"Storage room. Second door on the left." The kid was still staring at him like he’d just witnessed a miracle. "I didn’t think I’d see you again. People said you disappeared after that thing at the warehouse district."
"People say a lot of things. Most of them are wrong."
They carried the crate inside, navigating a narrow hallway that smelled like dried herbs and something sharper that Nacho couldn’t identify. The storage room was small but well-organized, shelves lined with jars and bottles and bundles of plant matter that probably meant something to someone who knew what they were looking at.
After they set the crate down, Pip turned to face him, his jaw set with a determination that looked almost comical on his young face.
"I want to thank you. For what you did. For my sister."
"How is she?"
"Better. A lot better." His voice cracked slightly. "The medicine worked. She’s still weak, but the healer says she’ll make a full recovery. Another month, maybe two, and she’ll be like it never happened."
"Good."
"It’s more than good. You saved her life. You saved both our lives." Pip’s hands clenched at his sides. "I want to repay you. Somehow. I know I’m just a kid, and I don’t have anything worth giving, but if there’s ever anything I can do for you, anything at all, you just have to ask."
Nacho studied the kid’s face, seeing the earnestness there, the desperate need to find some way to balance a debt he felt he could never repay.
"You want to do something for me?"
Pip nodded vigorously.
"Keep your head down. Work hard at this apprenticeship. Take care of your sister." He paused. "And if you ever see someone in the same position you were in, someone with no options and no hope, you help them. That’s how you repay me."
"But that’s not, I mean, that doesn’t feel like enough."
"It’s enough." Nacho turned toward the door. "Trust me."
"Wait." Pip’s voice stopped him mid-step. "There’s something I need to tell you. Something I should have said when you first helped us."
"You don’t need to say anything."
"Yes I do." The kid took a deep breath, his small chest expanding with the effort. "When you found me in that alley, when you gave me that feather, I thought you were just some rich guy who felt sorry for us. Someone who’d forget about us the second we were out of sight."
"And now?"
"Now I know better. You’re not like anyone else in this city. You actually care about what happens to people like me and my sister." Pip’s voice had gone thick with emotion. "And I know you’re leaving, I can tell from the way you’re acting, but I want you to know that I’m never going to forget what you did. Never. No matter how long I live or how far I go, I’m always going to remember the man who saved us when no one else would."
The words hit Nacho harder than he expected, landing somewhere in his chest like a stone dropped into still water.
He didn’t turn around. Didn’t acknowledge the sentiment in any visible way.
"Take care of yourself, Pip."
Then he walked out the door before the kid could say anything else that might make him feel something he wasn’t ready to examine.
The streets of Valdris were quiet at this hour, the last of the evening crowd retreating to homes and taverns as the night settled over the city like a heavy blanket. Nacho moved through the shadows on autopilot, his feet carrying him toward the Ascent Pillar district while his mind churned through everything that had happened in the past few weeks.
He’d arrived in this city with nothing but a handful of skills and a vague plan to gather intelligence for Sera. Now he was leaving with a network of contacts, a pile of stolen Talents, and a reputation that would probably haunt him for years to come.
Not bad for a few weeks of work.
But beneath the satisfaction, there was something else. A feeling he hadn’t expected and wasn’t sure how to name.
Pip’s words kept echoing in his head.
You actually care about what happens to people like me.
Did he? He’d told himself the phoenix feather was a transaction, a way to acquire an asset who could feed him information about the city’s underworld. He’d rationalized his actions with cold logic, treating kindness as a tool rather than an end in itself.
But when he’d seen that kid’s sister lying pale and wasted on that filthy mattress, her breath coming in rattles that spoke of days rather than weeks, something in his chest had twisted in a way that had nothing to do with strategy.
He’d wanted to help her. Not because it benefited him, but because letting a child die when he had the means to save her felt wrong in a way he couldn’t articulate.
This world kept making him care about people against his will.
First Lizbeth with her broken-down inn and her stubborn determination. Then Mira with her steel underneath the exhaustion. Then Sera with her lonely war against forces too big to fight alone.
Now Pip and his sister, two street kids he’d met exactly twice, who would probably spend the rest of their lives thinking of him as some kind of hero.
He wasn’t a hero.
Heroes had noble motivations and clear moral compasses. They saved people because it was the right thing to do, not because attachment kept sneaking up on them like a thief in the night.
He was just a former debt collector with tentacle powers and a growing list of people he apparently couldn’t stop himself from protecting.
The Ascent Pillar district came into view, its massive columns rising into the darkness like the bones of some long-dead giant. Security was tighter here than at the commercial docks, with guards stationed at regular intervals and checkpoints that required documentation he no longer had.
But the guards weren’t looking for people going down. They were watching for threats coming up.