The days seem to pass quickly when Alicia keeps herself busy. The hours no longer drag, and she doesn't watch the crawl of the sun. Instead, she buries herself into work, training the horses, caring for the stables, and collapsing into bed exhausted each night.

It's dull work, and she doesn't get much for it, but while the Commons sit idly with their sick, there isn't much to do besides work and listen to the ticking clock of inevitability. In the meantime, she surrounds herself with animals and mud, content for the moment.

The stables her family had owned as their fortunes swelled were always in immaculate condition, tended to by many capable and willing hands. The Commons are vastly different from the Zalana's grassy hills and polished homestead. She was never needed to help the horses, and often her ma forbade her from dirtying her shoes. A small part of Alicia that has been missing for years is beginning to return, it's how she wakes up each morning, how she looks in the mirror and finally begins to recognise the woman beneath the guise of smiles and bitterness.

She hums an old tune to herself as she fixes a pipe by the stables. The song is warm in her chest, one she would hear from a brothel down the street, one of the girls singing it to any who would walk past. A song of travel and love, of seeing the world but never forgetting where one's heart truly belongs. Alicia used to sit by the open shutters and listen to the lilting tones of the woman's voice echo through the street, the usual rabble of the slums seeming to hold its breath when her songs began.

She doesn't even mind that the small stool she sits on keeps sinking into the mud, or that her boots have filthy water soaking into her thick socks. Alicia is glad to be doing something with her time other than wondering when the Reaper will knock on her door.

He finds her there, at the back of the stables with her shoulders hunched and whispering lyrics barely escaping her lips. Alicia brushes her hair from her face, every part of her slathered with mud. She flicks her gaze to him, watching him from the corner of her eye as he manages to dodge the murky puddles, raising an eyebrow at her, the mud on her blending her in with her dirty surroundings.

"Alicia," Oliver calls as he slowly walks towards her before stopping when she lifts her head higher. "Might I ask why you're out here in the mud?"

She huffs out a breath, getting to her feet to trudge through the damp ground. She shoves the tools back into the sagging belt around her hips. "Fixing these stupid water pipes. They break at least once an hour."

Oliver looks her up and down, fingers slotting a cigarette between his lips. Alicia knows she's a mess, streaked with muck and stains she can't seem to rid herself of. Her hair is untameable, and her features display the evidence of her exhaustion though she won't admit it.

They don't ever see each other in his house. He's so rarely there that sometimes Alicia forgets it's even his home. Some nights she hears his footsteps, pacing, always pacing. But more often than not it's silent, the ghosts that haunt that place her only company. She grew accustomed to the familiar loneliness a long time ago.

"Do you ever wash your face?" he questions, amusement shining in his light eyes.

Alicia purses her lips, fingers itching to brush at her face. "As a matter of fact, I don't," she replies, causing him to smile.

"Great, you fit in perfectly here."

Alicia just shakes her head, hiding her smile as she looks down at her filthy boots. "Did you want something, Oliver?" she asks as he blows smoke from the corner of his mouth, a hand in the pocket of his tailored trousers. He studies her in that way of his that has her heart stuttering in its beat. Like he can see her soul, and he's wondering what he can do with it, as though he could simply pluck it from her chest and mould it to his desire. Crush her, make her laugh, shatter her, show her what she's meant to be or lead her towards destruction.

She takes a step back without truly realising it, not sure what to do with her hands as she rubs them against her pants, dried dirt crumbling away.

"No, nothing today, Alicia," he says, flicking his hardly smoked cigarette to the mud where it hisses before dying. "I trust you're settling in well?"

Her teeth sink into her cheek, want rising within her like a swelling tide. Want for someone to talk to, someone to listen to her, someone's voice to fill the cold spaces in her mind, but she keeps her mouth shut as she always has. Her problems are her own, and this loneliness within her has always gnawed at her insides, even before exile.

Besides, what is there she can possibly talk about? Her life within the capital? No, her status is too dangerous to tell anyone about. Her family? What family? It's better if she keeps her mouth shut and her head down, just as her ma taught her.

She can only nod.

"Good, I'm glad," Oliver says. He watches her for a moment longer than necessary before turning and walking. It's only when he's disappeared from view does Alicia's shoulders droop, and she lets out a shaky breath.

"Something about that man terrifies me."

Alicia jumps slightly, turning to see Sasha approaching her. She carries a basket filled with an assortment of goods and Alicia's stomach gives a loud growl with the thought of food. Basic food, bread and an assortment of cheeses. If she wants anything more then she'll have to find another way to procure it. She's lived on less. "He just seems protective of this place," Alicia says with a shrug.

"His methods are... brutal, to say the least." She passes her, and Alicia follows her into the stables, Viktor with his mop of brown hair hanging into his eyes coming to meet them. He works at the stables too, and Alicia has tried to engage him in conversation but with no luck.

Her brother didn't speak for an entire month after recovering from the Ruga flu. Alicia now knows the trauma of nearly dying choked his voice from him, and judging by the deep and jagged scar that mars Viktor's cheek to his temple, Alicia understands not to push the boy.

"And you're living with him," she says with a snort, shaking her head as she places the basket on a bench, shifting through its contents.

Swallowing, Alicia can't help but recall Oliver cutting Jeramiah in the forest. And before that, six years ago when she was still a young girl making her way through the world, she watched him kill Sergey's men before her.

He's a man of violence, of doing what's necessary. She'd be a hypocrite to judge him for that.

Alicia lifts a shoulder. "He's rarely there," is all she says, wrapping the cold loaf of bread Sasha offers her in a towel to keep it away from her muddy clothes.

"Sorry I can't give you more," Sasha sighs, wrapping up Viktor's share of things to give to the boy, squeezing his shoulder before he turns to go. "With so many people sick, supply runs beyond the walls have pretty much ceased altogether. But if you're looking for more, the general store sells what's not handed out."

"I'll give it a look." Alicia tucks her bread under her arm, offering a quiet thank you before turning to go, the sky beginning to darken as she moves into the street and towards the general goods store.

She avoids the people that continue on with their tasks around her, keeping her head low so she doesn't catch anyone's eye. Over two months ago Alicia was exiled. One day someone is going to show up who knows who she is and it's best if she has her head down when that day comes.

Finding her way to the general goods store as the sun dips below the trees, Alicia steps up onto the porch. Inside the rows of shelves and dusty tables are mostly empty. A stab to Alicia's heart makes her sink her teeth into her cheek to see such a thing, to have the struggle the Commons is enduring glaring her in the face.

"What can I help you with?"

She looks up at the man behind the counter who spoke, his deep blue eyes roving over her face. Blond curls frame his face, messy but somehow endearing. His features are soft, and she finds herself comparing him to Oliver. Oliver with his sharp features, cut from stone and shadow, eyes hard and unforgiving, granite within a man.

Oliver is as much of a stranger to her as anyone else here.

"I was just looking for some supplies."

"You have anything to trade?" he asks, leaning against the counter.

She pauses, not having thought so far ahead. Fingers leaping up, Alicia touches the scarf around her neck. But no, such abused material wouldn't be worth anything. She reaches within and grasps the ring dangling around her throat.

Alicia is never returning to the capital, never returning to her life within the walls. She made sure of that when she exiled herself. This ring means nothing to her anymore and holding onto it is pointless.

It still takes her too long to take it off and set it on the counter between them.

He stares at it for a moment before he picks up the leather cord and holds the ring up to his face, a frown forming between his light brows.

"How much for that?"

The ring clatters on the counter as he drop it and Alicia blinks. "I'll... um... see what I can do."

Alicia tilts her head as she looks at him, watching him inch away, spinning around to grab a basket and leave her vicinity as though she has the Curse and he can't wait to be rid of her. Alicia's eyes narrow but she doesn't question it, knowing she's a stranger, that she's an exile and all exiles who have survived this far must have something up their sleeve.

Shaking her head, Alicia wraps her arms around herself and refuses to dwell on such insignificant things as people's approval. Those things don't matter anymore, not to the person that Alicia is meant to be becoming.

"Here," the man says, approaching her with the basket. "You can take one thing from those two isles," he points and continues directing her, not meeting her eye. Once he's done explaining, Alicia takes the basket without a word and browses through the sparse supplies.

Alicia fills her basket with fresh apples, leaks, oats, even bottles of clean water and milk. Things she's only dreamed about since wandering into the woods by herself. She nearly cries as she touches a bar of soap, the sweet scent of roses wafting over her. She puts that in her basket too and some jars of loose tea.

She glances back at the blond-headed man who rolls the ring between his fingers that Sebastian proposed to her with.

Simple but elegant.

Alicia ignores the pang in her chest and approaches the counter. "Is it too much?"

He snaps his blue eyes to hers and straightens. "No, that's fine," he says without looking at the basket.

"I'm Alicia, by the way." She offers her hand, watching him watch her like he's the skittish rabbit and she's the wolf.

She just hopes he's staring at the mud on her face.

"Grayson," he murmurs and takes her hand, giving it a quick shake before letting go. "This is a nice piece. Where did you get it?"

"Off the body of a Grey," she replies without missing a beat.

"Ah." He clenches his fist around the ring. "Well, have a good evening."

"You too." Alicia picks up her basket, glancing at his face again before leaving the store.

She doesn't think about his odd behaviour. If she did, she'd be overanalysing everyone she encounters, and she'd rather leave that job to Oliver.

Stepping into the warm interior of the man's house, Alicia takes her supplies to the kitchen and sets them on the bench to sift through.

She's setting her precious tea on the bench when the front door opens and closes and Oliver's footsteps sound. She pays it no mind, knowing he'll disappear to his corner of the house. But the footsteps stop and Alicia glances over her shoulder as Oliver hovers in the doorway, hands in the pockets of his trousers.

"What's all this?"

"Supplies from the general store," she says, leaning her hip against the bench.

"And how did you afford it all?"

Alicia touches the scarf around her throat, one of the few pieces of her past she has left as she slowly rids herself of them. "I sold my ring."

He moves closer, eyeing the supplies. "You didn't need to do that, I could have gotten you all of this."

Clenching her fingers in her crimson scarf, Alicia wills herself to not regret the choice she made. "Maybe I needed to. Maybe it's time to let go of the past."

Oliver reaches towards her and touches her elbow. That small caress sends a jolt down her spine. How has she forgotten that people can touch without it hurting? It's not the touch this time that hurts, but the understanding that shines in his sterling gaze.

She's not the only one running from her ghosts.

A smile curves his full lips and the pain vanishes from his gaze like a mask slipping into place. "Next time tell me when you want to sell your past, I could have gotten a better deal with it."

Alicia lets out a snort and turns around to start making tea for the both of them. "Noted."