Phoebe kept her back straight and strode with confidence down the sandstone street, bald head or not. She told herself she had every right to be here, and adopted the according gait. She pretended to be a recently freed slave whose hair hadn’t grown back yet. There were plenty of people like that that she could see. No one stopped her or questioned her, except the usual merchants and scammers. She made the mistake of trying to be polite to the first two, before realizing why Derek never did that. She grew blunt and short with them, and before long, she was several streets into the city and found one she recognized.

  Here we go, she thought. She ran her fingers along the grainy texture of a home built of sandstone and wood. She stopped and looked up at the Tower of Eyes, using it to orient herself. It wasn’t exactly in the center of the city, but it was a great waypoint.

  Oppzis asked her how she was feeling. She took a moment to consider this.

  Very good, she decided, resisting the urge to scratch her cheek in case that revealed the engram. I feel ... very alive. Powerful. I guess I didn’t realize just how much my younger self was weighing me down.

  I’ll have to face it eventually, though, she thought to herself. She pressed on.

  Phoebe saw other slaves following their masters, like children following their parents. Their masters protected them like masks of invisibility. She saw an older fellow bearing an engram on his forearm, following a young man into a small home. Everyone's eyes were deflected from him to his master. Phoebe felt like she was wearing a big glowing hat compared to him.

  There were a disconcerting number of empty, quiet areas of town that she didn’t remember that way. Not that it surprised her after seeing the city from afar, but it was clashing with her engram memories of the place. It didn’t hurt, at least not in the magical sense. Just the normal, “you’ve outlasted this part of the world” sense. Her memory was making her walk through more and more of them to get where she needed to be.

  Phoebe frowned. This street corner didn’t look right. The orphanage was supposed to be around it, but looking in each direction, Phoebe didn’t see it.

  If Phoebe were older, or at least hadn’t spent so much of her life in remote places like deserts and Halfway, she might have recognized the dangerous silence sooner than she did. Her instinct for danger wasn’t bad, but the feeling of loneliness crept in too slowly, and then all at once when she turned around again.

  There was a bald man approaching her, diagonally crossing the cobbled intersection between the decrepit buildings. He was Phoebe’s height, but double her age. He was light-skinned enough to be an Akastamsite, but he wore a yellow and white Barridian sleeveless doublet that exposed his wiry arms. Phoebe made the mistake of taking steps back, when she should have either stood her ground and folded her arms or ran. The man did not pounce, but he stopped way too close to her, with a suspicious look on his bearded face.

  “They’re sendin’ girls into our territory now?” he asked, as if to himself. “What did they tell you to say?”

  “Who?” Phoebe asked. “I came here by myself.”

  “Oh,” the man said. He seemed disappointed. “Well that was stupid. I’m not complaining, though. Do you happen to know the way to the nearest privy?”

  Phoebe hesitated. “Um, no, sorry, this isn’t my part of town.”

  “Well you got that right.”

  “I’m not - “

  Phoebe was interrupted by a large arm wrapped around her stomach and a hand clamping over her mouth. She felt herself pressed into a much bulkier man behind her. Her scream was muffled, and when she tried to scratch or flail or attack with her arms, the big man gave her a sharp squeeze that knocked the wind out of her and made her body fold.

  “Took you long enough,” the first man said, looking over Phoebe’s shoulder. He turned and started away. “Come on, let’s dump her back at the place and get out here again, in case whatever made her wander in here’s contagious.”

  Phoebe struggled some more, but then the big thug thrust his knee into her backside. She gave another muffled scream, but refrained from trying to attack her captor anymore. Clearly, he did not have the same “gentleness” with her she was used to from Derek.

  They were heading down the opposite road Phoebe entered the intersection from. There was a large building mostly made of wood on one side. It looked like how she remembered the orphanage looking, but it was empty and clearly hadn’t been lived in for at least a year. Phoebe blinked the pain from her eyes, marching in front of the big man holding her. Her tailbone ached and the brisk walk was not helping. She just needed to do whatever she’d done to Derek again, hit the man as hard as she could with that silver acceleration. Then she would bolt away from him. Oppzis warned her that she’d probably accelerate away from the man without meaning to, like she had with Derek, and that she was likely to hit a wall. He didn’t offer any alternatives, so Phoebe ignored him.

  “Wonder how much the girl traders will pay for this one,” the leading man wondered aloud. “She looks pretty good in that loose dress, don’t you think?”

  The big man grunted his reply. Phoebe was glad she was already used to the stink of the city, or else the big man being this close to her would have been overwhelming.

  It's starting to activate anyway, she realized. There was a familiar sensation in her palms and on her cheek as the engram reacted, just like it had when the cobra nearly bit her and Derek wouldn’t let go.

  Oppzis told her to control it before the magic acted up on its own, like when she'd killed the snake. Once she got better at controlling these abilities, she could use them without risking breaking her bones. Until then, she might run into a wall, or she might hit one of these men with the same force. Maiming one of them would not help. Killing one would be even worse.

  Phoebe felt the familiar surge like her arm was about to sneeze. All she had to do was point, like aiming her nose. She had her hands clasped over the one covering her mouth. She saw the silver magic coiling on her fingers. The big man seemed to notice something was off, because he slowed his step and tightened her grip on her waist and face. She struck just as the man in front glanced over his shoulder.

  The big man had a lot of mass, but that only helped him so much against an elbow moving faster than a crossbow bolt. Even if his grip hadn’t weakened at the impact, there was no way he could restrain his captive when she dashed forward, narrowly missing the other man. She probably would have taken his arms off if he’d held on any tighter.

  Phoebe did not, however, miss the wall next to the building that had once been the orphanage.

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  “Amethra’s tits!” cried the wiry man, who she could see running toward her in an upside down, blurry world. “What was that?”

  Phoebe sensed she was bleeding from her forehead where the impact had split her skin, but not her bone. Her left arm and shoulder, however, had absorbed the brunt of the impact and she didn’t dare move them. She pathetically batted Wiry away with her right arm.

  “Go ... away,” she groaned. Dust filled the air, and she coughed, losing what little balance she had and falling on her chest.

  What are you doing?! A voice inside screamed. Her voice, but younger. Don’t make them angrier! You tried to get away and it didn’t work. It won’t work. Just be good! Please!

  Phoebe realized her engram, which was on the left side of her face, was crackling. It had to be visible now. She’d brushed it against the wall, and cast a spell on top of that.

  Oppzis! she reached out. Come on! Keep it under wraps!

  Wiry narrowed his eyes, and took a step back. Behind her, Phoebe saw the big man wheezing on his knees.

  “So you’re a runaway slave! We better get you out of here before your master finds us. Are you gonna do that again?” he asked.

  “Only if you make me,” Phoebe grimaced. “Now leave me alone, or I’ll - “ - she coughed . “I’ll fuck you up!”

  Stop! the voice inside was crying. Phoebe felt like her eyes were streaming tears, even though they weren’t, like phantom pain. Don’t make them angrier! Please, I’m already in so much trouble! Please, please -

  “Shut the fuck up!” Phoebe hissed at herself. Wiry frowned, but made no comment. He looked at his companion, who glared at Phoebe with clear intent.

  “Ain’t gonna let dat fly,” he rumbled, and then wheezed again.

  Phoebe tried to rise to her feet, but Wiry grabbed her throat and pushed her back into the wall she’d just crashed into. Before she saw it, a knife was pressed to her throat.

  “I don’t know what you just did,” he said, “but try running that fast with this instead of a hand right in front of you,” he invited. “Go ahead. I’ll even get you on your feet.”

  Painfully, he dragged her up the wall until her feet touched the ground and they were eye level. Phoebe gripped his wrist with her good hand, letting her battered left arm hang. Blood was seeping into her eye, and she blinked too late to get it out.

  "Excuse me, mister," said another voice. Female, this time.

  Phoebe looked over Wiry’s shoulder and he turned to follow, keeping his knife in place and his grip on her throat firm. A broad-shouldered, middle-aged woman was striding toward them indignantly. Her blonde hair was commoner length, and untidy. She wore simple clothes and an expression no one in their right mind argued with. Just looking at her face was making the engram crackle.

  The newcomer stopped beside the bulky man, who had finally regained his breath but still needed to wring out his hands.

  “Don’t tell me this is yours,” said Wiry with a sigh.

  "As a matter of fact, it is," the woman said. "Thank you for stopping her. And before you ask, yes, have some compensation."

  She passed the bulky man beside her a few coins, and motioned for him to step aside.

  "Dis is all?" he frowned.

  "You're lucky to receive even that much," the woman said. "All you did was hold her still while I caught up to her. Now be off. I have a slave to punish.”

  The two thugs made eye contact. Phoebe didn’t dare try anything with that weapon up against her neck, but it was tempting. For once, the voice in her head telling her to sit still and be good was onto something.

  “And if we tell you finders’ keepers, piss off?” Wiry said.

  The woman rolled her eyes, making Phoebe’s engram crackle harder.

  Who the fuck is she?

  Oppzis reminded her his limitations communicating names, but promised he was working on the engram. He probably wouldn’t have to, though; seeing the things blocked behind an engram, with the slave’s own eyes, made the engram break down.

  “Then I’ll take her anyway, and I won’t pay you,” the woman replied.

  Wir snorted, checking the coast surreptitiously. “Ain’t nobody here to see.”

  “Pity for you,” the woman said. The big man was clearly getting frustrated, and he took a step closer to her. She gave him a warning look. Then he hit her very hard in the face.

  Phoebe gasped. The woman stumbled back, amazingly staying on her feet.

  “Want a knife next?” Wiry jeered. “That was a warning blow, grandma. You should count yourself lucky; Fred doesn’t usually go in for warnings.”

  The woman held still, stabilizing her breathing with a hand held to her face where she’d been punched. Then, she stood up straight and looked directly at Fred. Something was off about her. Something wasn’t familiar anymore.

  Right as the engram’s last vestiges against whoever this was fell away, the woman became a blur that Fred couldn’t hope to react to in time.

  Oh shit, Phoebe realized, feeling stupid as the part of the engram blocking Marthera’s name finally gave up. In her memories, though, Marthera didn’t have that much blood on her clothes, or that ugly bruise on her face.

  “Fred!” Wiry cried out, his grip slackening. Phoebe was too stunned as well to take advantage before the moment was gone, partly because that stupid fucking kid in her head was too afraid of the knife to knock it away.

  Marthera stood and wiped her mouth. Fred whined like a kicked dog before Marthera raked - raked - a hand across his face. He wasn’t dead, but his arm was a shredded-up mess, bleeding everywhere along with his forehead. He’d never see out of his left eye again. Phoebe wasn’t sure what she was seeing, or if that was really Marthera.

  No, it has to be, she insisted. My engram was blocking her name and face until I saw her.

  But why the hell are her eyes yellow and red? Why are her teeth and nails so long?

  Phoebe felt the pressure on her neck tighten, and as she looked, Wiry threw his knife. It spun and landed directly in Marthera’s throat. Phoebe’s heart stopped, but before she could register what just happened, Marthera reached up and yanked the weapon back out. Hardly any blood came out.

  “Not a step closer!” Wiry demanded, though it sounded more like pleading, even with another knife Phoebe hadn’t seen until just now pressed against her throat. “I’ll cut her! I’ll kill your slave!”

  Marthera halted. Her throat was healed, but there was still blood all over her chin.

  Phoebe felt silver magic returning to her aid. Wiry didn’t notice, not daring to take his eyes off whatever Marthera was. Oppzis warned her not to move her legs at all, to let them go limp or freeze up, because next time she might hit a wall with her head taking the brunt instead of her arm.

  Wiry turned to her just in time to see the magic reach the point when Phoebe usually released it. She punched his knife hand straight up, sending the weapon sailing away. He gasped and clutched his hand with the one he’d been holding her throat with, and she hit him in the groin. She’d gotten good at hitting that spot; it was one of the few places that would make Derek pause what he was doing to her.

  The next moment, Marthera was upon him, one hand on his throat, her enormous, dripping canines bared. Her other hand held the first knife high, point down over his head.

  “Ain’t nobody here to see,” Marthera hissed. “You give up, or do you want a knife next?”

  “You win! You win!” Wiry pleaded through the constriction. She forced him down to his knees. Phoebe backed away from both of them. Up the street, Fred was stumbling off, pointlessly trying to stop his arm from bleeding.

  “Get out of here!” the woman barked. The wiry man scrambled away from her, stopping at the corner to take one more look at Fred. Then, they both disappeared around their corners.

  Leaving Phoebe all alone with Marthera, who turned to face her with a smile that was unnaturally sharp.

  Before Phoebe could get over her paralysis, Marthera threw her arms around the girl and held her tight. When she spoke, her voice was shaky.

  “I thought I’d never see you again, Euffie.”