The morning light in Veltaris was a poor imitation of dawn. Fog clung to the broken eaves and drifting ropes of laundry, dull and colorless, as if even the sky had no intention of revealing anything clearly. From the third floor of the Scarlet Jib, Izen watched the city blink awake. Stalls opened with tired groans, barmaids poured buckets of slop into alley gutters, and sharp-eyed children sprinted messages from block to block.
But something was off.
There was an unfamiliar stillness to the way the crowds moved. Not slower, exactly. More careful. As if the entire neighborhood had agreed to hold its breath.
Izen drew back from the warped windowpane. The journal lay open beside his cot, last night's entry still unfinished. A single inked sentence stared up at him:
The man with the cracked cane saw me.
That was all. No elaboration, no location, no time. Just the observation. But it hadn't left him since he wrote it. Izen had passed the man on his second loop around Valche's canal estate. Just a beggar, slouched near the dock with a chipped mug in his lap. But when Izen had looked away and back again, the man was standing. Upright. Watching. And the cane—black oak with a silver wolf's head—was split down the middle, though the man didn't lean on it.
Lys hadn't believed him.
"You're chasing ghosts," she'd said, throwing a blade into the floorboards for emphasis. "Stick to the mark. Leave the phantoms to the poets."
She was downstairs now, likely already dressed in the false silks of a traveling spice broker. Today they would attend one of Valche's public auctions—a perfect excuse to get close to the guest register. But Izen couldn't shake the feeling that something had already shifted.
The beggar hadn't followed him. Hadn't even moved after that one moment. But that one moment had felt like a pin pressing against the thin membrane of Izen's reality.
They entered the auction hall just before midday. The stone walls gleamed with imported oils, and long slashes of red-and-gold tapestry masked the cracks in the masonry. The hall was filled with noise: hawkers touting heirloom blades, shippers bidding on ancient wines, even children running with ledger slips clutched tight in their fists.
Valche stood on the raised platform at the head of the hall. He was draped in crimson cloth stitched with subtle protective glyphs, smiling like a man who knew every coin in the room belonged to him already. Izen counted no less than ten guards in disguise scattered through the crowd.
Lys leaned in. "He favors the southern end. Always keeps his ledger in a blue satchel under the third table."
Izen nodded but said nothing. He had already noticed it. The satchel was worn, the thread near the flap fraying at the corners, but the pattern of how Valche touched it—always with his left hand, briefly, when leaning forward to speak—gave away its importance.
Still, Izen watched more than just the satchel. He watched the guards. The boy with the ink-smudged shirt who paused too often near the benches. The woman with the fur-wrapped wrist, who never met anyone's eyes. The angle of their feet. The slight stiffness in their spines.
None were true merchants. But none were entirely soldiers, either. That made them dangerous.
The theft itself was orchestrated between breaths.
A distraction at the far end of the hall—a cart of spilled wine, staged clumsily but effectively. A small, sharpened bone slipped into a vendor's pouch hours earlier had made sure of that. As guards turned and barked orders, Izen moved.
Three steps. Downward glance. Two seconds of blind reach beneath the table.
Satchel acquired.
He didn't run. Running drew eyes. Instead, he stepped into the clot of onlookers gathered by the eastern arch and let the tide of bodies carry him out.
By the time Valche noticed, the satchel had been replaced with an identical one—the seam split, the flap weighted with sand. Lys's touch.
Back at the Scarlet Jib, Lys opened the satchel with reverence.
Inside were more than names.
There were codes. Smuggler schedules. Signed seals from Freeport dignitaries. Even a slip of parchment bearing a single red sigil—a crescent with three teeth—the mark of a faction Izen had only seen referenced in forbidden lectures.
"He's not just trading in poisons," Lys murmured. "He's trafficking safe passage. For enemies of the Council."
Izen reached forward, pulling a small black ledger free from the side pouch. It was heavier than it looked. Inside, the ink was still wet on the last page.
There, scrawled without care, was a list of guests marked with the phrase: "Watched. Trusted. Not to be harmed."
Izen blinked.
His own name was not on that list.
But Kaelith's was.
The candlelight flickered across Lys's face, making her look suddenly older.
"You recognize the name," she said. Not a question.
"She was a student with me. Quiet. Smart. Left three months ago for her first external placement."
Lys's brow furrowed. "Then either she betrayed the Council, or Valche owns someone above you."
Izen stared at the page. The ink seemed to pulse slightly. Or maybe that was just his head.
She couldn't have betrayed them. Could she?
Kaelith had watched him. Had seen through parts of his act in the Academy. They had never spoken of trust, but there had been... understanding.
Now her name sat in a ledger that should never have known her.
Later that night, while Lys went to arrange for the ledger's copy and return, Izen stayed in the room.
Alone.
He stared at the candle for a long time, then at the small brass timepiece he carried. It was an old habit. When he was younger, he would count the ticks, forcing his breath to match their rhythm. Now, something else stirred when he watched the hands move.
A thought. No, not a thought. A pressure. Like the possibility of stepping sideways through a door that wasn't open yet.
He didn't try it. Not here. Not yet.
Instead, he opened his journal. Beside the note about the man with the cane, he wrote:
Kaelith. Watched. Trusted. Not to be harmed.
And beneath that:
What would she trade for safety?
He did not sleep.
The following day brought rain.
The canals overflowed slightly, and the auction was delayed. That gave Izen time. He returned to the alley where he had seen the beggar.
The man was gone.
But the cane remained—leaning against a wall. The crack down the middle had widened. Someone had carved a symbol into the exposed wood: a perfect spiral, lined with marks that weren't quite numbers.
Izen reached out.
As his fingers brushed the grain, the street blurred.
Sound vanished. Not dimmed—vanished.
He looked around. No movement. No wind. Not even the drip of rain.
It lasted less than a breath. Then the world snapped back.
The cane was gone.
So was the spiral.
He staggered back, cold sweat clinging to his spine.
When he returned to the inn, Lys was waiting.
"Change of plans," she said.
She didn't look at him when she added: "Valche is dead. Throat slit. No witnesses."
Izen froze.
"And the ledger?"
"Gone. Someone switched the copy with ash-leaf paper. It dissolved the ink. Only your notes remain."
There was no anger in her voice. Only calculation.
She paused, then held out a folded slip. A new mission directive.
"The Council wants you to stay in Veltaris."
As she left, Izen turned the slip over. On the back was another red sigil.
The crescent with three teeth.
He stared at it until the candle burned down to nothing.