Khalen saw it instantly. Of course he did. His smirk came out like it had been waiting in his pocket.

  “That’s Lyra,” he said, low.

  Aydin’s ears rang. “Princess, like actual? Or everyone will stab me princess?”

  Khalen nodded toward a cluster of young men hovering at the edge of the work area, pretending to be useful. One was tall and thick through the shoulders, arms wrapped in rope muscle, jaw clenched like he wanted to fight the night personally. An amber cord circled his forearm, crystal chips catching light like coins.

  “That’s her fan club,” Khalen said. “Half want her, half want her job, all of them praying the Veil picks someone else.”

  One of the guys heard Khalen and scoffed, loud enough to carry. Not a laugh. A warning.

  Aydin swallowed.

  Lyra finished tying a knot, then snapped her fingers. “Water,” she said, calm. A teen ran it to her.

  Lyra took the cup and offered it to the wounded man. He tried to push it away.

  “No,” he rasped. “Give it to the, ” He coughed, wet and ugly, the sentence dying in his throat.

  Lyra’s smile stayed. Her eyes went flat for half a second. “Drink,” she said, voice cold and exact for one sentence. “If you faint, you bleed faster.”

  The man drank.

  Lyra softened again like she had flipped a latch.

  Aydin felt his spine tighten. Pretty, and sharp.

  Khalen stepped into the warehouse like he belonged. People glanced up, saw him, loosened by a fraction, not because they liked him, because he was a known quantity. Competence did that.

  “Streets are breathing,” Khalen said to no one in particular. “Don’t jinx it.”

  “Barely,” someone answered.

  Khalen waved Aydin forward. “Come on. Before your knees decide to file a complaint.”

  Lyra turned as they approached. Her smile arrived fast, warm, practiced. Aydin hated that his body leaned toward it anyway. Her gaze flicked to his scraped forearms, then his hands, then back to his face, and it was not flirtation. It was triage.

  “Sit,” she said gently. “Hands.”

  Aydin hesitated, then sat because the chair was already there and his legs were already tired. He tried to grip the chair’s edge anyway.

  His fingers slid. No pressure. No certainty. Just wood under skin that refused to report back.

  Lyra stepped close, clean, smelling faintly of salt oil and something herbal, like she had rubbed it into her hands to keep them from cracking. She tugged her sleeve back once, exposing her wrist. A thin green cord sat there, tight, its crushed crystal chips polished smooth from constant touch.

  Then she took his forearm with two fingers, careful, not like he was fragile, like she did not want grit on her skin.

  Aydin almost laughed. Instead, he winced. He could not feel her touch properly, and that scared him more than the basilisk had.

  Lyra’s gaze narrowed. “Your hands are numb.”

  Aydin tried to shrug. “Is that bad?” he asked, because he suddenly felt twelve.

  Lyra didn’t panic. She didn’t coo. She reached to the side, grabbed a cloth, wiped his forearm with brisk efficiency.

  “Pins and needles?” she asked.

  “Mostly needles,” Aydin said. “Rented out, and whoever has them is doing a bad job.”

  Lyra blinked once, then smiled again like that was charming.

  It was. That was the problem.

  Khalen leaned against a post nearby, eyes still on the room. He said it casually, like he was answering a question Aydin hadn’t asked.

  “She doesn’t heal.”

  Aydin glanced up.

  Khalen nodded toward Lyra. “She stabilizes. Keeps you breathing until morning. Don’t expect miracles.”

  Lyra’s expression didn’t move, but her eyes flicked toward Khalen like she wanted to throw something at him and couldn’t because she was currently being perfect.

  Aydin filed that away.

  Lyra cleaned a scrape. Wrapped it. Tight. Competent.

  Then, without thinking, she re-centered the folded cloth stack beside the basin until the edges lined up perfectly, like the world might behave if the corners did.

  Her voice lifted after, gentle enough to take the edge off the air. “You did something out there,” she said, not as a question.

  Aydin stared at her. He had thrown sand. He had been useless for most of the fight. “I tried,” he said.

  Lyra held his gaze. Then she angled slightly so others could hear, not loud, just placed.

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  “You bought us seconds,” Lyra said. “People are alive because you did something.”

  Heat crawled up Aydin’s neck. Not pride, not exactly, more like embarrassment with nowhere to go.

  From the edge of the work area, a thick-shouldered silhouette shifted.

  A voice, loud enough to land. “Sand doesn’t stop teeth,” Rand said. “It just makes the funeral gritty.”

  Khalen didn’t even look over. “And yet you didn’t stop anything,” he said, easy. “Breach-night manners, Rand.”

  Rand’s amber cord clicked when he moved, chips knocking each other like quiet coins.

  A quiet, clipped sound came from behind Lyra.

  “Lyra.”

  Not shouted. Not cruel. Just a name with a hook in it.

  Lyra’s shoulders tightened by a fraction, then settled. Her smile stayed, but it got smaller. Careful.

  Aydin didn’t have to look to know who it was.

  Rand’s eyes landed on Aydin like a weight. Jealousy. Contempt. A warning with no words.

  Lyra didn’t look at him. Either she didn’t notice, or she had learned not to.

  Aydin did.

  He swallowed. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

  Lyra’s smile returned to safe. “Don’t thank me,” she said. “Just be a little more careful next time.”

  Aydin snorted. “Noted.”

  He glanced at her hands, at the way she kept wiping them, at the way a stray gust tried to sneak grit into the room and she flinched like it was an insult.

  “Your clean corner is going to hate the outside world,” Aydin said before he could stop himself.

  Lyra’s smile brightened. “Why?”

  “You’re allergic to sand,” Aydin said. “That’s a bold career choice out here.”

  Lyra tilted her head. “Adventurers don’t always die messy, sometimes it’s clean,” she said, still sweet.

  Then, like she had forgotten herself for one private second, she scraped a grain of grit off her thumbnail with her teeth. Small. Sharp. Almost feral.

  Aydin saw it.

  Lyra’s eyes flicked up and caught him seeing it. Her smile stayed, but her gaze held a challenge for half a beat.

  Then it vanished. Mask sealed.

  “You’re funny,” she said. “That’s going to get you hit.”

  “It’s my brand,” Aydin said.

  Khalen made a small approving noise.

  That was when the warehouse door shifted. Not slammed, opened with purpose.

  A man walked in like he had already decided what everyone in the room would do next.

  Wardpriest Voss.

  He wasn’t dressed like a priest. He was dressed like someone who worked, heavy coat, corded belt, hands scarred in the way hands got when they tied stones into place and held them against pressure.

  His hair was dark and unremarkable.

  His eyes were not.

  Tired. Sharp. Always measuring.

  He smelled faintly of spirits, covered with mint resin and salt oil like he had tried to hide it from the world and only half succeeded. High-functioning. Contained. Dangerous only to himself.

  He didn’t stumble. He didn’t sway. He moved like a man who had decided who he wanted to be.

  He crossed the warehouse without looking at anyone first. He went straight to a cracked wardstone on a worktable, its spidered crackline still glowing dull in places. He placed two fingers on it like a mechanic checking heat. His jaw tightened.

  “Rot’s in the cracks again,” he said.

  Not prayer. Not lament. Information.

  Lyra’s posture snapped into something cleaner. Her shoulders squared, her smile softened, her voice got sweeter.

  “That’s my father,” she said.

  Aydin noticed it so hard it felt like getting slapped.

  Voss looked up. His gaze went to Lyra, softened in a way that made the whole room make sense.

  Then his eyes moved. They landed on Aydin.

  And Aydin felt, instantly, like he had stepped into mud with clean shoes.

  Voss didn’t glare. He didn’t shout. He just made a quiet decision.

  Dislike.

  Not because Aydin was a stranger.

  Because Aydin was looking at his daughter and his daughter was looking back.

  Voss’s eyes flicked to Aydin’s hands, then to his face, then back to Lyra like he was doing a ledger, calculating cost.

  “Khalen,” Voss said, voice flat.

  “Knew you’d show up eventually,” Khalen replied.

  Voss didn’t smile. “Their timing was expensive.”

  Khalen spread his hands. “Everything’s expensive. That’s why we count.”

  Voss’s gaze stayed on Aydin for one extra beat. Then he spoke, still to Khalen.

  “Explain him.”

  Aydin opened his mouth. Nothing came out that mattered.

  Khalen answered for him. “He’s new, loud, and somehow still alive.”

  Lyra’s lips twitched.

  Aydin wanted to throw something at Khalen. He had no feeling in his fingers. Unfortunate.

  Voss’s gaze sharpened. “Stonehaven doesn’t gamble on unknown hands.”

  “No,” Khalen agreed. “It needs luck. Whether I found it in the streets or a castle, don’t complain.”

  A sound at the doorway. A small clack, like something being flipped.

  Four people entered, and the room shifted around them the way it shifted around Voss. Not fear. Recognition.

  A worker near the supply racks straightened like relief had hands. “Maera, we’re down to two clean rolls!”

  Maera stepped in chewing salt-candy like it was the only pleasure she allowed herself. Ledger tucked under her arm, eyes already counting the room. A thin amber cord at her throat marked her as someone who made numbers into survival.

  “Two rolls,” she said. “That’s three kids and a prayer. We will have to manage.”

  Someone else called, sharp with panic trying not to be panic. “Orren, south lane’s sand-choked again!”

  Orren flipped a route-token between his fingers like a coin, over and over, like it might answer him. He didn’t even look at the speaker.

  “Then go north,” he said. “Don’t make me say it again.”

  Selka came in humming under her breath, low and steady, ward cadence threaded through it like rope. Her hair was braided tight, threaded with pale blue chips that clicked when she moved.

  “Hush,” she murmured, not to one person, to the whole room. “They can hear panic.”

  A shaking boy bumped the table edge and flinched like he expected to be yelled at.

  Brenn set a cup of tea down in front of him without a word.

  “Drink,” Brenn said softly.

  The boy stared at it like it was a miracle, then drank anyway.

  Maera finally stopped chewing long enough to speak, eyes on Voss’s cracked stone. “Count.”

  Voss didn’t look away from the wardstone. “Not enough to make it cheaper.”

  Maera nodded like that was a number.

  Orren’s token flipped again. “Gates are holding. If we have to run, we run north.”

  Selka’s hum didn’t stop. “People are settling. Don’t let them hear and panic.”

  Brenn sipped from a different cup that had apparently always existed. Then, softly, “They’ll see it anyway.”

  No one argued.

  Because he was right.

  Voss finally moved. He stepped away from the wardstone and turned toward the room.

  His gaze landed on Lyra again, soft.

  Then it hardened as it moved to everyone else. Work face.

  “Wardstone on the west line is drifting,” Voss said. “Ground’s unstable. If it slides, the Veil thins there will be no barrier.”

  Lyra’s head snapped up. “West line?”

  Orren’s token flipped faster. “That’s the open forest. No one comes back from that side.”

  Maera’s jaw tightened around her candy. “When was the last time someone tried?” she said, like she hated that she knew the answer.

  Lyra was already moving. She tugged her sleeves once as she walked, more habit than vanity.

  Then she didn’t tug them again because she was going to get dirty.

  Aydin watched her go.

  Khalen watched Aydin watch her.

  Khalen’s smile got worse. “Come on.”

  They moved out into the night.

  And before Aydin could follow, a harried worker barked, “Rand, west line, now, stop hovering!”

  The thick-shouldered guy turned at the name, annoyance flashing across his face like the mask slipped.

  Rand.

  Of course it was Rand.

  He stepped in Aydin’s path like an accident. He brushed Aydin’s shoulder hard, not enough to knock him down, enough to say something.

  His voice was low. “Sand-boy thinks he’s special,” Rand muttered, like a curse.

  Then he kept walking like nothing had happened.

  Aydin stood there, pulse spiking, hands numb, jaw clenched.

  Khalen didn’t even look back. He just said, quietly, “Congratulations.”

  “What?” Aydin hissed.

  “You exist,” Khalen said. “That annoys people.”

  Aydin swallowed whatever he wanted to say.

  Then he followed them into the wind.

  From the west, something thudded once under the sand, like a fist testing a door.