Then I turned another corner and stopped, for Hymn stood there glaring at me.
I sighed. “I’m sorry. I really am! But I need your help.”
We sat in the small common room of her family’s home. An old inn, she explained, though they hardly ever had travelers through anymore and survived by taking in long-term boarders when they could. For the time being, there were none.
“It’s the only way,” I said, having reached this conclusion by my second cup of tea. Hymn’s mother had served it to stiheime, her hand shaking as she poured, though I’d tried my best to put her at ease. When Hymn murmured something to her, she’d withdrawn into another room, though I could hear her still lurking near the door, listening. Her heartbeat was very loud.
Hymn shrugged, toying with the plate of dry cheese and stale bread her mother had insisted upon serving. She ate only a little of it, and I ate none, for it was easy to see this family had almost nothing. Fortunately this behavior was considered polite for a godling, since most of us didn’t need to eat.
“Your choice, of course,” she said.
I did not like the choices laid before me. Hymn had confirmed my guess that there was little in the way of work, as the city’s economy had lost ground in recent years to innovations coming out of the north. (In the old days, the Arameri would have unleashed a plague or two to kill off commoners and increase the demand for labor. Unemployment, frustrating as it was, represented progress.) There was still money to be made from serving the mortals who came to the city on pilgrimage, to pray for one of any dozen gods’ blessing, but not many employers would be pleased to hire a godling. “Bad for business,” Hymn explained. “Too easy to offend someone by your existence.”
“Of course,” I sighed.
Since the city’s legitimate business was closed to me, my only hope was its illegitimate side. For that, at least, I had a possible way in: Nemmer. I was to meet her in three more days, according to our agreement. I no longer cared that some sibling of ours was targeting the Arameri. Let them all die, except perhaps Deka, whom I would geld and put on a leash to keep him sweet. But the conspiracy against our parents meant I should still see her. I could ask her help in finding work then.
If I could stomach the shame. Which I could not. So I had decided to try another way into the city’s shadier side. Hymn’s way: the Arms of Night. The brothel she had already tried to convince me to join.
“A friend of mine went to work there a couple of years ago,” she said. “Not as a prostitute! She’s not their type. But they need servants and such, and they pay a good wage.” She shrugged. “If you don’t want to do the one thing, you could always do the other. Especially if you can cook and clean.”
I was not fond of that idea, either. Enough of my mortal years in Sky had been spent serving one way or another. “I don’t suppose any of their customers would like a nice game of tag?” Hymn only looked at me. I sighed. “Right.”
“We should go now, if you want to talk to them,” she said. “They get busy at night.” She spoke with remarkable compassion given how tired she already was of me. I supposed the misery in my expression had managed to penetrate even her cynical armor. Which might have been why she tried again to dissuade me. “I don’t care, you know. If you make up for nearly getting me killed. I told you that.”
I nodded heavily. “I know. This isn’t really about you, though.”
She sighed. “I know, I know. You must be what you are.” I looked up in surprise, and she smiled. “I told you. Everyone here understands gods.”
So we left the inn and headed up the street, which was bustling now that I’d been out of sight for a while. Carters rattled past with their rickety old wagons while vendors pushed along rolling stands to sell their fruit and fried meat. An old man sat on a blanket on one corner, calling out that he could repair shoes. A middle-aged man in stained laborer’s clothes went over to him, and they crouched to dicker.
Hymn limped easily through this chaos, waving cheerfully to this or that person as we passed, altogether more comfortable amid her fellow mortals than she’d been in my company. I watched her as we walked, fascinated. I could taste a solid core of innocence underneath her cynical pragmatism, and just the faintest dollop of wonder, because not even the most jaded mortal could spend time in a god’s presence without feeling something. And she was amused by me, despite her apparent annoyance. That made me grin — which she caught when she looked around and caught a glimpse of my face. “What?” she asked.