Ambrosia's mouth tasted bitter.

She'd gotten some cosmetics in her mouth by accident while she was attempting to make herself look better, as though she could somehow transform herself into such a work of art that her right eye could be overlooked.

No corsets; they were too difficult to lace up alone, even though they would have shown off her slim build without revealing too much. She didn't ask any other servants or courtesans for help, knowing that they would ask questions. She really wasn't ready to accept her fate yet, much less explain it to someone else.

Ambrosia ended up wearing a dress - if one could call it that - of sheer vibrant blue chiffon. The material, light as it was, rippled as it went down her abdomen, giving the impression of waves.

Five o'clock, and she was downstairs as Benzo demanded. The bitter taste was faint, but she had to fight down the urge to spit it out. She couldn't - not with Benzo right beside her, waiting for the gentleman to arrive.

And when he did, it wasn't with any sort of flair or clap of thunder or horrific crescendo like Ambrosia had imagined a thousand times in the hour it had taken to get ready. He'd just...appeared at the entrance of the house, pushing the door open with ease and letting it close behind him.

His entrance was simple enough. But his appearance made Ambrosia's heart start to pound again.

He was masked, and wore a neatly buttoned up, long dark coat with lighter diagonal stripes, snugly fit at the shoulders but slightly looser at the sleeves. Ambrosia couldn't see any of his skin at all; he even wore black leather gloves. She could tell that he was wealthy just by the fact that he wore white pants. Nobody who lived in this part of the slums ever wore white anything, much less pants, with all the mud. The shoes worried her even more. They were well made, obviously by a skilled craftsman. Black leather, with buckle straps and gleaming steel studs. Polished and without so much as a speck of dirt on anything.

While she wasn't a courtesan, Ambrosia had heard enough from others in the house to know that wealthy men were the worst ones. The bitter taste made it easier to ground herself somehow, and she let it coat her tongue like poison. A part of her wondered what would happen if she spat on him.

"I assume you have the marcs to pay off her indenture?" Benzo asked, and the man cocked his head to look over at the master of the house. He nodded. From somewhere within his coat, he produced a pouch of runes. He closed the distance between them, handing the drawstring to Benzo.

She didn't know why, but she was unsettled by his silence. Every movement he made was deliberate and purposeful. Did he think that speaking to such people was below him?

The man turned his head to her. For a moment, all was still. Then he looked her up and down. The mask hid his face so well that whatever he was feeling, whatever he was thinking, was hidden from Ambrosia's view. Then he stopped. She knew he was staring at her eye. She tried to look anywhere but at Benzo, who'd opened the pouch and was counting the silver marcs and watching the man at the same time.

Ambrosia couldn't conceal her flinch when she felt the cold leather of the man's glove on her chin, tilting her head up. She hadn't even realized she'd been looking down. The man ignored the flinch, and she fought the urge to bare her teeth. Ambrosia knew she'd see no sympathy from someone like him. He merely studied her eye further, then turned to Benzo, as though for an explanation.

"She's got a milk-eye," the master of the house clarified. She glanced at him. Benzo knew she hated when he called it that. "I mentioned earlier that she's half blind."

One day, I'm going to jam those marcs down your throat and watch you choke on them.

The man stared in Benzo's direction a bit longer, then turned back to Ambrosia. He waved a hand to the right of her face, and when she didn't react, he lowered his hand and stepped back, nodding. Ambrosia didn't know what that meant, but Benzo must have, because he beamed like Saint Nikolas himself had just crashed through the ceiling and handed him a miracle.

"Excellent. Safe trip home." Benzo said, and it took all Ambrosia's willpower not to try to jerk away when the man grasped her arm and led her outside into the street. He just kept walking steadily.

Halfway down the road, he took a sharp turn down an alley. Ambrosia realized where he was going, but she didn't try to pull away. Watch the eyes. Don't get backed into a corner. Stay away from walls.

He looked back at her, then, and after a moment, came to a stop. "You're still scared." He spoke for the first time, voice muffled through the mask. Ambrosia froze, staring at him, every muscle tensed for whatever came next.

Her jaw dropped open when he took off his mask.

It wasn't a man at all. It was a woman with raven-black hair tied at the nape of her neck and eyes that were green, but a strange sort of green. She couldn't quite pinpoint why.

Ambrosia wasn't sure what to make of that discovery, but the look on the woman's face told her that she was still a force to be reckoned with. A scattering of scars marred the left side of her face.

Ambrosia only half-noticed that the woman was unbuttoning her long coat. After a second or two, meeting Ambrosia's hesitant stare, the woman slung it off and dropped it in her hands. "Put it on. It'll cover you up."

Just below the elbow of the woman's left arm, flesh and bone were cut off abruptly. What was natural became mechanical. The lower part of her arm was a glinting metal prosthetic. It looked like it'd been locked into a port just above her elbow, hidden before by the sleeve of the long coat and the black leather gloves, which she was now taking off.

"I don't understand." Ambrosia croaked, staring as the woman pulled off her left glove with her teeth, then wadded them up and stuck them into a pocket in the coat Ambrosia was now holding.

"Put on the coat." The woman said quietly and deliberately, looking her in the eyes. "Your dress looks about as thin as tissue paper. And you look uncomfortable."

Ambrosia couldn't formulate a good response to that, so she slipped the coat on. She had to admit that it was snug, and still warm from the woman's body heat. It did much more to cover her than the dress did, which was a relief, but confusion still pounded as she buttoned it up.

Having worked up the courage to question her further, Ambrosia said finally, "The least you could do is tell me your name."

The woman watched her carefully. "Do you want to be able to sleep tonight?"

"With all due respect, I never sleep anyway."

Unless Ambrosia was hallucinating, a tiny smile pricked at the edges of the woman's mouth. Though she couldn't fathom why. "Fair enough, but my real name is off limits. Call me Clinky."

A spike of ice shot through Ambrosia's veins, turning everything light and fuzzy. Clinky. She'd heard that name spoken only in whispers, and never in the streets. Never where it could be heard. Boss of Afterlife. Captain of Company Rowshelm's Diamondbacks.

"So you've heard of me, then?"

"I...yes. I have." Clinky exhaled sharply, still grinning faintly, which Ambrosia took for a laugh. "Will I be able to work off my debt?" She asked, remembering the drawstring pouch of silver marcs.

Clinky eyed her like the answer was obvious. "Diamondbacks don't care much for indentured servitude. Neither do I. I lifted the marcs off a very helpful gentleman by the corner. You don't need to pay anything off."

"You...what?" Ambrosia couldn't comprehend what she was hearing. She didn't need to pay back the sum? Why? She stared at the woman in front of her, mouth open to ask more questions, but she couldn't force her voice to work for a few more seconds. "Then why bother?"

"You can stick with me if it strikes your fancy, but people don't belong to other people." Ambrosia blinked, caught off guard by just about every aspect of that. "Now, I imagine you didn't enjoy your stay in that place," Clinky continued, beckoning Ambrosia to follow as she talked, heading back toward the main road.

For the first time in years, a ray of hope pierced Ambrosia's heart like a knife. She was afraid of it - afraid it was a lie, afraid it would be torn away. But it felt...liberating. "No," Ambrosia replied, following the strange woman.

It was too good to be true, for all the warning tales Ambrosia heard of her scheming. It was too easy to let her guard down. Why was Clinky, a notorious criminal, acting...normal, for lack of a better word?

"What's the catch?" Ambrosia said automatically, catching up to Clinky despite the taller woman's brisk pace. Walking side by side someone like her was unnerving to say the least. She kept looking for guns, knives, anything - and found none. Either she was unarmed, or extremely good at hiding weapons. Ambrosia doubted it was the first. "You know as well as I do that around here there's always a catch, and if there isn't, it's a con. So why me? What do you want?"

"What do I want?" Clinky repeated, glancing toward Ambrosia. "Firstly, I want to destroy the Allied Federation down to the very last brick, no matter what it takes. After that comes everything else. But you must be curious which ones concern you."

Oh no. "Yes." Ambrosia said, sounding far more confident than she felt, meeting Clinky's unblinking gaze.

Clinky tilted her head, her smile widening. "Ever been to Afterlife?"