Chapter 4: Seeker

Introductions Are Important

Valentine Fontaine had never been a violent man.

Not really.

Sure, he had participated in violence—dabbled, one might say—but only ever in the way one participates in bad poetry readings: reluctantly, with great suffering, and usually at the behest of people who deserved far worse than what they got.

This, however—this was different.

This was personal.

The blood-soaked bastard on the ground barely had the decency to groan as Valentine drove his boot into his head. Again. And again. And again—until the sound of wet crunching bone filled the alleyway and his face was less a face and more a tragic attempt at abstract art.

Valentine exhaled sharply, wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and then, because he was feeling particularly charitable, reached down and ripped a handful of the man's hair straight from his scalp.

A gurgled shriek. A wet thunk as he hit the ground again.

"Gods," Valentine muttered, shaking loose the torn strands from his fingers. "That was disgusting."

Behind him, someone gasped.

Ah. Right. He had company.

He turned, lazily wiping his boot against the dead man's coat, and offered a dazzling smile—one that would have been charming had it not been soaked in violence.

"Valentine Fontaine," he introduced himself, smoothing down the front of his waistcoat as if he had not just spent the last two minutes introducing his foot to someone's skull. "Pleasure to meet you."

The woman before him did not look particularly pleased to meet him.

Her hands trembled. Her breath was caught somewhere between a gasp and a scream, frozen by whatever horror she had just witnessed.

Valentine sighed. "Oh, come now. Don't look at me like that." He gestured lazily to the corpse at his feet. "This isn't even my worst work."

She didn't move. Didn't speak.

Her wide, unblinking eyes flickered from the body to the blood on his hands to the strands of hair still caught between his fingers.

Valentine sighed again.

"Alright, fine," he relented. "Let's try again."

He stepped forward, extending a bloodstained hand, and smiled with all the warmth of a man who had never regretted a decision in his life.

"My name is Valentine Fontaine. And I believe I'm here for the friendly tailor next street."

***

Valentine Fontaine had a very loose definition of friendship.

For instance, his friend Charlie was not so much a friend as he was a begrudging acquaintance who tolerated Valentine's existence in exchange for a steady supply of stolen cigarettes and the occasional favor.

But he was reliable. And in Blackmire, reliable was worth more than love.

Charlie did not open the door immediately.

Which, in fairness, was a reasonable response to hearing someone pound on it at nearly midnight, shouting, "CHARLIE, OLD FRIEND, FAVOR TIME!"

It took exactly five more knocks, two curses, and one particularly violent threat against the structural integrity of the door before it finally swung open.

Charlie stood there, shirtless, half-awake, and looking exactly as thrilled as one might expect when greeted by Valentine Fontaine at any hour of the day.

Valentine, ever the picture of grace, smiled.

"Good evening, Charles."

Charlie squinted at him, then at the blood-soaked woman standing behind him, then back at Valentine.

"No," he said flatly.

Valentine blinked. "No?"

Charlie began to shut the door.

Valentine wedged his boot in before it could close. "Oh, come on, don't be like that."

Charlie sighed the sigh of a man who had made many poor life choices, and somehow, all of them had led to this moment.

"I don't suppose," he said, rubbing a hand over his face, "that you just need a cup of sugar?"

Valentine grinned. "I do need something, actually!"

"Of course you do."

"A shirt."

Charlie lowered his hand. Stared at him.

"A shirt," he repeated.

"Yep."

"At midnight."

"Yep."

"For a woman covered in blood."

"Listen, I can explain—"

Charlie held up a hand. "Can you?"

Valentine opened his mouth.

Paused.

Then: "Not really."

Charlie exhaled, muttering something under his breath that was either a prayer or a very creative curse. Then, without another word, he turned, rummaged through a pile of clothes on the floor, and threw a crumpled shirt at Valentine's head.

"There," he grumbled. "Now go away before I start charging you for my generosity."

Valentine caught the shirt, clutched it to his chest dramatically. "Oh, Charlie, you do care."

"I don't care."

"You love me."

"I loathe you."

"You'd miss me if I died."

Charlie crossed his arms. "I would throw a party."

"With cake?"

"The biggest cake."

Valentine gasped. "Betrayal!"

Charlie pinched the bridge of his nose. "Get out of my sight, Fontaine, or I swear to all the gods above, I will strangle you with that damn shirt."

Valentine grinned, winking as he stepped back into the street. "Love you too, Charlie."

And with that, he was gone—whistling as he strolled off into the night, the woman still silent beside him, the too-large shirt clutched in his hand.

Charlie, meanwhile, stared at the now-empty doorway for a long, exhausted moment.

Then, very quietly, he shut the door and went back to bed.

Now, as they walked through the rain-slicked streets toward The Crooked Spoon, the woman—wrapped in Charlie's too-large, slightly moth-eaten shirt—had yet to say a word.

Understandable, really.

Still, silence wasn't exactly his strong suit.

"So," he said, stepping over a particularly suspicious puddle. "How's your night going?"

No response.

He sighed. "You know, I was having a very lovely snack before all this."

Still nothing.

"Well," he continued, undeterred, "as lovely as snacks can be in this city. You ever been to The Crooked Spoon? Absolute shithole. I love it."

The woman made a noise—not quite a word, but not quite nothing, either.

Progress.

Encouraged, he grinned. "Wait until you see their drink selection. They've got exactly two options: 'mystery ale' and 'mystery ale with extra suffering.' I once watched a man drink it and start reciting poetry. In Ulthmar. I heard my linguistic professor scream. And he died a decade ago."

She didn't laugh. Didn't even look at him.

The streets of Blackmire stretched ahead of them, slick with rain and regret. Gas lamps flickered half-heartedly, their light too weak to chase away the shadows curling in the alleyways.

Valentine walked with easy, practiced confidence—like a man who had never once been afraid of the dark. Or, more likely, like a man too stupid to be afraid of it.

The woman beside him, on the other hand, moved like she had been swallowed by it.

Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, her gaze fixed on the uneven cobblestones, shoulders hunched as if bracing for another blow.

She hadn't spoken since Charlie's doorstep.

She hadn't spoken since the alley.

Since Valentine introduced himself by turning a man's skull into a tragic interpretation of modern art.

But then, finally—soft, hoarse, barely there—

"He wouldn't stop laughing."

Valentine glanced at her. "Who?"

She swallowed. Her nails dug into her arms. "The man you—" She hesitated. Corrected herself. "The one you killed."

Valentine hummed. "Ah. Him."

"He kept laughing," she whispered. "Even after he—" She cut herself off, shaking her head. "Gods, he just—"

She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead, inhaling sharply through her nose.

Valentine let the silence stretch, let her gather herself. He had seen people break before—knew better than to push when the cracks were still fresh.

And then—

"It was supposed to be a job," she finally said, voice steadier now, though no less hollow. "Simple. In. Out. No blood. No—" She exhaled sharply. "No whatever the hell that was."

He nodded. "I take it things didn't go according to plan."

She let out something that was not quite a laugh. "That would be an understatement."

Valentine side-eyed her, adjusting his grip on the bundled-up box in his arms. "Who were you working for?"

Silence.

He raised an eyebrow. "Come on, if I was gonna turn you in, I wouldn't have wasted a perfectly good pair of boots on that guy's skull."

A beat. Then—

"Markov," she admitted quietly. "Markov sent me."

Valentine let out a low whistle. "Well. There's your first mistake."

She huffed, something sharp flashing in her eyes. "You know him?"

He grinned. "He has been in hiding for a while. Under the radar after he messed up a delivery."

Valentine could feel the temperature cooling down, her shoulders trembling. He guessed this wasn't the first time she worked for him. But the first time she heard this. He thought.

"Anyway, what's in the box?" he asked.

She didn't answer, for a long time.

"I don't know. I was only told to give it to the tailor." She answered, shifting her head to the side of the street, where a huge banner was raised.

Rose and Tailor! Get me the worst, you will be out with the best!

"That's one awfully catchy banner. And it's open as well?" Valentine whistled. Maybe he would try this one ou- No, can't cheat on Paul. It's too late for divorce. He thought, a fierce war ongoing in his head between angels and demons. 

Anne took a step forward and climbed onto the stairs to the shop. 

Anne stepped into the tailor shop, her footsteps light but deliberate. The small brass bell above the door chimed, announcing their entrance, and the scent of fabric—dye, starch, something faintly floral—hung in the air. The shop was quiet, save for the faint hum of a sewing machine in the back.

The tailor, a short man with wiry spectacles and ink-stained fingers, looked up from behind the counter. His sharp, appraising eyes flickered from Anne to Valentine, then down to the box. And then, as if nothing at all was strange about this late-night transaction, he smiled.

Anne turned to Valentine, holding out a hand. "Give it to me."

Valentine hesitated, his fingers tightening slightly around the metal. It wasn't like him to second-guess, but something about this—about Markov's box, about Anne's wary expression, about the tailor's far-too-easy grin—rubbed him the wrong way.

Still, he sighed and placed the box in her hands. "This feels an awful lot like when people in plays make very bad decisions," he muttered.

Anne ignored him and set the box on the counter. The tailor's smile widened as he picked it up, turning it over in his hands. He didn't try to open it. Didn't even shake it to test its weight. Just nodded, satisfied, and reached beneath the counter.

A moment later, he handed Anne a small, folded slip of paper.

"Pleasure doing business," he said pleasantly.

Anne accepted the receipt without a word, tucking it into the pocket of her oversized shirt. She turned on her heel, already heading for the door.

Valentine cast one last glance at the box before following.

The tailor watched them go, his smile never once fading.

She kept walking, close to running and getting as far away as possible from the tailor's shop.

At least she won't be doing any more business with him.Valentine thought.

Then he got close to her, hands in his pocket. His eyes following her, as he gazed, maybe a bit too long but she hadn't noticed.

She wasn't sculpted from some divine symmetry that poets lost their minds over. But she carried something heavier, something more demanding than mere beauty. A presence. A weight.

Her face had been bruised, the bottom lip torn and there was a gash near her chin. Yet, she had the kind of posture that didn't need height to command space. She wasn't fragile or dainty—there was something raw about her, something carved from endurance rather than elegance. The world had beaten her down, but she stood in defiance of it, always bracing for the next hit, the next hardship.

Charlie's shirt draped over her, too big in the shoulders, the sleeves rolled up unevenly. It smelled like engine grease and metal, like old cigarettes and sleepless nights. Underneath, her skin was tender, not in the way of softness but in the way of bruises just beginning to heal.

Her eyes, though—her eyes were something else.

They weren't the tired, dulled eyes of someone who had given up, but neither were they ablaze with youthful, foolish hope. They were watchful, heavy-lidded with the weight of things she'd seen, things she never spoke of. They were the eyes of someone who had learned not to flinch, who had trained herself to stare down the worst the world had to offer and not let it see her break.

And yet, beneath all that—beneath the armour of willpower and survival—there was something fragile, something distant. A quiet ache, buried so deep it was almost impossible to catch. But it was there, flickering in the rare, brief moments she let her guard slip.

And in this moment, as she stepped out of the tailor shop into the night, shoulders squared, face unreadable, Valentine caught the smallest trace of it.

But then, like always, she buried it. And kept walking.

Then she shuddered, as if she had been contemplating life and death, before realising she had no other choice.

She shook her head, looking away. "Wh...What did you do to him?"

Valentine tilted his head. "Hm? What do you mean?"

She took a deep breath and stopped walking. 

"He had lost his mind the second you stepped in the alley." She said, with conviction. 

There was a stretched silence that followed. Valentine, the criminal, gentleman and a fool, who always had something to fill the gaps, was silent. 

"What's your name?" he asked. 

She hesitated before answering," Anne."

He stepped towards her. His smile widened.

"I am what you call, a Seeker."