Rojan Dizon 02 - Before the Fall Read Free Page A

Luckily the landlord—Dendal—tended to forget what I owed, though Lastri was distressingly accurate, not to mention insistent.
    The other reason for the change of offices, an extra partner in our motley little crew, sat at his desk. Pasha still had a face like a sulky monkey nesting in a rumple of dark hair, but since the Glow had gone, and with it the ill-gotten pain that powered it, he’d seemed to grow. Less jumpy now, but still plenty angry.
    He looked up from the news-sheet he’d been scowling over. “What happened to you? You look like shit.”
    He was still a git. I braved the vagaries of my desk drawer. The trick was to open it up, grab what you wanted and get your hand out quick, before it realised what you were doing and slammed shut. It was unreasonably possessive of its contents, I felt, and I only had one good hand left anyway.
    I managed to get out the mirror without incurring any broken bones and studied my reflection. Pasha was right: I did look like shit. I would like to point out that the mirror was a new thing and not lurking in my drawer because I’m incredibly vain. Well, I am quite vain, but that’s not why it was there. No, it was there because of the new direction my magic had taken, and because a lot of people thought I was dead and I wanted it to stay that way, or I would be.
    I still had a bit of juice left from my earlier hand-mangling so I did the best I could to tidy myself up, rearranging my face back to my more usual disguise. It’s weird seeing someone else’s face in the mirror every day, but better than being dead. I only let the disguise drop when I slept, or when I shaved. Shaving the wrong-shaped face is hard and, I’d discovered, usually ends in blood and swearing.
    I couldn’t do anything about the rather spectacular shiner, though. My new skills weren’t up to that yet, in the same way that I couldn’t rearrange my voice, though I was working on it.
    Pasha wandered over, sat on the edge of the desk and grinned his monkey grin. I couldn’t help but like him, no matter how hard I tried not to.
    “So, who gave you that and why did you let them?”
    “She caught me by surprise. I’ve decided to give up women.”
    His snorted in disbelief before he closed his eyes and twisted his hands in his lap.
    “You can stop that as well. I told you: you don’t read my mind, I won’t permanently rearrange your face.” It came out sharper than I’d intended, mainly because I didn’t want him figuring out just why the lady in question had belted me one. And the lady before that and, come to think of it, the lady before that as well. Let’s just say, saying the wrong name at a delicate moment isn’t a good move and leave it at that. I was definitely swearing off women. Definitely, for sure this time.
    The Kiss of Death, Lastri calls me. I never mean to, but I kill any budding relationship stone dead. Usually it was for more varied reasons, granted. Being unable to resist temptation tops the list. Like responsibility, willpower rarely makes it on to my list of good points. Why deny all those women their chance? So many, and all so lovely…
    My wandering eyes had stilled for a while, but were back to their old tricks in something like self-defence for my heart, which, if I’m brutally honest, was as mangled as my hand. Playing my old games took my mind off that, meant I didn’t need to think about it, what I’d lost and Pasha had gained.
    Pasha took the hint and changed the subject. “So, the boy, you found him? Any joy?”
    “Found him, and, yes, he’s a pain-mage all right. Lastri’s feeding him up, I expect. Built like a stick, and he was about to get the crap kicked out of him by a load of Upsiders. Makes me wonder what the little sod’s done.”
    Pasha gave me a cryptic look, but the words were pure viciousness. “Was born, perhaps. Had the audacity to come up here when we stopped the Glow and opened the ’Pit. Got the wrong skin tone, the wrong accent, worships the