“The Imperialist cause is unstable,” Mugs added. “Shin here would know it better than all of us. The rumors of their core party say there’s infighting. Sometimes you get word of assassinations or attempted coups but those are horseshit. They’re doing their damndest to keep the organization together and once they discover their Empress was assassinated…”

“Chaos.” Shin took another bite from the chicken, Thomas watching like a starved puppy.

“Sounds ominous,” Jim murmured, staring into the fire. “No disrespect, bossman, but if that lass was the difference between peace and civil war what’s our business takin’ a job like that? I’m all for lootin’ and killin’, but conspiracies don’t sit well in me chest.”

“I don’t like lyin’ to my crew. You know that, James.” Mugs squinted into the darkness. “The pay is just too good to pass up.”

“More like too good to be true,” Thomas said.

“You may be right. You may just be right…”

Mugs took a leg off the cooked chicken while the rest of the men pulled it apart and ate silently. He was frustrated and ashamed of how stupid he had been. There were rules of the trade. Rules you didn’t break unless you desired the risk of death and dismemberment. There were too many terrible monsters and more terrible humans to accept an egregious sum of coin from a man of unknown character, and all for a target of such unfathomable importance. The reasoning was too questionable. So then why did he take the job?

You know why you took it. You did it for him.

He was sickened by himself. One of his own dead and a score of others slain to come upon a carriage full of nothing but blood.

“Boss, she’s awake!”

So she was. The thin girl had shuffled to the fire and sat on the ground, hugging her knees. One of the men yesternight had scavenged a cloak from the ambush and draped it over her then-unconscious form, though it looked monstrously large on her. Now the hood was pulled over her hair and face, and she did not speak.

The men all shot questioning looks at each other before Thomas slowly reached out and offered her a greasy piece of the chicken. She leaned forward cautiously for a moment before snatching it from his fingers and munching on it, her face obscured in the hood’s shadow. It was a strange moment that became amusing as Thomas developed an increasing agitation at her silence. He cleared his throat obnoxiously, peering at her all the while.

“Oy, Tommy!” Jim guffawed. “You gon’ sit there all night gawking? Ya can’t undress a gal just by lookin’ at them!”

Mugs feigned standing to give Jim his promised beating but the man raised his hands in mock terror and grinned sheepishly.

“Hey there, Miss?” Thomas whispered, undisturbed by his companions. “Are you feeling alright now? I could… I could make you some tea if you’d like.”

The girl didn’t respond. Thomas twisted his face in timid frustration and scooted closer to the fire, closer to the girl. “Miss…?” Thomas whispered almost inaudibly. He reached out to her, his arm extending around the fire to touch her shoulder.

His fingers brushed the coat.

“He killed her!” the girl screamed. She jolted back, repulsed by the man’s hand, and crawled on all fours back into the dark. Her eyes became big as chicken eggs, bloodshot and saturated with fear, and her hands were trembling and clawing for safety from the nightmare she had plunged into headfirst. “He killed her!” she screamed again, louder, and began to repeat it over and over.