People who said they understood women were liars, chartans, or men who had never once been correct in their lives.

  That said, experience did leave scars in recognizable shapes.

  I’d only had one rather stable retionship with a woman named Cire. When truly unsettled, she did not remain indoors. She’d vanish into pces that let her keep moving without having to choose a destination, say a riverside path that looped back on itself, the outer market after closing hours, or half-lit roads where you could pass the same ndmarks twice and no one would notice (also preferably along the riverside).

  I didn’t know Anabeth well enough to assume she thought the same way. But she was a schor, and schors processed discomfort by circuting. I had yet to see a schor at least not walk around when deep in thought. Standing still would only make the noise louder.

  So I aimed for the edges of Elderstead first.

  Taking my horse would be faster. If something truly dangerous was loose, mobility mattered. But Silvermane was also conspicuous, opinionated, and deeply opposed to being ridden at speed through narrow streets unless there was imminent death involved, and even then, she liked to negotiate.

  More importantly, if Anabeth was unsettled, the st thing she would want was a fully armored knight thundering after her on a warhorse.

  I left Silvermane where she was.

  Instead, I brought the detector. It would at least tell me if I was tailing the mysterious entity.

  It’d creaked at a leisurely rhythm ever since I left the tavern, but the creak deepened as I faced north.

  From what I remembered from the town map I’d seen just earlier, North meant the half-abandoned quarter near the original settlement walls—shrines, colpsed workshops, forgotten wells. Invisible lung-fever spores or not, if something aetheric wanted privacy, that was exactly where it would go.

  As I moved, the wording of the task gnawed at me.

  Find Anabeth before the conclusion of her encounter with the mysterious entity.

  Encounter.

  It didn’t say infection, nor exposure, nor contamination. Encounter implied awareness and interaction. Ceralis had worded its task as though it knew things more than anyone should, unless they were watching from somewhere I couldn’t reach. A Saint-like vantage.

  If Saint Merin had truly left a gift behind, then this was far bigger than dungeon loot and battered ideals.

  Later, I told myself. Philosophy ter.

  I made it three streets before realizing that asking for directions was going to be... complicated.

  The first person I spotted was a baker locking up for the night, flour still dusting his sleeves. Harmless. Approachable. I slowed, lifted a hand in what I hoped was a non-threatening gesture, and tried to speak.

  “Excuse me,” I began.

  My helm resonated.

  [Tone Optimization: Dread Inquisitor – Active]

  [Intimidation Aura: Passive Surge Detected]

  [Intimidation Successful]

  What came out instead was a low, echoing procmation that vibrated in the stones beneath our feet. “HAVE YOU SEEN A WOMAN OF SILVER HAIR, ADORNED IN LEAF-WROUGHT ATTIRE, WHO WALKS ALONE IN THE NIGHT? FATE DEMANDS OUR INTERSECTION.”

  The baker shrieked, dropping his keys. “I—WHAT—NO! I DON’T KNOW ANY WOMEN! I’VE NEVER KNOWN A WOMAN! PLEASE DON’T TAKE MY TEETH!”

  That was not the response I’d hoped for.

  I am not going to take your teeth, I tried to say.

  “YOUR TEETH ARE NOT REQUIRED FOR HER EVENTUAL ACQUISITION,” I said.

  “HE’S GOING TO TAKE MY TEETH,” the man screamed to absolutely no one in particur. “THE NIGHT-MOLAR! HE TOOK EVERYBODY’S IRON TEETH! I TOLD YOU THIS TOWN NEEDS MORE LANTERNS!”

  I closed my mouth.

  The baker bolted down the street, shouting something about ‘midnight butchers’ and vanished around a corner.

  I attempted again two blocks ter with a pair of te-night tavern patrons arguing about dice. I didn’t even finish opening my mouth before one of them took one look at me, went pale, and blurted, “She didn’t deserve it!”

  “I don’t know who she is,” the other added frantically, “but we didn’t see anything, and we don’t approve of violence against women!”

  I don’t approve of violence against women either, I tried to say.

  Ceralis disagreed with me.

  “I DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR APPROVAL,” it boomed.

  They ran.

  [SOCIAL PENALTY: Aura of Authority escated]

  Current Reputation: C+ (Mild Infamy)

  Reputation Note: Mistaken for the Night-Mor

  Sphere of Influence: Elderstead

  Estimate Duration: 33 days

  I stopped trying after that.

  Instead, I adjusted my grip on the Parasitic Resonance Detector and let it creak and groan as I walked, trusting the infernal thing more than my own voice. The device, at least, did not scream at innocent townsfolk.

  I cut north-east toward the river anyway, stubborn habit overriding fresh evidence. Old instincts died hard, especially the ones that had once worked. I reckoned Anabeth wouldn’t vanish into somewhere completely abandoned, and this was still Northward enough. So I stayed on the living edge of the north.

  The river itself came into view in fragments, until it finally opened up between the buildings like a dark, moving seam. I traced the curve of the embankment and passed the same mooring posts twice without meaning to. The detector returned to its slow and unimpressed rhythm.

  If Anabeth had been here, she’d already moved on. Or she’d never come at all.

  I slowed and let the map I’d glimpsed earlier reconstruct itself in my head, street by street, like a reluctant confession. North, but not dead north. North-west, where the old trade route bent away from the river and widened before thinning again. There had been a notation there.

  I walked. The detector creaked louder.

  With each step, the sound deepened. I was approaching its preferred bearing. Taller facades gave way to older ones, and some of the street nterns guttered.

  I didn’t like the direction I was going. Not because of bandits. If the map in my head was accurate, then beyond the next bend y the outer approach to a sealed dungeon site. High Tier II, officially dormant, unofficially monitored. I had never heard of dungeon entities roaming freely, but that was theory, and theory was comfort food.

  The detector creaked again, then stilled. Before I could interpret that, something else brushed the edge of my awareness. It informed me, as if I had an itch inside my eyes that didn’t go away.

  [Passive Activated: Aetheric Detection—Aetheric Residue Detected Nearby]Oh.

  Right.

  I’d almost forgotten about the skill.

  There was something ahead of me.

  I slowed without quite meaning to and followed the pull until it resolved into a clear line off the street, hidden where an older fa?ade leaned inward and the stonework hadn’t been repaired so much as forgiven. The ntern nearest it had guttered down to a sullen wick, doing the object no favors.

  There, wedged between two stones at ankle height, was a trinket, a disc of dull silver etched with a looping sigil I didn’t recognize, threaded with a thin cord that had been wrapped and unwrapped too many times to be decorative.

  I bent my knee, already reaching. Then I felt something tugging through the joints of my gauntlets, and stopped.

  Derevin’s voice surfaced. There have been multiple reports of disorientation, incomplete route recollection, and, regrettably, incidental losses of metallic equipment due to localized magneto-resonant anomalies, he’d said.

  At the time, it had sounded like trivia. At present, it sounded like a list of reasons my arm might decide it belonged inside a wall.

  Carefully, I loosened my grip on the sword, just enough that it would slide free if something decided to cim ownership of my wrist. I didn’t reach for the trinket. Instead, I fished a coin from my pouch and held it between my thumb and forefinger.

  I rolled it once across my knuckles, then tossed it forward.

  The coin rang, spun, slowed, and then jerked sideways, skidding the st finger’s breadth on its own before snapping against the disc with a clink.

  Ah.

  Magneto-resonant, indeed.

  From my belt pouch, I drew a length of leather cord—non-metal, frayed, and until now relegated to the role of emergency tie for things that didn’t want tying. I looped it carefully around the disc, keeping my weight back and my joints loose.

  The trinket resisted my pull, then slid free with a reluctant shiver in the air. Only then did I lift it fully, holding it at arm’s length.

  [Item Identified: Auxiliary Aether Point Reservoir]

  [Grade: Common]

  [Requirement: RES ≥ 1 — Met]

  [Effect: For every 5 AP spent, store 1 AP within the reservoir]

  [Maximum Capacity: 10 AP]

  I stared at it for a moment.

  Common-grade and a wearable with the loop of cord already worn smooth by a previous owner’s indecision. I didn’t think it had any activation chant or any blood price to pay. Good.

  I threaded the cord properly, tested the knot twice, then let it hang beneath my gorget where it could rest against the armor without being seen.

  Then I remembered what the panicked baker had said upon seeing me: “THE NIGHT-MOLAR! HE TOOK EVERYBODY’S IRON TEETH!”

  Magneto-resonant anomalies didn’t discriminate. Nails, buckles, filings—if it held a charge or a memory of one, it would answer the call.

  Which meant the entity was definitely nearby.

  And if I was this close, then Anabeth wasn’t far ahead.

  Creatures that pyed with magnetism didn’t do it gently. In a dungeon, even the docile ones rated High Tier II by virtue of environment alone. Out here, uncontained, improvising with street iron and dental work? That pushed it firmly into the category of problems you did not solve by drawing steel.

  I hastened. I had to get us out of its way before it noticed it had an audience.