All I had to do was fly

 They came for me quickly.

Before I could decide whether to cook up a convincing lie or flee to another town where no one knew me. They banged on the door of my shop and I would have flown away right but Tatsuya's indignant voice stopped me in the middle of climbing out of my bedroom window.

“This is stupid!” he said with more confidence than I had ever heard from him. “Why would she do something like that?”

I clenched both the window frame and my teeth, my bent knee digging into the sill. The sun was starting to rise in the distance. All I had to do was fly towards it until I could go no further.

“If she's so innocent, why hasn't she opened the door for us yet?” demanded a man with a gruff voice. “She's probably run away already.”

I closed my eyes and drew in several deep breaths. If I left Inner Town like this, it would be as good as admitting to the crime. I would have to start a new life amongst strangers, constantly looking over my shoulder for someone waiting to drag me back home and hold me accountable for my actions.

“Shizu heals people,” insisted Tatsuya. “She doesn't hurt anyone. Even if she did do something to Ras, it must have been in self defence.”

I would have to abandon him and the others without an explanation. All our research, all our plans, and Aoto's investment in my abilities would go up in smoke. Even worse, what if they were all affected by the allegations directed at me. What if Kohaku and the others were chased back to Outer Town. What if no one ever trusted them to do any kind of job ever again? I lowered my foot back onto the floor and the room trembled around me.

“I didn't do anything to her!” said the man himself. “She must have lured my brother there just like she lured me.”

He wasn't wrong about that. I was guilty of everything he accused me of but I couldn't let them know. Not because I was ashamed of ridding the world of bad people but because my friends already didn't have many people they could trust. I had no right to deprive them of one more.

“Your brother?” asked Tatsuya, so quietly I almost didn't catch the question.

“Did you know about it?” demanded Ras. “Were you part of her plan to get rid of me? Now that I think about it, what were you doing there?”

“I got a –” Tatsuya stopped mid sentence. “I just was.”

I let go of the window frame and headed down the stairs, throwing open the door of the shop just in time to see two men grab him by either arm.

“You're coming with us, boy,” said the man dressed in a guard uniform. He lowered his fist and turned to face me. “You don't look like someone who's just woken up, young lady.”

“I woke up earlier to sort out my herbs,” I said, shivering as the early morning air sliced through my kimono like a hundred ice blades.

“No, you did not!” spat Ras. He stood between two people who looked like they had come from Outer Town, supported by their arms as he pointed at me. “You were too busy trying to kill me.”

Despite his bared teeth and vicious gesture, his skin was pale around the red patches on his cheeks and his hand trembled as it dropped down to the bandages wound around his thigh.

“What took you so long to open up?” asked the guard, glancing at Ras with a faint frown.

“I wasn't expecting visitors this early,” I replied, forcing myself to meet Tatsuya's eyes with a quizzical tilt to my brow. The way I would have if I were innocent. “Sunrise has just begun. What can I do for you at this time of the day, sir?”

“In case it's not obvious, this fellow here claims you tried to take his life last night,” he said.

“Take his life, sir?” The breath in my lungs felt like smoke. I tucked my arms into my sleeves. “Me?”

“He said that you ambushed him by the Spiritless Tree and tried to burn his face before you stabbed him in the leg.” He grimaced.

“The Spiritless Tree?” I said slowly, looking at Ras' enraged expression. “Nothing has grown in that area for years. Why would a healer like me need to go there?”

“That's what I was telling you,” said Tatsuya but the other two guards shook him aggressively with warning grunts.

“You wrote me a letter and told me go there because you knew where my brother was,” said Ras. “And then you attacked me.”

“With what?” I asked, turning back to the leader of the guards. “I have surgical instruments and cauterisation tools at the back of my shop. You're welcome to check if they've been used recently if you want, sir.”

“That would be very help–” he began.

“She used fire!” snapped Ras, leaning forward as if he would have lunged at me if could. “She tried to kill me with fire from her hands, not with any normal tools.”

“I'm a psychic warrior, sir.” I held my palms up so that they faced the group. A wet feeling spread throughout my chest as though my heart had popped under the pressure. “Not an elemental wielder. I control internal energy to help people heal faster.”

“She's telling the truth,” said Tatsuya as he tried to pull himself free. “You can ask any one of her patients here and all of Outer Town. She's always been a psychic warrior.”

“Do you know this man or his brother?” asked the leader, turning to Tatsuya.

“What?” He faltered.

“You heard me.”

“I met him in Outer Town the other day,” said Tatsuya, his gaze flitting towards me. “I don't know who his brother is.”

“They were both there the day someone from Inner Town bought my niece,” said Ras. “But no one will tell me where she is either or who bought her.”

“The only way your niece could have been bought is if your brother was selling her in the first place,” I said, nodding at the main guard. “You might want to look into that instead, sir. I would be better than wasting your time here –”

“Uncle?” Toshiko appeared next to me, her cheeks pink and hair fluffed by the wind.

“Toshiko!” exclaimed Ras. “Where have you been?”

The girl's worried gaze swept across the group of strange men, lingering on her uncle's face and bandaged leg.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, swallowing. “You can't take me back to father. He even signed a contract saying that he wouldn't.”

“He's gone missing, Toshiko.” Ras pointed at me. “That girl killed him and she tried to kill me too.”

“What?” Her attention switched to me again but I was distracted by the folded parchment in her hand. “That – that's not possible.”

I wanted to ask why a late riser like her had woken up this early but the question congealed in my throat so suddenly I almost choked.

“What brings you here, child?” asked the guard, nodding at the paper. “And what's that?”

“It's a message from Shizu,” she replied, shuffling closer and holding it out to me. “I got here as fast as I could but I didn't understand all the words on it.”

“From me?” I reached for it but the leading guard snatched it first.

My stomach grew cold even before Toshiko took hold of my sleeve and asked,

“What does alibi mean?”