I stumbled after this litany, a little stunned. “I… no.”
Hymn stared at me for a long moment, then sighed and stopped, reaching up to rub her forehead as if it pained her. “Look, which one are you?”
“Sieh.”
She looked surprised, which was a welcome change from contempt and exasperation. “I don’t recognize your name.”
“No. I used to live here”—I hesitated—“a long time ago. But I only came back to the mortal realm a few days ago.”
“Gods, no wonder you’re such a horror. You’re new in town.” This seemed to ease some of her anger, and she looked me up and down. “All right, what’s your nature?”
“Tricks. Mischief.” These were always easier to explain to mortals. They found “childhood” difficult to grasp as a specific concept. Hymn nodded, though, so I took a chance and added, “Innocence.”
She looked thoughtful. “You must be one of the older ones. The younger ones are simpler.”
“They’re not simpler. Their natures are just more attuned to mortal life, since they were born after mortals were created—”
“I know that,” she said, looking annoyed again. “Look, people in this city have lived with your kind for a long time now. We get how you work; you don’t need to lecture.” She sighed again and shook her head. “I know you need to serve your nature, all right? But I don’t need tricks; I need money. If you want to conjure something, sell it yourself, and bring me that later, that would be fine. Just try and be discreet, will you? And leave me alone until then. Please.”
With this, Hymn turned to walk away, slower this time as she had calmed somewhat. I watched her go, feeling altogether out of sorts and wondering how in the infinite hells I was going to get money for her. Because she was right; playing fair was as fundamental to my nature as being a child, and if I allowed the wrong I had done her to stand, it would erode a little more of whatever childhood she had remaining. Doing that prior to my transformation would’ve made me ill. Doing it now? I had no idea what would happen, but it would not be pleasant.
I would have to obtain money by mortal means, then. But if there were jobs to be had, would Hymn have been digging through muckbins and making knives from broken crockery? Worse, I had no knowledge of the city in its current incarnation, and no inkling of where to begin my search for employment.
So I began walking after Hymn again.
The streets were quiet and empty as I walked, taking on a dim, twilightish aspect as the morning progressed. Dawn had come and gone while I tormented the muckrakers, and all around me I could feel the city awakening, its pulse quickening with the start of day. Ghostly white buildings, long unpainted but soundly made and still beautiful in a run-down way, loomed out of the dark on either side of the street. I saw faces peering through the windows, half hidden by the curtains. Through gaps in the buildings I could see the mountainous black silhouette of a Tree root. Roots hemmed in this part of the city, while the Tree itself loomed above all to the north. There would be no sunlight here, no matter how bright the day grew.
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 me, 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.”