What You Want

Rishi woke on his pallet and pushed himself upright. Pain woke with him. To bring it under control, he stretched through a series of deep breaths. Then he eased his body into motion until he felt strong enough to face the day.

Then, Rishi went to the common room. The drunk sat at one of the tables while an early volunteer set porridge and water before him. Rishi checked the bandage over the bite, then had the man open and close his hand. The wound was clean. The swelling had not spread.

Elisa came over with a second bowl of porridge and set it in front of Rishi. “Good morning,” she said to both men.

The drunk nodded his thanks. Rishi kept examining his arm.

For an instant, Rishi was back in Ragpicker’s Alley.

He saw the boy’s hands—raised, empty, shaking. He heard his own voice shout, “Run!” Then came the boy’s hurried footsteps on wet stone. A rust-red cloak crossed his sight. Steel flashed. Then the boy was gone.

“Rishi?”

His hand remained still on the drunk’s forearm.

“Rishi.”

He looked up. Elisa was watching him. “Are you all right?”

Rishi released the man’s arm and glanced at the bowl.

“I’m all right,” he said. “Thank you.”

Elisa watched him for another moment, then returned to her work.

By late morning, Rishi was walking the Lower City with his begging bowl. He stopped wherever someone offered him food or needed his care.

A dockworker sat on a step. Blood ran from a cut along his forearm. Rishi rinsed the wound and pressed a clean cloth to it until the bleeding slowed. Then he wrapped the arm, keeping the pressure firm and even.

As he tied off the bandage, he thought of Maeril’s smile. Then of the nickname he had heard on the bridge.

The Green Witch.

Rishi tightened the final knot, letting the memory fade.

“You dizzy? Any fever?” he asked.

In the afternoon, fighters gathered in Lantern Hall’s yard. They wrapped their hands and began warming up while Rishi watched.

Rishi sparred with whoever stepped forward: sailors, mercenaries, even the occasional Flaming Fist soldier. Some came to practice. Others came to vent their anger on him, but Rishi knew how to channel it before it turned to cruelty.

Between rounds, he thought of Maeril once again. She read a crowd the way he read a body: a shoulder going rigid, a child watching her pot but afraid to come closer, the path clearing in front of a uniform.

Rishi shook his head. The next fighter was already stepping forward. He raised his hands and reset his stance.

After nightfall, Rishi walked Brampton and the Lower City. He memorized the routes, blind corners, exits, and places where he might lose his footing. He stayed alert for quarrels growing heated, ready to step in before they turned violent.

Three days passed that way: mornings tending the wounded at Lantern Hall, training in the afternoon, the alleys after nightfall.

Yet in the quiet moments, his thoughts returned to the boy. Then to Maeril, and the genuine warmth in her smile whenever she welcomed someone to her counter.

Rishi knew what to do with a bruise.

Not with this.

Elisa crossed the common room with her cloak already fastened and a ledger tucked under one arm. Three notes protruded from between the pages.

“I need to see Quill,” she said. “Unfortunately, we have angered a noble.”

Rishi glanced at the ledger. Seals, titles, polite threats. None of it was work he knew how to do, but Lantern Hall would bear the cost if it went badly.

“Do you need my hands?” he asked.

“No.”

Her eyes moved over him: bruises, wrapped hand, the stiffness he had never managed to hide from her. “Not for this. This is my battlefield. You have yours.”

Rishi inclined his head.

Elisa tucked the ledger closer beneath her arm and stepped out into the wet afternoon.

Rishi returned to the storeroom and set the healing supplies in order. He rolled the linen bandages, lined up the vials, and placed the jars of salve back on their shelf.

At the window, Maeril’s hawk shifted once on the sill, then went still. Its talons gripped the stone as it stared into the Hall.

Rishi stopped working.

He approached the window and stopped just beyond the bird’s reach. The hawk tipped its head once toward him.

A strip of paper was tied to one leg.

Rishi extended his hand slowly. The hawk watched him but did not pull away. He untied the paper and drew it free.

Maeril had written three short lines:

The boy from Ragpicker’s Alley agreed to meet you.

Badly.

Meet us at your door.

—The Green Witch

Rishi read the first line again.

The boy from Ragpicker’s Alley.

Not gone.

He folded the note, then tucked it inside his belt wrap.

The hawk spread its ash-pale wings, lifted from the sill, and vanished from sight.

For the next few hours, Rishi tended the wounded and carried fresh water to their cots.

Each time the door opened, he looked toward it.

He did not wait at the threshold. He kept working.

Then a volunteer rushed through the door, breathing hard. “Rishi!”

Rishi turned.

“Outside,” the volunteer said. “Near the corner. The witch. A boy with her. Two men stopped them. They’re not letting her pass.”

Rishi glanced toward the cots, then back to the volunteer.

“Stay with them,” he said.

The volunteer nodded.

Rishi was in the wet street before the door swung shut behind him.

Maeril stood where the lane opened onto the wider street.

The boy from Ragpicker’s Alley stood half a step behind her, his weight set as if he had not decided which way to run.

Two men stood between them and Lantern Hall. They wore no badges or colors. Not Flaming Fist. Guild, then.

Rishi saw it in their easy stance and the calm of men who expected everyone nearby to know what they were.

The men turned toward him. The nearer one took his hand from his belt. The other moved more slowly, angling himself to keep both Rishi and Maeril in view.

Rishi recognized the pale scar along the inside of the nearer man’s forearm before he recognized his face. He had cleaned that wound at Lantern Hall, pressed the cut closed, and wrapped it.

The angle had bothered him then: low to high, awkward, defensive. A tavern fight, perhaps. Or someone smaller cutting to get free.

He had not asked. He had treated the man anyway.

The man recognized Rishi a heartbeat later. His eyes dropped to Rishi’s wrapped hands, then lifted to his face. His mouth tightened.

For a moment, no one moved.

The boy shifted his weight and glanced from the two men to Lantern Hall’s open door, then away. His fingers flexed once at his sides.

The man with the scar noticed.

“Rook,” he said. “Enough games.”

Rishi knew the boy’s name now.

Rook.

The boy’s jaw tightened.

The man tipped his chin toward Maeril, then toward Rishi. “Those two will make you soft.”

Maeril’s mouth flattened.

The man kept his eyes on Rook. “Soft gets used. Soft gets spent. You want a place, you walk with us.”

Rook looked at Maeril first.

One hand opened at her side, then closed.

She did not reach for him. She did not reach for the men.

Then Rook looked at Rishi.

Rishi took one step forward and stopped, hands empty, shoulders loose, feet set in the wet street.

The men saw it. So did Maeril. So did Rook.

Empty hands did not make him harmless.

For half a breath, neither man moved.

Then the man with the scar smiled and stepped forward. His companion followed, a grin forming as he looked at Rishi’s empty hands.

The man with the scar looked past Rishi to Lantern Hall’s open door.

“Careful, monk,” he said. “A place like yours only stays open while people let it.”

Rishi did not answer.

Lantern Hall stood open behind him.

The threat was not empty.

Rishi lowered his hands a fraction. Then he stepped back.

Maeril raised one hand at her side, palm half-turned. Two fingers bent inward. Her lips began to shape a spell, and the wet air between her and the men tightened.

Without looking at Maeril, Rook raised one hand toward her, palm out. His eyes stayed on the two men. “Don’t.”

Maeril stopped.

The word had not been loud. It did not need to be.

Rook kept his eyes on the two men. His jaw worked once. “I’m going with them.”

Maeril looked at him. “Really?”

Rook kept his eyes on the men.

“Is that what you want?” she asked quietly.

He said nothing.

Rook lowered his hand.

Neither man reached for him. Rishi did not move. Maeril did not cast.

Rook crossed the wet stones on his own feet and stopped beside the man with the scar.

Only then did Rook look back. Maeril stood where he had left her.

“So it’s a farewell, then?”

Her voice was so quiet Rishi almost missed it.

Rook’s gaze moved from Maeril to Rishi.

“Yes,” he said.

The men turned, and Rook went with them.

No one touched him. He kept walking.