you—” Tibs closed his mouth and breathed down the anger. “I treated you badly,” he said through greeted teeth. “Unjustly so.”

“And that’s such a revelation to you?”

Tibs looked away and whispered, “yes.” He felt the stare and forced himself to look.

“You expect me to believe that you didn’t know you were an asshole to me?”

“Do you realize it when you’re being an asshole?” Tibs asked defensively.

“Oh, yeah.” Don smirked. “Unlike Jackie-boy, I don’t come by pissing people off by accident.”

Tibs almost asked why he did it, but he vaguely remembered a conversation about the subject while he was iced. He’d barely paid attention. His curiosity had been sated, and that was more important than the answer Don had given.

“I thought I was better than that,” Tibs said. Don snorted, and Tibs had to swallow his anger again.

“Why are you here, Tibs?” Don asked, sounding tired, when the silence stretched.

“To say I’m sorry.”

“Fine, you said it. You can leave.”

Don was right. He could go. He didn’t have to force more on the man, who clearly didn’t want him there. He could leave things as they were. It would be easy.

“Why did you lie?” he asked. “Why have Tirania say it was her idea?”

“Like you’re going to believe me.”

“I will.”

Don rolled his eyes and drank. “I was scared,” he finally said, and the words were dark.

“Of what?”

Don glared at him. “Of you. Of you saying no,” he added before Tibs could get over the surprise. “Of not having anyone around me who’d have the guts to call me on my bullshit. Jackie might be some clueless, muscle bound idiot, but he’s good for not letting jackasses like me get away with it.”

“He doesn’t like the competition,” Tibs said before he could stop himself.

Don snorted. “Like he can compete with me.” He studied Tibs. “You’re not calling me a liar.”

Tibs shrugged.

“Why do you believe me?” the sorcerer asked suspiciously.

Tibs shrugged again. He couldn’t explain it without bringing light into it, and he wasn’t ready for that.

“What happened?” Don asked in the, again, stretching silence. “To make you seek me out? I know you well enough to know this isn’t something you just do. You thought about it and decided to ask if I’d lied.”

“I’m a bigot.”

Don narrowed his eyes, but didn’t comment.

Tibs sighed. “I had to go to a noble’s party.”

“Galdain’s. I heard.” Don was annoyed, but didn’t comment.

“Lamberto, that’s one of his sons who’ll run the dungeon, was all over me with how glad he was to meet me. He dragged me around and introduced me to everyone.”

“You let a noble drag you around?” Don asked, amused.

“Tirania told me to make a good impression, and I need her to think I’m on her side. So blasting the annoyance through a wall wasn’t an option.” He paused. “And he wouldn’t have deserved it.”

“You’re saying that of a noble,” Don said, sounding surprised. “He must be quite the man.”

“Boy. He’s younger than Jackal and you. I unleashed my anger on him when it turned out everyone else at the party thought of me as nothing more than a trick to be watched and snickered at. It wasn’t his fault the others were horrible people, but I still made it his fault, when all he’d done was the best he could to make this a good experience for me. He even told his older brothers and sister to leave me alone.” He paused again. “And after I screamed at him, treated like some noble who only acted like I mattered because he’d gain something from it. He took a knife for me.”

Don raised an eyebrow.

“There was this assassin after his brother. I got in her way, but she had a partner who tried to stab me while she had me distracted. Lamberto shoved me and took it in my place. He might have died before anyone could do anything, but he filled the wound with crystal and kept it from bleeding out.” Tibs chuckled. “He has no idea how he did it.”

“Fear and a desire to survive can get you to do a lot you didn’t know you could. You should know how that goes.”

“You don’t sound surprised there was an attack.”

Don shrugged. “Back home, if there isn’t at least one attempt at killing an attendee, it’s not considered a successful party.”

“And you wanted to be like them?” Tibs asked in disbelief.

“Money, power, and getting anything they want. Yeah, I wanted that. Especially after they took what my family had away from us.” The silence fell again. Don drained the tankard and presented it to Tibs, who refilled it. “Why were you so angry when you found out joining your team was my idea?”

Tibs made himself a tankard out of ice to have something to do while he considered his answer. He hadn’t thought when he’d found out. He’d just reacted. He’d lashed out like he did when—

“Because it was easier to be angry at you than feel the pain that this guy, I’d started liking, was using me for some selfish plan. You aren’t that horrible of a person when you let yourself be, and it hurt to think that had been an act.”

“It was an act, of a sort,” Don said. “And I did have a selfish plan.”

“Trying to be better isn’t selfish.”

The sorcerer nodded. “But is that what it is, if I have to deceive you to get it?”

“You were afraid. I get how that is.”

“And you were hurt,” Don replied. “I get that too.” Again, they were silent. “What happens now?”

“I’d like you to come back to the team.”

“The others might not go along with that.”

“Jackal will. He’s angry at you because I was angry. Khumdar doesn’t care, beyond the team being whole for the runs.”

“But Mez…”

“I can explain my side of it to him,” Tibs said, hesitating. “But…”

“I need to apologize to him. He was the only one who tried to help me as soon as I joined your team. And with how I treated him when I forced him on my team…that puts him on the level of heroes of songs.”

“I think he’ll understand once he knows why.”

“If he believes me.”

“I can—” Tibs stopped himself. Sure, he could tell Mez that Don wasn’t lying, and Mez would believe him. But would the sorcerer question how easy it was?

Tibs could explain everything to Don; that would make things simpler. The man was honest about all of it, after all. Tibs could even ask if he had plans on betraying him and the team, and he’d know if that answer was true. But Light didn’t know the future, only how people felt about what they said. It would only be a lie if Don planned on betraying them.

But circumstances changed, and the sorcerer could be tempted. Tibs couldn’t know what he’d do then.

And that was too much of a risk right now.