“Enemies are like furniture, aren't they? Better chosen for oneself than inherited.”

- Joe Abercrombie, The Trouble with Peace

Alyssa walked down the now familiar corridors, steps echoing in the empty space. From ahead and to the side voices blended into each other, laughter, some indignant remonstrations.

Sadly the next lesson would separate her from her friends. ‘Spatial Manipulation and Dimensional Understanding’ She had the class with several second and even third years. It was most often taken as supplementary to the basic elemental lessons and only rarely as a main course of study. Many students who found themselves with a bit of time on their hands for whatever reason tried to gain understanding in this esoteric discipline.

She knocked at an old oaken door, dark with age and inlaid with runes. After a short moment, she heard steps from inside and the door was opened by a thin figure clothed in blue strips of cloth that were wound abound the ‘person’ similar to a spool of thread.

Large dark blue eyes, hair that moved on its own and looked like little tentacles, skin a pale grey. It was a strange elemental being that Master Blake had summoned and then bound as his familiar. He called the being Laredal.

Blake himself was among the youngest of the professors and was in his early thirties. A quite ordinary-looking, brown-haired man with his reddish eyes the only outstanding feature. He had a pleasant voice and was normally soft-spoken without much of a temper. But he was also not quite ‘there’. Sometimes he would murmur to himself or space out while staring into the distance. Laredal was the one that brought him back should that happen. The elemental would never speak to someone other than Blake but it could make itself understood with gestures.

They learned mostly mathematics up until now. Blake was adamant that they have a firm grounding in dimensional and spatial mechanics. When they finally learned their first spatial spell it was a detection spell to find spatial or dimensional anomalies. Hardly exciting. Alyssa was very good at intuiting the necessary steps for the spell but less so for the mathematical side of things. She worked diligently and was no longer as lost as she had been in the beginning but it was hard.

Professor Blake was scribbling formulae on the blackboard as she entered. Laredal, who had opened the door for her, gestured for her to sit down. Six other students were already in attendance which meant that only a few were missing. Most looked at her and continued what they were doing. A slight girl with dark brown hair saw where she was going to sit and got up to take a seat further away. Alyssa frowned subconsciously but then shrugged and sat down.

“Today we will learn a new spell.” Mr. Blake began to talk without turning around or waiting for the still missing students. “This one is a staple of experienced wizards anywhere.”

Alyssa suspected this to be a tad optimistic but listened intently nonetheless.

“The spell is called spatial inversion and will allow the user to either enlarge a defined space or do the opposite. ‘Why would you do the last?’ I can nearly hear some of you thinking but think it through. If you were tired of walking a stair why not shorten it a bit? If you wanted to keep someone from using a doorway you could make it smaller. You could potentially use it to make an object smaller and store it more easily but that would necessitate a change in the spell structure. I can’t recommend that at your present level of knowledge.”

He turned and looked a bit apologetic. “Sorry for the last example that is another form of spatial manipulation that I will not teach today. So, we begin – as always- with the formula.”

Day turned to dusk and dusk to night.

Meanwhile in the Golden Cockerel.

“The casino?” Vanessa looked up from the parchment.

Iseret's eyes gleamed in the light of the glow globe. “I think we should. There is a gang hideout we could raid. They are called the Gloomskulls.”

“And your recommendation?” Vanessa rested her chin in her hand.

“I think we should go for the casino and the Gloomskulls. Not necessarily in that order. The casino normally operates until three in the morning. I would prefer not to involve the gamblers. And so we could make a detour, spend some time productively before we get there. If we are injured or too exhausted we can always do it tomorrow.” Iseret's eyes shifted to the parchment and she pulled the notes regarding the hideout of the Gloomskulls to the side.

Vanessa looked at her and remembered the Keshian ambassador she had known several human lifetimes ago. He had been much more calculating. Charming, yes, but also cold. She had always had the impression that he did not really understand emotions. It had seemed at the time as if he had learned to imitate and act on them by rote memorization. Iseret was different, Kadira seemed different. It was very interesting to see.

“Then let’s go. We don’t have any time to waste.” Vanessa got up and incanted several different spells. Glyphs and runes glowed on her cloak, her flesh. A tiara made of burning symbols flashed for a moment before sinking into her forehead. She gathered the notes and nodding at Iseret she opened the window and both of them leaped into the night.

Gloomskull Hideout, the Crooks.

Mellie leaned back in her seat and regarded the other players cautiously. Stroking her scar in contemplation she grinned. She had been cheating from the start of the game but was pretty sure no one had noticed anything. ‘Two more and I have enough money for the journey to Southmarsh.’ Kronenburg had been her dream as she was younger, then her parents had traveled to the great city from their failing farm and her father had gotten employed in the factory. He was the first to die. Crushed by the gigantic gears of the grinder who pulverized the mana crystal. Her mother got five silver for his last month's work and snide remarks from the foreman. Then her mother died. She had been steadfast until her last day and tried to get by washing and mending clothes. A small cut on her finger festered and went gangrenous.

The Gloomskulls had been recruiting and after starving a few days it was no longer a question if she wanted to join, rather an opportunity she could not miss.

Years later she was no longer an apprentice but a snitch. Funny word that, was it really an upgrade? She was a scout, a spy. “I raise.” She slapped some coins on the table.

Groans and curses followed her declaration causing a small smile to curve her lip. After the other players folded she gathered her winnings and grinned. ‘Only once more.' Perhaps not today, she did want to live after all. And Ceske was looking at her with suspicion. He was the smartest of the numbskulls sitting at the table and seemed to have his own thoughts on her continued wins.

They were sitting in an abandoned warehouse. One of the trade factors in the city had the grand idea to situate it here after the prices in the city went through the roof. But that had been a dumb decision. The Gloomskulls had slowly driven the company out of the Crooks and appropriated the building for their own use.

The high ceiling was shrouded in darkness, rafters were only dimly visible in the light of the broken down glow lamps that had been salvaged and jury-rigged to a barely functional level. The chairs and tables were old or self-made. The men sitting around drinking and talking were mostly still in their teens. They were rough-looking, coarse, and cruel folk. There were few women like her and with good reason. She had fought hard for a place as a member and not as a hanger-on with few prospects other than to be a plaything for the more powerful thugs.

She walked through the back entrance and took a careful look around. The sky was dark as usual. Far in the distance, a dog barked furiously.

A dark lump lay before her and as she looked down she saw that it was the guard, her eyes drifted to his face contorted in pain and terror, the throat was torn as if by a beast. She made a split-second decision while her heart beat furiously. She remembered the Hunter ‘When the deepstone reacts you contact me and run. You don’t stay and you don’t fight. You stand no chance against her, you would be food.’ Her legs moved on their own and she ran into the night. There was no loyalty left after all she had seen and all they had done to her. It was just a shame that it happened now when she only needed another big win but...she would find a way. She always had after all.

Vanessa gathered streams of mana out of the atmosphere and wove a complex circle of glyphs and runes before incanting a spell formula. She stood on the roof of the warehouse Iseret was guarding the front. The guardian in the back had given her much-needed life energy. She felt more than that she saw a single person running away. ‘It’s of no consequence, we only need to get most of them. If there are any leftovers they will probably be absorbed by whatever organization replaces them after the Reborn are done.’

Finishing her spell the runes flared before dimming again. A dark mist billowed from her hands and drifted through the wooden roof and spread into the warehouse. Confused shouts answered the phenomenon. Concentrating she vanished into the mist and reappeared inside the warehouse materializing behind a stumbling gang member. Jumping onto his back claws of black ice cut into his throat and blood sprayed with his desperate attempts to breathe while she somersaulted backward into the darkness.

Vanessa raced through the partitioned areas and killed as she went.

Claws of dark ice shattered ribs and sliced into the lung and heart.

White teeth ripped into a bared throat.

Green eyes shone in between swirls of mist, claws pierced into the back of a burly man wielding a large mace, the claw tips emerged from his chest and he died screaming.

Another whirled around as he heard him fall, his arm was severed at the elbow.

A claw caught a woman's chin and pierced through to her brain, blood sprayed.

Dark liquid drenched the ground. As the men could not see her it was a slaughter. The blood the death, some of them were crying as she finally got to them. Her face curled up in disgust bloody tears ran down her face. And she could not but drink of the blood flowing from her claws and covering her arms.

And while the blood dissolved on her tongue and life returned to her dead flesh she felt sick and thought of better times.

A small abused child looked at the priestess and smiled.

The red-head finally did something right and the lightning burned like fireworks in the night.

Alyssa smiled as she solved an equation.

Alea asked shyly for her to explain an arcane formula.

She heard steps behind her and whirled around brandishing her claws. Iseret stood before her and inspected her, head tilted to the side. “We can stop for the night if it is too much.”

Furious for showing weakness Vanessa harshly spoke a spell and water swirled over her face and took away the blood and her tears and she was clean once more. They were enemies and she did only as she must. But this was not a fight, it was butchery.

Killing so many and so brutally nearly frayed her control. She had to be careful. Logic dictated that what she did was only a step on the way to her enemy but she had perhaps underestimated her own scruples.

“The next time you should not use me to simply guard an entrance. I could do my part.” Iseret continued while appearing not to notice Vanessa’s state for which the latter was quietly thankful.

Vanessa pulled down the hood of her robe casting her face in shadows. “The illusionary mist made the whole fight trivial and allowing for an exception is exceedingly difficult.”

“I can see as snakes do. A gift of the great goddess. And it was not blocked by the mist.”

“I will factor that into my plans for the next engagement. Thank you for trusting me with that knowledge.”

Iseret quietly smiled. She turned and regarded the twisted corpses raising her hand while forming an eyelike symbol. “May the silent gardens of the green night embrace the souls of those that have lost their way.”

“Are you a priestess?”

“No, I am only a Hem. But I have been blessed by the many as one that is spoken for by the goddess which showed me her favor.”

The sodden Guardsman a short time later.

A sparrow shot through the window and landed on the proffered arm of the Hunter. Garreline looked up and scoffed while drinking deep of the ale she gripped with her left hand, the right hand rested on her axe.

“Gloomskulls in the warehouse have been eliminated. We have a war on our hands. You two back to the dockyard casino. We need everyone to defend our most vulnerable positions. I will not repeat myself, go to the dockyard casino.”

The sparrow disintegrated into motes of light.

“They don’t pay me nearly enough, the Kjollsun.” An expression meaning nothing good as evidenced by the Hunter who breathed in some watered down ale and was coughing violently.

The dwarf raised an eyebrow. “What? They are worse than that. Stingy motherfuckers.”

After he had got his coughing under control he wiped his bald pate with a handkerchief and scolded. “Don’t talk bad about our employer. We did not deliver what was expected so we have to make do with this kind of busywork.”

“Next time I make the deal and you keep yer gob shut.” Garreline did not seem to be in the best of moods.

“Spend your temper with your axe, not your mouth. Get a move on.” The Hunter got up and gestured.

“The Gloomskull hideout has been taken out?” The barkeeper who stood near them asked in a hushed tone.

“Yes, apparently.” Garreline looked up at him, still sitting while her companion gestured again for her to hurry up.

“Mh. Good thing they did not yet collect for this month.” The barkeeper grinned showing missing and blackened teeth.

Throwing him some coin the two marched outside and began to jog in a measured tempo towards the city. Snow and light rain made the streets into a muddy swamp.

The night was far from over.