The boy ran.

  Gale didn’t blame him. He would have run too, if he’d seen himself reflected in a puddle: unshaven, unwashed, coat stained with wine and something darker. The boy had been sitting on the tavern steps, playing with a stick and a bit of string. He’d looked up. His eyes had gone straight to Gale’s wrist—exposed where the sleeve had ridden up, the silver-blue lines catching the light—and the color had drained from his face.

  A heartbeat later, he’d bolted.

  Smart child.

  Gale pulled his sleeve down and kept walking. His boots scraped against the cobblestones, too loud in the early morning quiet. One of them caught on a loose stone; he stumbled, caught himself on a wall that smelled of piss and old smoke.

  Kentar was just waking—shutters opening, merchants setting up stalls, the smell of baking bread drifting from somewhere he couldn’t see. Normal people doing normal things. Living.

  He didn’t belong here anymore.

  The mark on his wrist pulsed once, faint and cold. Not visible through the fabric, but he felt it. Always felt it. A reminder carved into his skin in silver-blue, jagged as broken ice. Three days since the laboratory. Or four. Maybe five. Time had gone strange, slippery. He’d stopped counting.

  The inn he’d been using since he arrived in Kentar had finally had enough of him two nights ago. The owner had pressed his bundle of things into his hands, muttered something about “respectable trade,” and shut the door. He’d tried to rent a room at an inn near the river yesterday—or was it the day before?—but the landlady had taken one look at him and shaken her head. No vacancy. He hadn’t argued. The wine bottle in his coat pocket had been enough company.

  It was empty now.

  He needed another.

  The tavern he’d passed last night had looked promising—small, dark, the kind of place that didn’t ask questions. He turned down a narrow alley, following half-remembered directions. His head throbbed. His mouth tasted like ash and regret.

  Halfway down the alley, someone stepped out of a doorway.

  “Master Dekarios?”

  Gale stopped. Blinked. Focused.

  A woman. Middle-aged, sturdy build, holding a basket of laundry. He recognized her vaguely—one of Ludmilla’s neighbors, maybe. Or someone who’d seen him in the Arcane District weeks ago, when he’d still looked like a person.

  “I—” she started, then faltered. Her gaze dropped to his hand. Even covered, she seemed to sense something wrong. Her expression shifted. Not quite fear. Not quite pity. Something worse: discomfort.

  “Sorry,” she muttered. “Thought you were someone else.”

  She hurried past, giving him a wide berth.

  Gale watched her go. Didn’t call after her. What would he say? Actually, I am Master Dekarios. I’m also a walking violation of the Fifth Prohibition. Would you like to report me, or should I save you the trouble and turn myself in?

  He laughed. The sound came out harsh, broken.

  He tried the tavern door. Locked. A sign hung crooked on the rusted latch: CLOSED FOR REPAIRS.

  Of course it was.

  He leaned his forehead against the wood, eyes shut. The mark throbbed again—a slow, cold pulse in time with his heartbeat. It did that sometimes. Especially when he was tired. Or drunk. Or when he thought too hard about—

  Don’t.

  He pushed off the door and drifted back into the street.

  The docks. He’d go to the docks. There were always ships there, sailors, people who minded their own business. Maybe he’d find someone selling cheap wine. Maybe he’d find a dark corner to sit in until his head stopped spinning.

  Maybe he’d find an ending that didn’t require him to make any more choices. The thought didn’t scare him the way it should have.

  So he turned his steps toward the docks, taking the long way down. The direct route would have cut through the market square—where merchants knew his face, where he’d bought supplies and books weeks ago when he’d still been investigating, still been useful. Or worse, it would take him past the Scarlet Crescent, where Ludmilla’s building rose like a red-shuttered accusation near the waterfront.

  He couldn’t face either.

  So he walked the outer lanes instead, following the hill’s curve as the streets sloped downward. His legs ached. His side hurt from where he’d slept against a wall last night—or tried to sleep. The dreams had been worse than waking.

  Above him, somewhere in the upper districts, the Main Chapter bell chimed the hour. The sound drifted down through Kentar’s layers—past the Arcane District with its narrow scholarly streets, past the respectable neighborhoods where his inn had been, down to where he shuffled through alleys that smelled of fish oil and rotting rope.

  He kept his head down. Kept moving.

  A pair of dockworkers passed him going uphill, hauling empty crates. One of them gave him a wide berth. The other spat to the side and muttered something about “arcane trash.”

  Gale didn’t react.

  The streets grew narrower as he descended, the buildings leaning in overhead like they were trying to block out the sky. The smell of salt grew stronger, mixing with fish and tar and the particular rot that clung to every harbor city. His boots squelched through something he didn’t look at. Someone shouted at him to watch where he was going. He sidestepped without responding.

  The mark pulsed. He pressed his thumb against it through the fabric, feeling the raised edges, the unnatural cold. For a moment he thought about pulling his sleeve up, letting it show. Let someone see. Let them report him to the Chapter, to the Society, to whoever handled violations of the Fifth Prohibition.

  But that would require explanations. Questions. He’d have to tell them about Daimon. About the laboratory. About what he’d done.

  He couldn’t.

  The docks appeared ahead—a forest of masts, the creak of wood and rope, gulls screaming overhead. Sailors moved cargo. Ships rocked gently in their berths.

  Gale’s feet carried him forward without thought.

  The eastern pier hadn’t changed. Same rusted pilings. Same barnacle-scarred planks that creaked under weight. Same gap between the fourth and fifth boards where you could see straight down to the water if you stood in the right spot.

  Gale had stood here seven weeks ago—a lifetime ago—waiting for Ludmilla’s message. For the boy she’d sent to fetch him.

  “Master Dekarios!”

  Dark hair. Blue eyes. That too-large jacket and the nervous energy of someone trying to prove themselves. The illusion had been perfect—flawless enough to fool an entire city—and the boy hadn’t even realized what he was doing was extraordinary.

  “Just call me Gale.”

  “Then... you can call me Dai.”

  The memory felt like a blade between his ribs.

  Gale walked to the end of the pier. His boots left wet prints on the wood. The sun was climbing now, burning off the mist, but the water below looked gray and cold. Waves slapped against the pilings with a steady, mindless rhythm.

  He stopped at the edge.

  No railing here. Just planks and open air and twelve feet of nothing between him and the water. He’d always thought that was careless design. Dangerous. Someone could fall.

  Someone could step.

  The mark on his wrist pulsed, cold and insistent. He looked down at it—at the silver-blue lines that marked him as something wrong, something broken. A violation made flesh.

  Fran would never wear this mark.

  She’d been stabbed. Bled on a chapel floor. Lost their child. And what had she done? Recovered. Stood up. Kept moving forward because that’s what she did. She was iron and fire and unyielding strength.

  He was the ash left after the fire burned out.

  She’d asked him to come back. He’d promised. Left her alone in that bed and said he’d return as soon as he could.

  But that was before.

  Before he’d followed a broken boy into a laboratory and seen what they’d done to children. Before he’d cast a curse that should never be spoken. Before he’d become the kind of man who hides in alleys and drinks until the dreams stop and wakes up not remembering how he got there.

  She deserved better.

  She deserved someone who could stand beside her without flinching. Someone who didn’t wear murder under his sleeve. Someone who wasn’t so godsdamned weak that he couldn’t even face going back to explain what he’d done.

  I killed him.

  The thought was clear. Simple. True.

  I killed Daimon Zaon and I don’t deserve to walk back into her life pretending I’m still the man she loved.

  His hand moved to the ring on his finger—the one she’d given him. Silver, unadorned, perfect. He twisted it once. Felt the familiar weight.

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  For a moment—just a heartbeat—something pulled at him. The memory of her hand in his. The way she looked at him sometimes, like he was worth saving. The quiet mornings and the sharp arguments and the thousand small moments that added up to home.

  He could go back. Could walk up to Vartis and knock on the palace door and tell her everything. She’d listen. She always listened.

  And then she’d see what he was.

  A murderer. A coward. A man who’d broken the Fifth Prohibition and couldn’t even find the courage to face the consequences.

  No.

  Better this way. Better she remember him as he was—annoying, arrogant, occasionally useful—than see him as he’d become.

  The water was very cold this time of year. He knew that. He’d drown quickly.

  It wouldn’t hurt for long.

  He took a breath. Let it out. Looked down at the gray waves. Shifted his weight to the balls of his feet.

  One step. That’s all it would take.

  One—

  “Dekarios.”

  The voice cut through the sound of gulls and water, sharp and familiar.

  Gale’s head snapped up.

  A man stood at the other end of the pier, silhouetted against the morning light.

  Small. Slender. Spectacles catching the sun.

  Gerolf Marzahn.

  Gale knew him instantly. The alchemist from the Arcane District—the one who’d analyzed the diamond shard, who’d warned him about its instability with clinical precision.

  But something was different now.

  The usual mildness was gone. Gerolf walked down the pier with the careful, measured steps of someone approaching a wounded animal. His hands were empty, visible, but there was a tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there before. A readiness.

  “Master Marzahn,” Gale said. His voice came out rough. He didn’t step back from the edge. “Bit early for a stroll.”

  “Is it?” Gerolf stopped about ten feet away. Close enough to speak quietly. Far enough to react if needed. “I could say the same. Though I suspect you weren’t planning a stroll at all.”

  Gale said nothing.

  Gerolf’s gaze dropped—just for a moment—to Gale’s wrist. Even covered, something in his expression shifted. Recognition. Or confirmation.

  “I can feel it,” Gerolf said quietly. “Your signature. It’s... wrong. Fractured.” He tilted his head, studying Gale like a specimen. “The Fifth Prohibition. I wasn’t certain until now.”

  Gale’s jaw tightened. “Come to report me?”

  “No.” Gerolf’s hand moved to his coat pocket. Slowly. Deliberately. “I came because my master has no further use for you.”

  The words sank in, heavy as stones in still water.

  “Your master,” Gale repeated. His mind was slow, sluggish with wine and exhaustion, but pieces were starting to fit together. “Ressan—” Memory cut through the fog: the warm body slumped in the alley, coat hanging open; the warded notes; the warehouse preserved like a held breath, crates spilling rough diamonds. He hadn’t just been running. He’d been hunted. “He was running from someone. Not Kibas, not just him.” Understanding clicked into place, sudden and ugly. The name in the notes. The one who kept going even when the infant specimens died. G. “It was you. You killed him.”

  “I removed an obstacle,” Gerolf corrected. “As I’m removing another now.” His hand emerged from his pocket holding something small and dark. A vial. “You served your purpose, Dekarios. And now—” He smiled, thin and precise. “—you’re a liability my master can’t afford.”

  Gerolf’s other hand came up holding a second vial. The liquid inside caught the light, faintly luminous, swirling slowly of its own accord, like a living storm in glass.

  Under normal circumstances, Gale could have disarmed him with a thought. But these weren’t normal circumstances. And the mark on his wrist pulsed cold, a reminder of exactly what he couldn’t do anymore.

  Gerolf threw the first vial without warning.

  Gale’s body moved on instinct—muscle memory from a thousand duels, a hundred threats. His hand came up, reaching for magic to deflect, to shield, to—

  The mark on his wrist flared brilliant silver-blue.

  Pain detonated through his arm. Not heat. Not cold. Something worse—a shock that felt like his nerves were being stripped away, magic recoiling violently back into the hollow the Severance had carved. He gasped, staggered, and the vial hit the planks at his feet.

  Caustic liquid sprayed across his boots and legs. The wood hissed and smoked. His trousers burned where droplets landed, sizzling through wool and skin, stinking of vinegar and burnt hair. He stumbled backward, clutching his wrist, and barely registered Gerolf’s second throw.

  This one hit his shoulder. Glass shattered. Something viscous and cold spread across his coat, eating through fabric. The smell was acrid, wrong—alchemical compounds enhanced by something that made them burn hotter, faster, more viciously than they should.

  Something caught the light under the alchemist’s coat: a clear stone set in a simple harness over his sternum, light moving inside it like caged lightning. Not jewelry. A reservoir. Gale recognised it instantly: a charged diamond, feeding whatever was in those vials.

  Gale tried again—reached for magic, just a simple kinetic push, anything to create distance—and the mark erupted in agony. White light. Electrical shock racing up his arm, through his chest, into his spine. His vision whited out for a heartbeat. He dropped to one knee.

  “Curious,” Gerolf said, approaching with measured steps. His voice was clinical, detached. “The mark prevents active channeling. But does it hurt? Or merely fail?”

  He pulled another vial from his coat. This one glowed faintly green.

  Gale’s hand moved—not to cast, just to block—but too slow. The vial struck his chest. Impact, not explosion. Something thick and heavy that spread on contact, hardening instantly into a resinous shell that contracted with each heartbeat, not just restricting breath but threatening to crush his sternum.

  He clawed at it, fingers scraping uselessly.

  Gerolf circled him like a scholar examining a specimen. “You’re not fighting back. Interesting. Is it the curse? Or have you simply given up?”

  Both, Gale thought distantly. Neither. He didn’t know anymore.

  Another vial. This one caught his cheek and jaw. Glass shards sliced skin; whatever was inside felt like molten glass poured straight onto nerve endings. Gale screamed—raw, ugly—and rolled, trying to scrape it off on the planks. Blood mixed with chemical residue, stinging, blinding one eye.

  He could move. Could roll. Could try to stand. The alchemical weapons were devastating, but they weren’t instantaneous. There were gaps. Openings. If he were sober, if he were focused, if he were—

  If he were someone who wanted to live.

  Gerolf’s boot connected with his ribs. The resin cracked but held. Gale tasted blood.

  “Subject 54 cried less during extraction,” Gerolf said, conversational. “Though I suppose he was made for it. You, on the other hand—” he added, watching Gale with mild curiosity. “You’re not even trying. I expected better from the man who unmade a child.”

  Daimon.

  Something feral stirred in Gale’s chest. He lunged—drunk, clumsy, no magic—just hands reaching for Gerolf’s throat. He managed two stumbling steps before Gerolf sidestepped and drove a knee into his ribs. Something cracked. Gale went down hard, coughing blood onto the pier.

  “Pathetic,” Gerolf said, almost gently. He crouched, gripped Gale’s hair, smashed his face once against the wood for good measure. “You killed the boy with a word. I’m doing this with glass and alchemy. Who’s the monster now?”

  Gale tasted blood and salt. Couldn’t answer. Could barely breathe through the resin shell and the broken ribs.

  Gerolf stood beside him. Gale could see his boots. Polished leather. Spotless.

  “You served your purpose,” Gerolf said quietly. “You found the boy. You brought him to the laboratory. You opened doors my master needed opened.” He pressed the toe of his boot onto Gale’s right hand, grinding it slowly into the caustic-soaked wood. Fresh, white-hot agony lanced up his arm, merging with the deep cold throb of the mark. A faint, sympathetic blue pulse shivered through the diamond beneath Gerolf’s coat.

  “And now,” Gerolf continued, his voice a soft, hateful monotone, “you’re a liability. The mark is a beacon. The Society will dissect you to understand it, and their path will lead back to my master’s work.” He released the pressure, leaving Gale’s hand a ruined, smoking mess.

  Another vial appeared. This one was dark, almost black.

  “This one is fatal,” Gerolf said matter-of-factly. “Respiratory collapse within thirty seconds. Painless, relatively. Consider it a professional courtesy.”

  He raised his arm.

  Gale watched through blurred vision. Didn’t move. Couldn’t move.

  The water below was gray and cold and close.

  I’m sorry, Fran.

  The vial started to descend—

  And then something hissed through the air, a sharp, metallic whisper.

  Gerolf jerked.

  For a heartbeat nothing happened. Then a line of red opened across his throat, and blood spilled down over his collar, bright and obscene against the morning light. The vial slipped from his fingers, bounced once on the planks, and shattered. Black liquid spread harmlessly into the gaps between the boards.

  Gerolf’s hands flew to his neck, fingers scrabbling uselessly at the sudden wetness. As he staggered, turning half toward Gale, a dark shaft came into view, jutting from the side of his throat.

  He made a sound—wet, surprised—and his knees buckled.

  He was dead before he hit the pier.

  Footsteps. Three sets. Boots on wood, unhurried now that the immediate danger was over.

  Gale tried to focus through the blood and the pain and the resin crushing his chest. Three figures approached through the morning light. Two he didn’t know—broad-shouldered men with the hard-worn look of dockside muscle, one still holding a crossbow. The third—

  Ezaryon.

  His brother walked with the same measured confidence he’d always had, the kind that came from owning half the trade routes in Kentar and knowing exactly how much power that bought. He stopped beside Gerolf’s body, crouched, and methodically went through the dead man’s pockets.

  A leather folder. A small notebook. A coin purse.

  And the charged diamond, unclasped from its harness.

  Ezaryon held it up to the light. The caged lightning inside pulsed once, then dimmed. His mouth tightened, just a fraction. He pocketed it without comment.

  “Eryx,” he said, standing. His voice was perfectly calm. “Go find the sheriff. Tell him we apprehended the man who killed Ressan, but he resisted arrest and died in the altercation.” He gestured to the vials scattered across the pier, the caustic burns on the wood. “Evidence of alchemical weapons. Smuggling. The works.”

  The man with the crossbow nodded once and left at a jog.

  Ezaryon turned to the second man. “Zeno. Make sure no one else comes down this pier for the next ten minutes. I don’t care how you do it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Then it was just the two of them. Two brothers and a corpse on a pier where the morning sun was burning off the last of the mist.

  Ezaryon looked down at Gale for a long moment. His expression was unreadable—anger and disgust and something that might have been concern, all carefully controlled beneath the surface.

  “You look like shit,” he said finally.

  Gale tried to laugh. It came out as a cough that brought up more blood.

  Ezaryon’s jaw tightened. He knelt, examining the resin shell, the burns, the ruined hand, the mark on Gale’s wrist that was still faintly glowing silver-blue. His eyes lingered on that mark for a beat too long.

  “Can you stand?”

  Gale shook his head. Couldn’t speak through the shell crushing his chest.

  “Figures.” Ezaryon pulled a small knife from his belt and began carefully cutting away the resinous coating. His movements were precise, methodical. “Your Duchess wrote to me,” he said, as if commenting on the weather. “Weeks ago. Asked me to keep an eye on you.” A faint, humorless huff. “I ignored it. My wife didn’t.”

  The resin cracked. Air rushed into Gale’s lungs. He gasped, coughed, tasted blood and salt and shame.

  “So we watched,” Ezaryon went on. “Watched you drink yourself stupid. Watched you haunt the slums. And when one of my men said the alchemist from the Arcane District was on your heels—” He finally met Gale’s eyes. “—I came.”

  “Why?” Gale rasped.

  Ezaryon’s expression hardened. “Because I’m not going to bury another Dekarios if I can help it.” The words came out edged, almost a scoff. “And despite everything—despite you leaving, despite you never coming back, despite the fact that looking at you still makes me want to hit you again—” He stood, offering his hand. “You’re still my brother.”

  Gale stared at that outstretched hand. At Ezaryon’s face, stern and tired and alive.

  At the choice he hadn’t thought he’d get to make.

  Behind them, voices approached. The sheriff. Witnesses. The machinery of Kentar’s law grinding into motion.

  “Take it or don’t,” Ezaryon said quietly. “But decide now. I’m done chasing you.”

  Gale reached up. His ruined hand wouldn’t close properly, so he used his left. Ezaryon’s grip was firm, unyielding, and he pulled Gale to his feet with the kind of strength that came from years of hauling cargo and managing men who respected force more than words.

  Gale’s legs nearly gave out. Ezaryon caught him, one hand on his elbow, steadying him without comment.

  “The alchemist had papers,” Ezaryon said, releasing him once Gale found his balance. “Orders, maybe. Correspondence. I’ll send them to your Duchess.” He paused. “Along with you.”

  Gale looked at him. “I can’t—”

  “Yes, you can.” Ezaryon’s voice was flat. “You’re going back to Vartis. Today. There’ll be a carriage waiting on the north road within the hour.” His gaze was hard. “And when you get there, you’re going to tell her everything. Why that alchemist wanted you dead. Whatever that thing is on your wrist. All of it.”

  “She doesn’t—”

  “She deserves to know exactly what kind of man she’s marrying.” Ezaryon stepped back. “And you don’t get to hide from that drowning in cheap wine on my docks.”

  The sheriff’s voice was getting closer. Questions being asked. Zeno deflecting with the ease of someone who’d done this before.

  “Go,” Ezaryon said. “Clean yourself up at my house first. I’ll have Alkisa look at the burns.” His expression softened, just barely. “She’ll complain the whole time. Then you leave.”

  Gale wanted to argue. Say he wasn’t ready. That Fran deserved better. That he couldn’t face her like this.

  But Ezaryon was already walking toward the sheriff, calling out something about evidence and self-defense, his voice shifting into the smooth confidence of a man who knew exactly how to control a narrative.

  Gale stood on the pier, broken and marked and alive.

  The sun was fully up now. The water was gray and cold and he was still standing on the wrong side of it.

  He turned toward the city. Toward the carriage that would take him north.

  Toward home.