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wetboy? But he said, “I’m going to apprentice with you.”
    Blint’s open hand cracked across his face and sent him sprawling into the wall. His face scraped against rock and he landed heavily.
    When he rolled over, Blint was standing over him. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you,” Blint said.
    Doll Girl.
She wasn’t only the answer to Blint’s question, she was Azoth’s weakness. She was where Rat would strike. A wave of nausea swept over Azoth. First Jarl and now Doll Girl.
    “You should,” Azoth said.
    Blint raised an eyebrow again.
    “You’re the best wetboy in the city, but you’re not the only one. And if you won’t apprentice me and you don’t kill me, I’ll train under Hu Gibbet or Scarred Wrable. I’ll spend my life training just for the moment I have my chance at you. I’ll wait until you think I’ve forgotten today. I’ll wait until you think it was just a dumb guild rat’s threat. After I’m a master, you’ll jump at shadows for a while. But after you jump a dozen times and I’m not there, you won’t jump just once, and that’s when I’ll be there. I don’t care if you kill me at the same time. I’ll trade my life for yours.”
    Durzo’s eyes barely had to shift to go from dangerously amused to simply dangerous. But Azoth didn’t even see them through the tears brimming in his own eyes. He only saw the vacant look that had come into Jarl’s eyes and imagined seeing it in Doll Girl’s. He imagined her screams if Rat came and took her every night. She’d scream wordlessly for the first few weeks, maybe fight—bite and scratch for a while—and then she wouldn’t scream anymore, wouldn’t fight at all. There would just be grunting and the sounds of flesh and Rat’s pleasure. Just like Jarl.
    “Is your life so empty, boy?”
    It will be if you say no.
“I want to be like you.”
    “No one wants to be like me.” Blint drew a huge black sword and touchedthe edge to Azoth’s throat. In that moment, Azoth didn’t care if the blade drank his life’s blood. Death would be kinder than watching Doll Girl disappear before his eyes.
    “You like hurting people?” Blint asked.
    “No, sir.”
    “Ever killed anyone?”
    “No.”
    “Then why are you wasting my time?”
    What was wrong with him? Did he really mean that? He couldn’t. “I heard you don’t like it. That you don’t have to like it to be good,” Azoth said.
    “Who told you that?”
    “Momma K. She said that’s the difference between you and some of the others.”
    Blint frowned. He pulled a clove of garlic from a pouch and popped it into his mouth. He sheathed his sword, chewing.
    “All right, kid. You want to get rich?” Azoth nodded. “You’re quick. But can you tell what your marks are thinking and remember fifty things at once? Do you have good hands?” Nod. Nod. Nod.
    “Be a gambler.” Durzo laughed.
    Azoth didn’t. He looked at his feet. “I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”
    “Ja’laliel beats you?”
    “Ja’laliel’s nothing.”
    “Then who is?” Blint asked.
    “Our Fist. Rat.” Why was it so hard to say his name?
    “He beats you?”
    “Unless you’ll… unless you’ll do things with him.” It sounded weak, and Blint didn’t say anything, so Azoth said, “I won’t let anyone beat me again. Not ever.”
    Blint kept looking past Azoth, giving him time to blink away his tears. The full moon bathed the city in golden light. “The old whore can be beautiful,” he said. “Despite everything.”
    Azoth followed Blint’s gaze, but there was no one else in sight. Silver mist rose from the warm manure of the cattle yards and coiled around old broken aqueducts. In the darkness, Azoth couldn’t see the Bleeding Man freshly scrawled over his own guild’s Black Dragon, but he knew it was there. His guild had been losing territory steadily since Ja’laliel got sick.
    “Sir?” Azoth said.
    “This city’s got no culture but street culture. The buildings are brick