The girl stumbled in the dark, throwing out a hand to a pile of black bags to steady herself, spilling rubbish over herself and the already filthy street. Wrinkling her nose, she let out a whimper and began to struggle her way out from under the mountain of decaying food and empty containers. I could smell the contents of the bags from here, they’d been there some time, festering in the summer heat.

“You’d better not move too much, there might be something sharp.”

Her whimpers grew louder. “Would you kindly help me Ma’am? I was sent to find you.”

I held my breath and walked over, carefully choosing my steps to avoid the worst of it and extended my arm. She took my hand tightly, looking up at me with eyes set slightly too wide to be fully human. I brushed some of the worst of it aside with my boot and pulled her up. She snatched her hand away, a Fae then, the light was too poor to tell which clan.

“Come on then, you can take a shower at my place and tell me why I’ve been summoned.”