One year had passed since Mouse's murder. Jasper's bar went about its business in modest silence. Bev and Jasper had buried Mouse's body, and since then Bev had never been caught stealing away on the rooftops. As far as the Boy was concerned, things were going about as well as he could hope; he had food, a place to sleep, and as long as he didn't go out after dark, he could rely on his caretakers to keep him safe.

But one night after washing the day's dishes, the Boy found Jasper sitting at the top of the stairs. Jasper, Bev, and the Boy all shared a small, stuffy room just above the bar, and though Bev had retired to sleep long ago, Jasper sat with his back against the door and a bottle in his hand.

He spotted the Boy and said, "Boy, come here. I need to tell you something."
The Boy looked down at his feet. He had never seen Jasper like this. The man was not exactly the picture of refinement, but he scarcely drank more than a glass or two, even as all his patrons invited him to get sloshed. With half a bottle of whiskey in him, he spoke louder and harsher than he meant to.

The Boy approached regardless. He couldn't think of reacting to Jasper's command any other way.

The Boy sat on the step below Jasper. Jasper looked at him, then took a swig from his bottle and looked away.
Jasper grunted, "Did... Did I ever tell you I was in a war?"

The Boy shook his head.

"Well, know that I was. Know, Boy, that I... I was a boy too, once. Before the Rune War. Back then I was young, and I had many friends. They-" Jasper cut himself off. His lower lip quivered and he took another drink, "The war lasted only four years. But by the end of it I was old, and I had only one friend. And now he... He hates me." Jasper's voice cracked, and his old, wrinkled face tightened. He took a breath and whispered, "I don't think soldiers like us are supposed to live this long."

Jasper let out a breath and trembled. The Boy, recognizing his old caretaker's vulnerability, shot up to Jasper and wrapped his arms around him. Jasper cried, "I'm sorry, Boy, I'm sorry. I'm sorry things are like this... I'm sorry things are going to get harder soon... I'm sorry."

The Boy helped Jasper stand, then opened the door. He set Jasper down right next to Bev. There Jasper whimpered in her back, and the Boy left the room.

The Boy sat on the stairs, in the spot Jasper had previously occupied. He folded his hands in front of his face and thought about what he had just seen, about the words Jasper uttered through forty-five-year-old tears.

Alone in that cold Noxus night, the Boy suffered a few twelve-year-old tears before going to bed himself.

Jasper's bar (named "Quiverflask" after a technique for hiding contraband Jasper had learned during his time in the military) sat nestled between an old potter's shop and what remained of an abandoned dried goods store. It could be found on Pickwick Street, a neighborhood whose only notable feature was that in the evening the highest spire of Noxus' imperial palace cast its shadow right down the middle of the street, making it seem as though night came early for them.

Jasper, Bev, and the Boy all stood quietly on the corner of Pickwick, wrapped with interest in a grisly sight.

"Boy, come with me. We're going to make a few coins today."

Jasper nodded to Bev, who slipped away to a nearby alley, then began climbing the brickwork walls toward the rooftops. Jasper had grown up on Pickwick Street, and as anyone who did the same would tell you, one avoids starvation on Pickwick Street by developing a nose for coin.

One night ago the furthest corner of Pickwick Street was adorned with a brothel. Self-sufficiency is a highly Noxian ideal, and the brothel's madame, Lady Thames, saw to it that her business be highly Noxian: Four stories high, gaudy with red oil lamps and silk curtains, the brothel employed and housed its own security, cooks, cleaners, tailors, and so on. Nobody entered that Lady Thames did not approve of, and nobody left without paying her proper respect, whether by coin or by blood. For sixteen years this brothel had been untouchable- lowly thugs would not dare abuse the most humble of Lady Thames' prostitutes, and the machinations of higher-ranking crime lords broke on its stone walls like an egg breaks on a skillet.

But one morning Lady Thames disappeared, and literally overnight her brothel fell apart. The cooks, the cleaners, even the prostitutes, everyone but the security who were all slain in an audacious mid-day assault, had been subjugated and put to work dismantling the brothel, brick by brick. Nobody knows what happened to Lady Thames, only that wherever she went, the fate of her home would follow her. That was the way of the Snake.

"Good afternoon gentlemen!" Jasper called to two scale-armored men standing watch over the prostitutes-turned-slaves. The whole perimeter of the building was surrounded with similarly-dressed men, all armed with long swords strapped to their hips. Jasper was careful to show his empty hands and smile.

"My grandson and I were wondering if Snake had any plans for these bricks. Sally down on-"

One of the armored gangsters stepped forward and pushed Jasper, forceful enough to knock him down if he weren't quick enough to catch himself. The Boy tensed up. He knew too well things could get bad damn fast if these armed men's tempers were too short.
The gangster bellowed, "Fuck off old man. The Snake's plans aren't any business of yours."

Jasper shook his head, then paused to pick his next words carefully. Pick-axes struck at stone bricks not far away, and the small commotion of ogling foot traffic across the street made the whole street feel like one small stone tube of heat and tension.

Jasper sighed and said, "You're right, they aren't any of my business. But your plans, well, those might be more negotiable, right?"

The gangster squinted at Jasper, and the Boy got ready to pounce. His eyes were on the gangster's sword-hand: The moment he saw it tense, the Boy planned to throw an elbow into the man's groin.

Jasper kept speaking before anyone could move too aggressively, "I've heard Snake doesn't let his men rape. I bet that's a big disappointment for strong men like yourselves, no?"

The gangsters exchanged a look. The Boy didn't relax just yet- he knew what was being said, and hearing it made him want to elbow the men's genitals.

"Make your point," the foremost gangster commanded.

"There's a woman named Sally, she owns a construction company a block away from here. She's always willing to pay for stone, which you men have in ample supply."

"We know," the gangster said, "that's where we'll be taking this stone after its all broken down."

"I'm sure," Jasper replied, "but here's one thing I bet you didn't know: Sally has a sister named Sarah, and Sarah owns a brothel of her own." Here the gangster's eyes began to twinkle. Jasper's smile grew more bold, "Now, Sarah's brothel is high class. You and I, we could horde every coin we ever made and still we couldn't afford one of Sarah's girls."

The other gangster finally spoke up, "Ah, so you're saying we should trash that place next, eh?"

The Boy's brow furrowed at the gangster's tone, but before he could say or do anything, Jasper's hand landed on the Boy's shoulder.

"Sarah has a special rule however, one not many people know about," Jasper said, "You see, gentlemen, Sarah will let you pay in stone, as she will then sell the stone to her sister."

The gangsters threw an interested smile back and forth, then the first one said, "Good to know. We'll pay her a visit after we're done here. Now for real: Fuck off."

Jasper gripped the Boy tight. When the Boy looked up he could swear he saw Jasper's teeth grinding together. Only then did it occur to the Boy that Jasper did not hold onto him to stop him from doing something rash, but rather despised talking to these brutish thugs himself and needed to ground his own temper.

"There is one caveat you might be interested in." Jasper spoke, still as friendly as jovial as before.

With narrow eyes and a brazen hand one of the gangsters drew his sword and pointed it at Jasper's neck. The Boy jumped at the high-pitched sheek of unsheathed steel. All his ambitions of reacting in a flash and disabling the gangster were thwarted when fear suddenly struck the Boy's senses dumb. The gangster stared Jasper down.

"I repeated myself once, old man. Don't make me do it again."

"Sarah will only take stone from people I tell her are safe." Jasper said. His voice was fair and even, as if no violence had ever been offered, nor harsh words exchanged. The gangster's sword-hand relaxed, like a spent penis suddenly going flaccid. He asked, "What's this now?"

"I said Sally's sister Sarah only serves certain sorts. And those are the sorts I say. What I offer is this: You let us take all the stones we can carry, and I'll tell Sarah that two men working for Snake will be by her place tonight, and to let them pay in stone."

The gangster rolled his eyes. There was a pause in the conversation, and the clinking pick-axes of the slave-whores once again filled the air. The gangster slowly tensed his arm back up, letting his blade draw near Jasper's throat. The Boy could see a thought in the gangster's eyes, as if for all Jasper had offered him the man still considered killing Jasper out of blind hatred.

Just as quickly as the steel came to life, the gangster slammed it back into its sheath. He grunted at Jasper, "Go on then. But if I don't get my pussy, you're paying the price, got it?"

Jasper smiled and said, "You'll get your pussy, gentlemen, I can promise you. Thank you, thank you. Come on Boy..."

-

With a hop and a skip, Bev landed inside the perimeter of the brothel's foundations, right next to Jasper and the Boy. Bev smiled as the Boy jumped in surprise, while Jasper kept his cool.

Jasper turned to Bev and whispered so softly that only the two of them could hear, "Thames let me put Mouse in the south garden. If he's not there, we get out immediately. Possibly leave the city. But if he's still there, then let's assume they aren't going to search the garden and, well... Get out immediately."

Two feet below them the Boy strained to hear what the adults were conspiring over. Jasper tilted his head down and addressed this, saying, "Go, start picking up bricks. Take as many as you can carry!"

The Boy could taste his own curiosity in his mouth like a thirst, but it was a vain effort to try and pry. When Jasper and Bev talked (well, when Jasper talked and Bev brooded in a manner that Jasper seemed to understand) they would not reveal anything to the Boy that they didn't want to.

The Boy took to the quarry that the brothel had been turned into, examining his surroundings as he absent-mindedly knocked stone bricks around. The former employees of the brothel were still dressed in their mid-day attire- the cooks in white jackets, the cleaners dressed as butlers, and the prostitutes draped in varying degrees of dress, from fine gowns fit for a queen, to backless, low-cut strips of satin. All their elegance had become drenched in a thick grey dust, and their lively, soft-skinned bodies all bound together by chains attached to their ankles.

A cloud of unease filled the Boy's perceptions as he wandered around, a free man among the slaves. He wondered: How many of them would survive the night? Would the men be taken as indentured servants? Or thrown into fighting pits as fodder for the Snake's entertainment? And the women... The Boy could guess what would happen to the women, particularly after they were sold away from the Snake's ownership. In the best case they'd be given a new Madame to take orders from; however unlikely, that option at least provided the possibility that she was merciful or fair. The Boy's stomach turned to imagine the worst case. Would they be turned into breeding stock? Or maybe mutilated for having worked the night outside the Snake's domain?

The Boy quickly became lost in thought, and in doing so meandered by one of the chain-gangs whose pick-axes clinked away at the foundations of the brothel. Among these prisoners there was one that caught his eye, one that was not working like the others: A pale girl with wavy red hair, wearing a thin silk dressed adorned with jewels at its neckline. She was perhaps a year older than the Boy, and hid herself among the adults as she jammed a bobby pin into her metal bindings.

With a startle of fear the Boy sent his eyes darting all around. No one had yet noticed the girl's movements. The Boy slipped between a pair of cooks to get to the girl. He came up right beside her, close enough to see the fly-aways of her hair shift in the breeze. The Boy reached out a finger and poked the girl once on the shoulder. She jumped, held in a yelp, and whipped her head around.

The Boy said, "Don't. They'll hurt you."

The girl, a confused worry in her eyes, hissed back, "They'll hurt me anyways!"

A lump formed in the Boy's throat. His eyes traced her tiny shoulders, non-existent biceps, and frail legs. She looked ready to break from the weight of the chains alone. The Boy said, "Sorry. They shouldn't."

The girl froze. She didn't turn around immediately. For a moment the Boy watched her react without words- her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh, and her head hung low. She knew what was going to happen to her, far better than the Boy did. As long as she hid beneath the adults and poked at her chains trying to escape she was free to imagine she could avoid it. But when the Boy offered her sympathy, suddenly things became too real.

She sniffed and said, "My name's Elizabeth. What's yours?"

"I don't have a name. I live with Jasper, and he just calls me 'Boy'."

"Oh." Elizabeth tried to smile, "Well Boy, don't forget about me. Okay? I'm not asking you to come back... Just remember that you met me. Please."

Elizabeth turned back to her chains. The muscles around her eyes began to tighten, and all at once her throat got dry. She didn't know how to pick a lock. But even so, something made her vision blur and the task went from being unlikely to downright impossible. Elizabeth balled her fists up and cursed her fate for being born poor, being born a woman, being born without a single tool of self-determination, that her life was always in someone else's hands.

But then the Boy put his hand on hers and asked, "Do you have somewhere to go if you escape?"

Elizabeth sniffed again, "What?"

The Boy's head swiveled around the perimeter. He was certain they could be noticed at any moment.

"I can pick the lock, but then you need to get away from here. Is there somewhere you can go?"

The opportunity stirred her heart and sent a second wind of inspiration through her body. Elizabeth stammered, "Y-yes, Thames, I mean, Madame Thames didn't tell everyone where she was hiding. She said, uh, it might get tortured out of them. But she told me. She knows I won't betray her."

The Boy took one last look around. Jasper was nowhere in sight either- the Boy figured he must have gone off to gather bricks with Bev, but he wasn't sure. With a huff of air for bravery, the Boy took the bobby pin from Elizabeth's hand, jammed it into her bindings, and easily unhitched the lock. The metal parted with an enormous clank that made half the chain gang stop and look.

"Oh fuck." Elizabeth said, half-smiling for her freedom. She didn't choose to be born, nor did she choose to become a prostitute. Such things were the whims of circumstance. But that chain falling off her ankle looked like the heavens splitting open to thirteen-year-old Elizabeth. She could run now, and she could go wherever she wanted. But she knew she wanted to go home, to her Madame.

"Go!" The Boy said, "Go!"