I rarely got to see Mom and Ally once I moved to the assassin's place. I was too busy learning, or going out on jobs. Nightshade really only let me go from his sight when I was sleeping or out killing. All other times I was in training, and from the comments that Nightshade occasionally made, I would need each minute of that training that I could get.

Every three months I made sure I got to visit Mom and Ally, despite how busy I was. I brought the money for that month personally those times. That way I could make sure that Ally got it, not Mom. She wasn't even twelve yet then, but she was still a better person to trust with the money that I was giving them to support themselves than Mom was. I knew that if Mom got the money she would spend as much of it as she possibly could on drink, rather than food, or things for Ally.

Each time I went to visit them I was surprised by how pretty Ally was getting. Unlike most of the girls in the area where they lived, she kept herself clean, almost religiously clean. She was the only person in that neighborhood I could think of who didn't have fleas, and her cleanliness only made her blossoming beauty more evident.

Nightshade was insistent that all who lived at the assassin's place kept an eye on their personal hygiene. He claimed that being dirty made us sick, and being sick when we had to go on jobs was a very bad thing. There were also several poisons stored at the assassin's place that lost their effects when dirtied. Because of that, I knew just how difficult it was to keep as clean as Ally did.

During my first visit after my fourteenth birthday I noticed Cal, a guy about five or six years older than I was, watching Ally with lust evident in his eyes. He was one of a group of guys from the thief's Guild who lived next door to the shop, all of whom had tried to coerce me into getting involved in the Guild when I was little. I didn't trust any of them, and I couldn't stand seeing him eyeing my sister like that.

That afternoon, as I was leaving the shop, I turned back to Ally. "Watch out for guys," I said. "I don't wanna find out you've gotten hurt or anything like that."

"I'll be fine, Will," she said, a little too easily. "I'm a big girl and I can take care of myself now."

"Promise?" I asked her. She nodded, a little too quickly. I would have said something else about it, but I knew that if she didn't want to agree, she wouldn't, no matter how many times I brought it up. Instead, I said goodbye and left the shop.

Then, I decided to do something about the guy I had seen watching Ally. I wanted to make it very clear to him that he wouldn't be able to get away with doing anything to her, and I wanted his friends to see it as well. He was the only one I had seen watching her, but I suspected that they all had had the idea at some point, or would soon.

So, I went over to their broken down building and rapped on the door. I got ready to pull out my spare knife. I had convinced Shadow a while ago that I needed to have another knife, so I could fight without giving myself away as Blade the assassin when I was just being Will. Shadow was just too distinctive to use when I wanted to be inconspicuous.

One of the guy's friends answered the door. I seemed to have woken him up, probably from a drunkenness induced sleep, since he looked like he was hung over. He glared at me, and was about to slam the door in my face, when I stuck my foot in the door and spoke up.

"I'm looking for Cal," I said. "I have something to discuss with him."

"Hold on a moment," he said blearily, shuffling inside to find the one I was looking for. I just stood there at the door. One of the other guys stared at me as he walked by. I pulled out my knife and started trimming my fingernails. He muttered and walked off.

Then Cal came up to the door. He grinned when he saw me standing there. "Whaddaya want?" he asked, sounding full of himself.

"I want you to stay away from my sister," I said. "I saw you watching her, and I thought I should make it clear that you will regret it if you try to do anything to her."

"And what's a little squirt like you gonna do to me?" he asked, laughing.

He stepped forward, trying to take advantage of the differences in our heights to intimidate me. I hadn't really started growing yet, so the difference was quite a bit, but it didn't bother me. I was used to sparring against fully grown men, some of whom were huge compared to Cal, and I had killed far too many men, and even a few women, who were larger than I was to care that Cal was taller. I knew I was better at fighting than he was, and that was all that mattered to me.

"This," I said, spinning the knife around in my hand with a flourish that I had taught myself, because I thought it was cool. Then I moved forward, much faster than he expected, and pressed the knife to his throat. I pushed in just enough to make a line of red form on his throat and start trickling down, then I pulled back. When I stepped away I saw that he had wet himself.

"I coulda slit your throat just then," I said, smiling as I wiped my blade off on his shirt and returned it to its hiding place. "But I didn't, because you haven't actually done anything yet. All I did this time was give you a little present, a pretty red necklace. But, if I hear that you have done something to my sister, I'll finish the job off. Got it?"

He nodded silently. Then I turned away from the house and let the door shut behind me. As I walked away from the house, I realized that I probably shouldn't have done it, and that Nightshade would be very angry with me if he found out about it. I started to pray that he wouldn't find out as I walked back to the assassin's place.

Unfortunately, luck was not with me. The next day Nightshade found out, from another one of the group who had heard some gossip. Apparently Cal was spreading the news that he had been attacked by a skilled knife user, but not that that knife user was a fourteen year old boy who used to live next to him; he was too proud for that. Nightshade, of course, was able to figure out right away that the knife user from the rumor was me.

"Blade, what is this I hear about you attacking a man on your family's street yesterday?" he asked me when I showed up for that day's lessons.

"Um, nothing?" I said, hoping he would buy it, though I doubted he would.

"You don't sound very sure of that," he said. "Maybe you should think again and tell the truth this time." I stared at the ground, trying to think of something to say that would get me in less trouble. Nothing came to mind, so I decided to tell him the truth, and hope that he would sympathize.

"He was staring at my sister like he wanted to do her!" I said defensively. "I was just warning him about what would happen if I found out he actually did something, that's all!"

"Our guild cannot afford to have you acting rashly like this, Blade," he said softly. "You need to keep yourself hidden, not make yourself known by doing foolish things like this. I'm starting to wonder if I made the right choice for my successor again."

"I can't just let him do something like that to Ally!" I exclaimed. "Why can't I use my skills to protect her?"

"You can," he said. "But if you decide to do that, you should do it in our way. You should be quiet about it, hidden, not in the broad daylight right in the entranceway of his home. And you have to be thorough about it. You cannot leave witnesses."

"It's not like I was using Shadow to do it!" I exclaimed. "It was just a knife. Any guy can get good with a knife!"

"You are better than good, Blade," he said. "None but those who are formally trained with weapons are as skillful with knives as you are, and you showed that yesterday. Now that man who you terrorized is spreading word about the town. Sooner or later someone might connect Blade the assassin with this mystery knife user who attacked someone in his house. And if that happens, that man you attacked might just figure out who you are. Do you really want to do that to your sister and mother?"

"So what do you want me to do about it?" I asked him.

"Finish the job," he said. "Kill him, and anyone else who saw you at that house yesterday, before they can let people know that you were there. Make sure that all witnesses are dead."

I stared at the floor. I had started enjoying the killing, especially when the job was difficult. Still, I didn't want to take the killing so close to home. I didn't want to have to take those guys' lives right next door to where Mom and Ally were. It was too close, and it was enough to make me hesitate in saying yes and accepting the orders from my Master.

But, at the same time, part of me wanted to do it. It was the part of me that enjoyed killing, the part that reveled in the chase, and then the scream as Shadow ate at them from inside. That part of me wanted to make Cal pay for the way he was looking at Ally. That part of me wanted to obliterate everyone in the house, since there was no chance that a witness could be around if I killed them all.

It was that part of me that finally made me nod, and murmur, "I'll do it tonight." That made Nightshade smile, a small approval that I rarely expected to get. I felt like I had just passed some test of his, and it made me just a little happy.

That night I dressed myself as I did when I went on paying jobs. My customary garb for going out was black, loose clothing that I could move quickly and silently in. Then I headed out from the assassin's place to head toward my former home.

I got into the guys' house easily. They didn't have any kind of lock on the upper windows of the house. My days as a thief came in handy that night, since I ended up climbing the house to get in one of the second story windows, much like the night I had gotten caught. Luckily, that was the only similarity between the two nights.

I ended up in the room of one of the other guys, not the one who had answered the door, not the one who had walked by and stared at me, and not Cal. I tried to get into the room silently, but the window betrayed me slightly with a squeak. That squeak was enough to wake the guy in the room up, and I found myself staring at a scared thief who couldn't quite see me in the dark room.

I had no other choice. He hadn't identified me, but he had seen me. That was enough to get me in trouble, so I rushed forward, silently asking Shadow to be quiet that night. I knew it would work, and that he wouldn't be able to scream as I cut him, because Shadow had gifted me with the knowledge of how to use her to steal people's voices before she bit into them for my last birthday. She was jealous of the other blade that I used occasionally when I needed silence, so she had solved the problem.

He died easily in a pool of his own blood that quickly soaked into the bed. I left his body behind, knowing that when it was discovered it wouldn't be hard to figure out that it was Blade who had killed him. I didn't care about that, as long as they didn't figure out that it was also Will who had killed him.

I had no idea where in the house the three that I needed to kill were. I knew that there were a total of seven men in the house though, so I just went from bedroom to bedroom, looking in each one. I ended up opening five doors before I had found them all. One of those doors contained a sleeping guy who stayed asleep, and thus had his life spared.

One had two people, a guy and girl who I didn't recognize. They were rather busy when I opened the door, and he almost got a shout out before I got to the bed and took his life. I regretted it, but I killed the girl as well, since she had seen me there.

The other three doors were the three that I needed to kill. I dispatched them all easily, including the girl who was with the one who had answered the door. Again, I had to kill her, to keep myself unknown. After they were all dead, I hurried to get out of the house. I didn't want the two who had been spared to find me there, since I would have to kill them as well if they found me.

I then returned to the assassin's place, after stopping briefly outside of Mom's shop to quietly apologize to the two of them for causing such a horrible thing right next door to them. I made it back without being seen, just like I always did. Nightshade was waiting for me in my room when I returned.

"It's done," I said. "I took out everyone who saw me there yesterday, as well as four others who saw me tonight. One person didn't even see me, because I killed him in his sleep. You happy now?"

"Very," Nightshade said, sounding pleased. "This is the first time that you have gone out to kill without it being a paying job, you know. You've shown that you can uphold your secrecy tonight. That is one of the most important aspects of being the Master of this guild, being able to keep your people safe from that kind of harm."

"Well I didn't really like doing it," I said bluntly. "I didn't want to bring it that close to Mom and Ally."

"That is what you pay for being a fool and letting your emotions get the best of you," he said. "Remember that next time you get the idea to show off like that."

"I will," I said. He nodded, and then he left, allowing me to sleep.