The Enchanter's Choice

3: In which a decision is made...

The slums never really changed.

Crumbling wooden structures, dusty dirt roads, and screaming children racing between beggars sitting listlessly on the sides of the street. The smell of smoke had gotten heavier though— a dirty, burnt smell that clung to her bare skin like an invisible film.

Bells hadn't remembered it smelling this bad when she was a child. But then again, there hadn't been so many factories surrounding the slums then.

Something brushed past her waist, so soft of a touch that it was barely there. Her arm snapped out, and Bells closed her fingers around a bony little wrist.

"Ow! Oi! Let go!"

The wrist tried its best to wrench itself free, but Bells kept hold of the pickpocket she had caught. She looked down, and saw a boy no more than eight or nine years old, writing and hissing like a feral kitten. His hair was matted, and his face was smudged with dirt. Unfamiliar.

Bells didn't steal, not anymore.

But she had no right telling a kid not to eat. Bells could feel the shape of his bones all too clearly under his skin, and she remembered being like him not too long ago.

"You're new here, aren't you?" Bells didn't let go. He'd just make it run for it if she did.

The boy made another attempt at jerking away, but when it failed he glared up at her suspiciously. "You gonna call them toppers on me, lady? Make it quick, I ain't got all day."

Bells raised an eyebrow. Only born and bred slum folk called the City Guard toppers— a reference to the the green tops of their helmets which could be seen bobbing along above crowds. She'd had to break that habit when she moved into the Lower City. "I'm not going to call the City Guard."

"Yeah? That's what they all say," the boy spat.

Bells sighed, and showed the boy her open palm. Two small black crosses marked her olive skin. His eyes widened, and he stopped struggling. It marked her as one of them.

An enchanted ink tattoo. Nothing could get it off, not even if one tried to cut carve the flesh out or burn the skin off. She'd enough people try.

"Got kicked from the House out last week," the boy mumbled, looking away. "Don't know where else to go for a bite."

She hesitated. "Don't run," she said, then let go of the boy's hand.

Reaching into her bag, Bells opened the paper package and pulled out a small piece of burnt crust. She offered it to him. The boy looked at it suspiciously, then his hand darted out and snatched it away. He sniffed it, his tongue darted out of his mouth in a tiny lick, then he shoved the entire piece into his mouth as if he were afraid she'd snatch it back.

"Just this once," she warned him. "Next time, you go to Miss Mari's or you don't get caught."

The slum children tried pickpocketing Bells every time she came to the slums and it'd become a bit of a game. She didn't mind so much— it kept her skills sharp, and Bells understood. If they managed to steal a piece of bread from her, then they got to keep it. If not, then they knew to go to Mari's, who would dole out the scraps evenly.

But it meant that Bells no longer carried more than a copper or two when she visited the slums, and those were tucked into a coin purse which rested snug against her skin.

She no longer carried her coin with her when she visited the slums, she had pried up a loose floorboard from her room at the Wyvern and hidden her savings there.

The wooden stairs creaked dangerously as Bells climbed up to the second floor where Mari rented what was little more than a room. The row of two storey apartments which stretched down half the street were serviced by only three sets of stairs, and the one on the far end had broken down for a month with the landlord holding out on repairs for as long as he could.