A man who steals a loaf of bread is a thief. A man who steals a bank is a baron.

  – A Jest Oft Whispered in the Gutter

  Gloomy sunlight illuminated the soot-streaked streets as Gael, Maeve, and Cara trudged back to the clinic. He had to admit: no amount of localized pain-numbing drugs could neutralize the ache in his jaw where Cara had landed a solid punch earlier. His drugs simply weren’t good enough.

  “Didn’t have to go so hard,” he muttered.

  “Didn’t have to suggest robbing a bank,” Cara snapped, brushing past him toward the front door.

  He rolled his eyes, but didn’t argue. No sense in getting into round two—his face couldn’t take it.

  Stepping inside the clinic’s central ward, the scene was almost unrecognizable from the chaos of the night before. The debris and shattered furniture were gone, while the mossy floorboards were all swept clean. The jagged edges of broken walls and the gaping hole in that one section of the arched ceiling still remained, naturally—as if any cleaner would foot the bill for new materials—but hell if Gael could even imagine how the Cleaner managed to lift the statue of the Saint off the ground and back onto her altar.

  Her broken legs may only be secured to her ankles on the altar with wrap upon wrap of heavy-duty bandages—much like the bandages he'd wrapped around her neck to keep her slanted head from falling off last year—but in his dictionary, the clinic right now was the definition of ‘tidy’. More tidy than it’d been in years.

  Not bad.

  And, sitting on a bench by the entrance of the prayer hall like he owned the place, was the Cleaner himself. He looked up slowly, mask eerie as ever as the three of them entered.

  “... You really are as efficient as they say you are,” Cara said, stepping forward to shake the man’s hand as he stood up. She pulled his mask down to beam at him. “Pleasure doing business with you. I’ll contact you the next time we need your services.”

  The Cleaner nodded, his mask impassive. “If you need my other cleaning services, do let me know as well—”

  Gael waved a hand dismissively, stepping between the two of them as he started pushing the Cleaner out. “Thanks, but we’ll pass. We won’t need your ‘other’ services any time soon.”

  The Cleaner didn’t argue. He made his way to the door, and once he clicked it shut behind him, Gael let out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

  “Creepy guy,” he muttered.

  Cara gave him a side-eye as she pulled her mask back up. “Says the Plagueplain Doctor in that stupid mask that doesn’t even cover his mouth.”

  “Where’d you find that guy?”

  “You don’t wanna know.”

  Without further ado, they climbed the stairs to the second-floor surgical chamber. The air up here was still thick with the scent of disinfectant and metal—a smell Gael had grown to associate with both triumph and failure, and he loved it, honestly—but Cara immediately closed the door behind them, pulled down the window blinders, and looked left and right to make sure they were really alone in here.

  Once she was satisfied, her patience snapped again.

  “We’re not robbing a goddamn bank—”

  “Wait, wait, wait.” He raised his hands defensively, taking a cautious step back as she reached for a broom. “Bitch, do not pick that thing up. At least let me finish.”

  Cara didn’t look half-convinced, but her fingers didn’t curl around the broom either. Caught between the two of them, Maeve stood awkwardly by the surgical table, but Gael didn’t have to see her eyes behind her fogged lenses to tell she was just as disappointed in his suggestion as Cara was.

  “Be right back.” Gael darted out of the room and into the small, cluttered bedroom behind them. Ignoring the Myrmur carcass still tucked into his bed, he rummaged through the chaos of books, papers, and strange trinkets under Cara’s bed before finding what he was looking for: a torn clipping from an old newspaper.

  Running back into the surgical chamber, he slapped the page onto the surgical table with a loud bam.

  Cara and Maeve leaned over to inspect it. The yellowed paper displayed a faded drawing of a grand manor, surrounded by an overgrown cemetery. The words on the headline were stark, bolded black: ‘Baron Banks buys the Fellstar Cemetery, the End of Peaceful Rest’.

  “... Seriously?” Cara raised an eyebrow.

  Maeve frowned, lifting her head to look at Gael. “Who’s this?”

  “Glad you asked.” Gael tapped the drawing of the mansion, his grin widening. “Meet the illustrious Baron Banks, or whatever his first name actually is. He’s a rich old guy who owns this lovely manor not too far from here.”

  “And… why do we care?” Cara asked.

  “Rumuor has it,” he began, leaning in conspiratorially, “that he was once a big shot up in Vharnveil. A proper Blood Baron with manors and courtyards and servants and actual governing power over the upper city, the whole package. That was, of course, until the other Blood Barons on the Council sent their enforcers—the Mortifera Enforcers, mind you—after him and booted him out of the upper city for something… bad. Don’t know what, don’t care. Point is, he’s been hiding out in this mansion down in Bharncair for years, being a general pain in the ass to the district.”

  Maeve tilted her head. “Pain in the ass how?”

  “Oh, you know. Typical baron antics,” he mumbled, counting off on his fingers. “Dumping chemical waste out onto the streets, throwing obnoxious parties, flaunting his wealth like a peacock on steroids. Never seen the guy, but I hate him already.”

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  But Maeve didn’t look too convinced. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  Cara nodded. “It is pretty tame compared to half the crap the Plagueplain Doctors and the Symbiote Exorcists get up to.”

  His older sister was right. All things considered, between the big three powers of Vharnveil—the greedy Blood Barons who ruled the upper city with their Mortifera Enforcers, the research-mad Plagueplain Doctors who ‘technically’ served the Church of Severin, and the self-righteous Symbiote Exorcists who were legitimately allowed to kill anyone they suspected of being parasitized—an old, exiled baron wasn’t exactly the scum of the earth. There were different big three powers down here in Bharncair, and while they weren’t par-to-par as powerful as the big three of Vharnveil, they were definitely more dangerous. Homefield advantage and all that.

  “... Don’t get me wrong,” Gael started, tapping the newspaper clipping again. “I’m not saying he’s the devil, but I’m saying he is an easy target. Recent rumors say the old man hasn’t stepped outside his mansion in over a year, and he’s also dismissed all his guards. No one in, no one out. My guess? The baron’s circling the drain.”

  Maeve shot him a perplexed look. “What?”

  “He’s sick. Dying. Gonna kick the can. Gonna sink in gold-threaded velvet and—”

  “—okay, okay, I get it—”

  “So if he’s gonna kick the bucket, who’s all that inheritance money going to?” Gael finished. “The guards he let go of? Fat chance. He doesn’t have any family, either—at least none anyone’s ever heard of—so why let all those Marks rot away in some dusty vault?” Then he jabbed his thumb into his own chest, grinning wide. “We could put it to better use. Settle our debts. Fix up the clinic. Help people.”

  Maeve’s frown deepened, unease etched into every line of her face. “Good men don’t rob dying old men.”

  “Good men do what needs to be done,” he shot back. “Look, it ain’t stealing if we’re doing good with it. Rich people’s money shouldn’t just sit there gathering dust. It’s meant to help the little guy, and who’s better at helping the little guy than us?”

  “And that’s exactly what a Plagueplain Doctor would say.” Maeve’s voice was colder now, her arms folded tight across her chest. “Twisting something awful into sounding noble. This isn’t right, Doctor—”

  “Right?” Gael scoffed, picking up the newspaper clipping, crushing it into a ball, and then tossing it out the nearest hole in the ceiling. “What’s so right about letting some rich geezer’s fortune go to waste? We need it more than he does, and if it means we save lives and keep this place running, I’d say it’s the rightest thing to do.”

  The room went quiet again. Maeve still didn’t say anything, but her hands clenched into fists, the tension in her shoulders obvious. Naturally, Gael didn’t care about the silence. He started pacing around the room, throwing open cabinets and compartments in the walls one after another, rummaging through them for rusty tools that may or may not be useful for the robbery—

  Only for Maeve to jerk their chain hard enough to pull him back toward her.

  He clicked his tongue in irritation, turning to face her. “What now?” he muttered.

  She glared, all fire in her eyes. “This is wrong.”

  “Tell me what you wanna do then, Exorcist. People don’t just get things in Bharncair. We take them, and if you ain’t willing to do what it takes, then how the hell are you ever gonna reach your dream?”

  Maeve sucked in a breath to argue, but Cara was already stepping in, a steady hand on her shoulder.

  “He’s right for once,” Cara said softly, but firmly. “You’re not in Vharnveil anymore.”

  Maeve whirled on Cara, confusion and frustration fighting for control of her expression, but Cara shook her head slowly in response.

  “People down here do whatever they can to survive. This isn’t about good or bad. It’s about making a living, and all things considered, the baron’s the best person we can choose to rob.”

  “And you do realise we’re running an unlicensed clinic converted from an abandoned church, which, by all rights, is against the Church of Severin’s official Chalice Laws.” Gael couldn’t help but grin at the Exorcist, the edges of his mouth curling up as he resumed rummaging through his cabinets. “You think we’re the only ones breaking the rules down here? Hell, if you didn’t break rules, you wouldn’t last an hour. You’d be out on the street or worse, which, hey, come to think of it—that was exactly where you were before I stumbled upon you.”

  “We’re not proud of it, but this is the reality down here,” Cara said softly. “You do have a dream, don’t you?”

  Maeve’s gaze flickered to the floor, and for a long second, there was nothing but the sound of her breathing. She stared at the clipping in her hands as if it held some secret truth only she could see—and then she looked up at the two of them, a willful sharpness in her gaze.

  What sort of expression could her lips be making under her mask, he wondered?

  “... I want to be the strongest Exorcist in the city,” she whispered.

  Gael chuckled, amused by how serious she sounded. “That’s even more impossible than my dream of being the greatest doctor this city’s ever seen. You gotta fight tougher and tougher Myrmurs to be the strongest Exorcist, right? Look,” he said, jerking his leg back so he’d tug on the chain, “whether you like it or not, we’re tied together now. We don’t get to be weak. If we can’t even feed ourselves or keep a proper roof over our heads, there ain’t no way either of us are gonna reach our dreams.”

  Maeve’s hesitation hung in the air, thick and heavy. Maybe she was right to be afraid—on the very, very, very slight off-chance that the baron still had old connections to the Mortifera, they’d be executed the moment they were caught robbing his manor—but back then, in Miss Alba’s noodle shop, it wasn’t a timid girl who snapped back at him when he joked about making her work in the mines.

  For some godforsaken reason, she wanted to be an Exorcist even though her bosses obviously couldn’t give less of a shit about her, which meant she was on his side.

  This Vharnish just didn’t know it yet.

  “... Fine,” she eventually said, looking at the floor. “I’ll help. Just this once. After this, we’re not breaking any laws ever again—”

  “That’s what I like to hear!” Gael grinned, continuing his search for ropes, hooks, and metal wires. “We’ll set out at midnight when that old bastard’s falling off his bed! Come tomorrow morning, we’ll be the rich bastards—”

  But then Maeve tugged on her end of the chain, pulling him to a halt.

  “Wait,” she said.

  He groaned, a bit thrown off. “What now?”

  “Before we rob the old man, we need to get in shape. You’re not gonna be much help if you’re physically weak when trouble shows up.”

  Gael furrowed his brows for a moment. Then his eyes lit up. “Ah, the system! Almost forgot about that!” He glanced over his shoulder as he pulled out a rusty harpoon, eagerly awaiting her explanation. “Alright, teach me everything I need to know. How does this system thing work?”

  Maeve looked around the room. “Where’s the Myrmur carcass?”

  Cara piped up. “On Gael’s bed. You want it?”

  Maeve nodded. “We need to get it and put it on the surgical table. We’ll need it if we want to use the system to strengthen ourselves properly.”

  “Why?”

  “If we want to get stronger,” Maeve said curtly, “we have to eat the Myrmur.”

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