Free Black Halo by Sam Sykes

don’t sleep enough.’
    ‘Anacha,’ he sighed, his shoulders sinking. ‘I am a hunter of heretic wizards. I enforce the law of Venarie through fire and frost, lightning and force. I do not get fussy .’
    He smiled, paying little attention to the fact that she did not return the expression. She was incapable of smiling now, at least not in the way she had the first night she had met him.
    ‘ This is a lovely poem ,’ he had said, as she lay on the bed before him. ‘ Do you like poetry? ’
    She had answered with a stiff nod, an obedient nod scrubbed and scolded into her. He had smiled.
    ‘ What’s your favourite? ’
    When she had no reply, he had laughed. She had felt the urge to smile, if only for the fact that it was as well-known that wizards didn’t laugh as it was that they drank pulverised excrement and ate people’s brains for the gooey knowledge contained within.
    ‘ Then I will bring you poetry. I am coming back in one week .’ Upon seeing her confused stare, he rolled his shoulders. ‘ My duty demands that I visit Muraska for a time. Do you know where it is? ’ She shook her head; he smiled. ‘ It’s a great, grey city to the north. I’ll bring you a book from it. Would you like that? ’
    She nodded. He smiled and rose, draping his coat about him. She watched him go, the sigil upon his back shrinking as he slipped out the door. Only when it was small as her thumb did she speak and ask if she would see him again. He was gone then, however, the door closing behind him.
    And the urge to smile grew as faint then as it was now.
    ‘This is … for work, then?’ she asked, the hesitation in her voice only indicative that she knew the answer.
    ‘This is for my duty , yes,’ he corrected as he set aside another paper crane and plucked up another bone-white sheet. ‘Librarian helpers, I call them. My helpful little flocks.’
    She plucked up the crane beside her delicately in her hand, stared into its irritated little eyes. The dye was thick, didn’t settle on the page as proper ink should. It was only when the scent of copper filled her mouth that she realised that this paper wasn’t meant for ink.
    ‘You … This is,’ she gasped, ‘your blood?’
    ‘Some of it, yes.’ He held up a tiny little vial with an impressive label, shook it, then set in a decidedly large pile. ‘I ran out after the four hundredth one. Fortunately, I’ve been granted special privileges for this particular duty, up to and including the requisition of a few spare pints.’
    Anacha had long ago learned that wizards did laugh and that they rarely did anything relatively offensive to brains from those not possessing their particular talents. Their attitude towards other bodily parts and fluids, however, was not something she ever intended to hear about without cringing.
    She had little time to reflect on such ghastly practices this morning.
    ‘Why do you need so many?’
    At this, he paused, as he had when she had discovered wizards could lie.
    ‘ What is your duty? ’ she had asked, their sixth night together after five nights of reading.
    ‘ I’m a Librarian .’ He had turned at her giggle and raised a brow. ‘ What? ’
    ‘ I thought you were a wizard .’
    ‘ I am .’
    ‘ A member of the Venarium .’
    ‘ I am .’
    ‘ Librarians stock shelves and adjust spectacles .’
    ‘ Have you learned nothing of the books I’ve brought you? Words can have multiple meanings .’
    ‘ Books only make me wonder more … like how a Librarian can go to Muraska and afford whores? ’
    ‘ Well , no one can afford whores in Muraska .’
    ‘ Why did you go to Muraska, then? ’
    ‘ Duty called .’
    ‘ What kind of duty? ’
    ‘ Difficult duties. Ones that demand the talents of a man like myself .’
    ‘ Talents? ’
    ‘ Talents .’
    ‘ Fire and lightning talents? Turning people to frogs and burning down houses talents? ’
    ‘ We don’t turn people into frogs, no. The other talents, though … I use them