Innocence Lost

TW: Mentions of abuse, gore, death

The little girl smiles up at me trustingly. The gap-toothed grin tugs at my lips, and I tilt them up slightly, though more for the money I'm about to make ransoming the youngest daughter of the Carnelli family back to them than in response to the girl's joy.

"Thank you for your help, mister! I'd never be able to do this on my own." Aniela's squeaky voice should grate my nerves, like most children's voices, but it's endearing. In a sort of get rich quick kind of way. 

"Of course! What kind of monster would I have to be not to help a child in need?" I ask, smiling at her. Her blonde halo of curls bounces as she shakes her head.

"A man like you could never be a monster, sir. Never." Too bad the poor girl has no idea who she's talking to. I've been running scams in the imperial capital for more than double the time she's been alive. But this is going to be my biggest by far. And I stumbled into it by chance. 

For the past day or so, the Carnellis, the richest and most influential nobles in the city, have been up in arms over the disappearance of their youngest scion, Aniela. They're offering triple the girl's weight in gold for her safe return. I'd heard about it, the entire city had, but I'd just happened to be talking to an associate about sneaking some goods past the walls to avoid paying the tariffs when the little Carnelli herself tugged on my sleeve and offered me a full pouch of gold to sneak her out with the merchandise.

I'd taken the girl's gold, obviously, and I plan to return her back to her family safely in return for her bounty. But the Carnellis are rich enough to buy themselves a kingdom, if they wanted. They can afford a little better of a reward. I'm thinking I can triple my own weight in gold before they decide I'm more trouble than I'm worth.

To make up for lying to the girl, I'd bought her some candy, and now she's acting like I'm some sort of deity walking the earth just for her. Disconcerting, to say the least.

"Where are we going?" She asks, her bright green eyes shining like jewels in the afternoon light.

"The warehouse district. I'm getting a cart to hide you in when we leave after dusk." There's a grain of truth to my words. We're going to the warehouse district, yes. And before I met the girl, stealing a cart was absolutely the plan. Now? I'm finding a good place to lie low so I can start drafting my ransom letters to the Carnellis. 

"Woah. I've never been there before. Can we go inside one? Emilia says..." Aniela starts on a tangent about one of her father's servants and all the fantastic things bought and stored in the warehouses. I drop to one knee, cutting the girl off mid-sentence.

"We're definitely going inside one, but I don't want to disappoint you, sweetie. Emilia lied to you. The warehouses aren't anything fantastical. All the magic items are stored in the Upper Ward. We can go back that way if you want—" Aniela emphatically shakes her head, just as I'd known she would. She ran from her family's estate in the Upper Ward for a reason. I don't think she'll return there willingly. At least, not easily.

"Okay. Well, then you should expect the warehouses to be supremely boring, alright?" I stretch my hand out to pat her head, but she flinches from my touch.

Not that I blame her. Despite her apparent trust in me, I can't be pleasant for her to look at, and less so to be touched by. My hands and face are riddled with scars, testaments to a life spent on the streets, fighting and clawing my way to a stable position in the city's underworld. Between the scars and my dark hair and eyes, most children keep a safe distance. Even the local urchin pickpockets don't mess with me.

"Sorry, my lady. I didn't mean to frighten you." I rise to my feet, looking away from her. 

Her small hand fits into mine. "You didn't. Not really." There's a pause while the girl chews on her next words. "There don't have to be magic things in the warehouses for it to be magical, you know. Everything is magic if you choose to believe it is."

I smile at her again, her flinch forgotten. "I believed that once, a long time ago." We resume our walk to the warehouse.

"What changed?"

"There are too many nasty things out in the world for magic to exist in all of them." I say. I'm one of them.

"Magic isn't always good. Sometimes it's bad. Real bad." I lift an eyebrow, wondering what the spoiled, rich brat would know about anything "real bad", but she keeps her gaze trained ahead. 

My usual hideout, a warehouse right on the edge of the district, is ramshackle enough that an adult would've asked questions. Aniela just observes, her eyes wide. I knock three times in quick succession on the door, and it opens to reveal my usual partner in crime, Gert. 

Gert's eyes sweep over me, then to the girl, then quickly back to me. His bushy white eyebrows shoot to his equally bushy and white hairline, almost enough to smooth out the wrinkles marring his dark complexion.

"What have you done this time, Anwir?" He asks, looking at Aniela again.

​"The lady has paid me good coin to get her out of the city. I intend to see that her money was well spent." Knowing Gert, that should be enough to clue him in on my plan. 

"How old are you, child?" Gert asks, ignoring my answer.

"Nine. Well, eight and a half." She punctuates the statement by holding up eight fingers, trying and failing to lift one of her remaining ones halfway. 

"Eight years old." Gert says, glowering at me. 

"And a half." I add, earning a grin from Aniela. I grin back. "Aniela, Gert and I have some plans to make about our trip tonight. Why don't you run on inside and look for some of that magic you said you could find?"

"I don't want to leave you alone." She whines, looking at Gert like I'm the one getting kidnapped.

"I'll be fine, sweetie, I promise. We're both right behind you." She gives Gert another distrustful look, then walks into the building, leaving Gert and me alone on the street.

"What the Hell are you thinking, Anwir? Who is that sweet girl and where did you take her from?"

"What makes you think I took her?"

"She's wearing noble clothes. Street rats run from your ugly mug, and you expect me to believe some rich brat waltzed up to you asking you to sneak her out of the city? Why would you risk that, anyway? The heads of whatever family she's from would hunt you to the ends of the earth."

"She did just waltz up." I mutter. Then, more forcefully, I add: "Have you been under a rock all day? Yes, she's a noble brat, but she's not just any noble brat. The Carnelli's kid ran off on them." I explain my plan to him, and he runs a hand through his curly white hair, looking more incredulous with every word.

"She's a kid." His hands move to his hips.

"Yeah. And?"

"She's. A. Kid. A darn sweet one, from what I just saw."

"She's a rich brat who's going to make us a fortune and be safely back in her bed before midnight." I cross my arms. "Look, I just need to know if you're in or out."

"I'm in, damn it. I just don't like this." His head tilts. "Why does she want out of the city?"

"I don't see how that's relevant." I say.

"It's relevant. I just don't know how yet." He shrugs. "Lets go fill the brat's head with more of your lies."

Gert opens the door, revealing Aniela dancing between the dusty shelves of the warehouse, inspecting them like they hold the secrets to the universe rather than trade logbooks. She rushes up to us, ending with a twirl in front of me. Dust she stirred up during her exploration has accumulated on her cheeks, making her freckles even more pronounced.

"There is magic here. It's in the history written in these books." She exclaims, then a soft light glows from the tips of her fingers. Actual. Magic.

"You didn't tell me you were a mage." I say, shooting a look at Gert. This information likely just doubled our already large payday. People would do anything to control a mage. 

The light dies from her fingers. "I don't like to talk about it." 

"That's okay. You don't have to." I stammer. Her voice had gone uncharacteristically bleak. 

"I do like looking for places with magic, though. And this place is full of it." She smiles again. 

"Does that mean you'll be okay staying here with me until Gert's done getting everything ready for our trip?" I ask. Aniela's gaze flicks to Gert, and she nods.

Giving me a hard look, Gert makes quick work of drafting a letter to the Carnellis, then making a show of getting a pack together for a trip outside the city. He hands it to me before setting out the door to deliver our demands.

The whole time, Aniela jabbers on about seemingly endless nonsense. What servants are on her father's good side. Which ones were on his bad side. What she ate for breakfast that morning. Which places were the best to find magic. On and on and on. Normally, I would find this beyond irritating. But there's something endearing about her childlike innocence. 

"You should wipe all that dust off." I interrupt, handing her a handkerchief from the pack Gert handed me.

"Oh. I forgot all about it. I don't mind being dirty." A pause. "But Papa doesn't like it when I'm dirty."

She takes the cloth and starts wiping herself off, removing the dust spattered like excess freckles, and cleaning it out from under her fingernails. My own hands once again look filthy by comparison. She hands me the cloth back when she's done. That's when I see a dark patch on her neck.

"You missed a spot." I tease.

"Where?" She asks, inspecting her arms. 

"On your neck."

Her hand flies to the spot. "It's not dust. I...ran into a bookshelf."

My eyes narrow. She looked away from me. I've spent too long making a dishonest living not to know when I'm being lied to. Especially by a child. My gaze suddenly finds several more bruises. Her arms. Her shoulder. Her legs. My stomach sinks.

"You never said why you wanted to leave." I prompt, Gert's words echoing in my mind.

"I...want an adventure. I think I'll join the circus. Or maybe a thieving crew. Anything to get me away." Her voice is soft. Meek.

"Away from what?"

The warehouse door slams open with supernatural force. Aniela is halfway across the room, squarely behind me before anyone even crosses the threshold. A tall man with pale blonde hair and a thunderous expression stands in the doorway, holding Gert by his shirt, a knife pressed to his throat. A thin trickle of blood streams down from where the knife is pressed.

I recognize the man from the hundred speeches he's given, from the hundred Council meetings he's attended. Morien Caravelli. Aniela's father. The girl whimpers as she comes to the same realization.

"Give me my daughter and your friend doesn't die." For a man holding a knife to someone's throat, his voice is remarkably flat. Lifeless. The opposite of the girl behind me.

"I have no guarantees you wouldn't kill him anyway. Let Gert go first." I lift my hands, despite my words. Gert and I have been partners for more than a decade.

"You're not in a position to make demands of me. No one makes a demand of me. If you'd simply returned my daughter, you'd be a rich man now. But you let your greed get in the way, didn't you?" The soft intake of breath from behind informs me Aniela realizes what that means. She walks around me, tears in her eyes.

"Fine, take the girl. You still owe me money." Aniela is shaking like a leaf. And suddenly I know where she got those bruises. I know why she wanted to leave. A large bag of gold flies through the air and lands at my feet. The small fortune I've always wanted. Worthless.

And I should've realized it sooner. 

I should've helped her. 

"No. No. Please, sir, don't." She cries.

Because if it was just me paying the price for my greed, well, I always expected to die young.

But Aniela is just a kid. A sweet, kind, joyful kid full of life and energy. She shouldn't be the one to suffer because of my actions. And Gert tried to warn me. He shouldn't suffer for this either. But—

"Aniela, come here, or he dies." Her tiny head shakes. 

The knife moves. Red sprays. Aniela cries out in pain as her father grasps her shoulder in a vice-like grip, using the same hand he'd just used to kill my friend. Blood smears across her freckled cheek. Gert's blood. 

"I'm sorry." I'm not sure which of them I'm apologizing to. Maybe both.

"You lied." Aniela screams as her father's grip tightens.

I shoot forward. One heartbeat passes. Two. 

My hands grip the hilt of the knife. A hand grasps my throat. Light flashes.

Morien slumps to the ground. 

Three heartbeats. Maybe four. And the most powerful man in the city is dead, killed by the girl who probably deserved to kill him the most.

Eight years old.

She falls to her knees, shocked. I pull her into an embrace.

"You saved my life." I whisper. "I didn't deserve it."

"I killed him." 

"You did exactly what you had to do."

"What now? They'll...arrest me. Or they'll—"

"We're going on an adventure, you and me. No one will ever hurt you again. I swear it."

I scoop the little girl in my arms and leave the bloodstained warehouse behind. 

I think I'll take her to the circus first.

​