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O llie talked his uncle into lending us horses for the frequent trips we’d be taking to the Merchant District while we sorted this. Ollie’s uncle had always been family, so he would have said yes, but he was apparently all in when he heard Neco was involved.

“What’s going on with you and Ollie’s uncle?”

I mean, we could talk about that, right? It had nothing to do with the Ghoul. He wasn’t going to be a dick and ignore me the whole ride just because he could.

“Rowena. She’s got some puppy love going with Ollie’s cousin and she’s been offered an apprenticeship with their horses.”

“Seriously? I’m happy for her. Your sister hates my guts and has assaulted me more than once, but I like her.”

Neco puffed out his chest and grinned proudly.

“She’s only supposed to finish it if someone starts it, but she’s also protective of me.”

I looked at him like he was utterly insane.

“I’m guessing she doesn’t know what you do at night, but she does have eyes. The only person in Guttertown bigger than you is Autar, and he’s a giant marshmallow, so he doesn’t count.”

“You know the Madame was nice to him once, and he asked her to marry him?”

I laughed so hard, I nearly fell off my horse. I was going to drag Autar so hard for that the next time he came to the tavern and told me I knew nothing about women. The Madame thought marriage was an unfair legal arrangement that only benefitted men.

“Did she hit him? Or ask Panas to hit him?”

Neco just snorted.

“That woman can destroy a man without laying a finger on him. But no, she was nice to him. The Madame told Autar he couldn’t handle her, and she’d eat him alive. He looked like he might tell her he was into that, but he opted not to say it.”

“I keep telling him one of those women is going to castrate him one day, and he keeps telling me I don’t understand women.”

“Autar isn’t one of your lovers, too, right?”

“Gross. I’m not spilling his secrets, but it would be wrong for us to be together. And Autar is so into women, I don’t know why you think he’d give me a second look.”

Even if Autar ever found out my secret, we were probably related and even if we weren’t, I wasn’t his type. If I grew out my hair and started wearing dresses, I still wouldn’t be his type.

Neco just grunted and decided he was done talking to me. I didn’t know what set him off this time, but I was enjoying talking to him again. There were just as many interesting stories if you worked in the brothel as there were if you worked in the tavern.

We didn’t have to talk about us or what went wrong. We didn’t have to say a damned thing about what would happen after this, even thought I was dying to know. We could just share funny stories like my half-brother asking the Madame to marry him and Neco decided he didn’t want to do that anymore.

Neco didn’t want to make friends or make up. He was doing this for Mom and nothing else.

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