I woke to the sound of boots hitting the floorboards and the door slamming open hard enough to rattle the walls.

  My hand flew for the SIN on instinct as I bolted upright.

  Ashe came up at the same time, breath sharp, already twisting toward the door—

  Only to be met with Lucius grinning like an idiot and Hugo looming behind him, blocking half the doorway with his shoulders.

  “Morning!” Lucius announced far too cheerfully.

  I barely had time to curse before something smacked me in the chest. I fumbled and caught it—a chunk of bread, still warm.

  Hugo leaned in and held out a meat skewer, steam rising from it. “Eat,” he said simply.

  My heart was still hammering as I stared at them. Ashe, fully awake now, glared daggers.

  “I thought we were getting attacked,” Ashe snapped. “I swear, Lucius, next time you do that I’ll kill you.”

  Lucius waved a dismissive hand. “Sure you will, Ashe. Finish your breakfast.”

  Ashe muttered something vicious under his breath and snatched the skewer, biting into it like it had personally offended him.

  I ran a hand through my hair, exhaling. “You could’ve knocked.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” Lucius said.

  “C’mon,” Hugo added, already turning back toward the hall. “Eat up. We move.”

  I blinked. “Move?”

  Lucius clapped his hands once. “Change of plans. Ashe, you’re with me today. Scouting duties.”

  Ashe stiffened, eyes narrowing slightly—but he nodded.

  Then Lucius turned to me, that familiar crooked smile settling into place.

  “And you, Thomas, will be playing merchant today. With Marcel and Cran.”

  My shoulders sagged instantly. “Great. How come I don’t get to do the fun missions with you?”

  Lucius stepped closer and ruffled my hair like I was still fifteen. “Because, young Thomas—”

  “I lack experience,” I finished flatly.

  He grinned. “Exactly.”

  Then, just to make it worse, he leaned in and tapped my nose with a finger. “Boop.”

  “You asshole,” I muttered.

  Hugo laughed—a deep, booming sound that shook the doorway.

  “Eat your bread, merchant boy,” he said. “Try not to start a war before supper.”

  Lucius was already halfway down the hall, Ashe following a step behind him, expression unreadable as ever.

  I watched them go, chewing slowly, the taste of smoke and salt on my tongue.

  Merchant duty.

  Safe. Boring.

  And somehow, that made me more uneasy than any scouting run.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and finished tightening my belt, fingers moving on habit more than thought. My boots went on next, leather creaking softly as I pulled them snug. The room still smelled faintly of smoke and old wood, the morning light slipping in through the shutters in thin, pale lines.

  Across the room, Ashe was packing his gear with quick, efficient movements. Every strap had its place. Every buckle was checked twice. He moved like someone who didn’t trust things to stay where they were unless he made sure himself.

  “Thomas.”

  I looked up.

  He didn’t turn around at first. Just paused, hands resting on his pack.

  “Don’t walk in uninvited like those two again,” he said quietly. “You hear me?”

  My throat tightened. I nodded before realizing he couldn’t see it. “Yeah. Of course.” I hesitated, then added, “I’m… sorry about yesterday.”

  Ashe exhaled slowly, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction. He turned then, leaning back against the table.

  “I’m not mad at you,” he said. “It was just… sudden.”

  There was more behind that word than he was saying.

  “I didn’t mean to—” I started.

  “I know,” he cut in gently. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Silence settled between us, not heavy this time—just careful. Ashe picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder, adjusting the strap across his chest.

  “We’ll be in and out today,” he said, more to himself than me. “Just scouting.”

  I nodded. “Be careful.”

  He met my eyes for a moment longer than usual. Something flickered there—uncertainty, maybe. Or something he decided not to let surface.

  “You too,” he said.

  Then he stepped past me and out the door, leaving the room quieter than it had been before.

  I sat there for a second, listening to his footsteps fade down the hall, and wondered why an apology felt heavier than armor.

  ***

  The marketplace was already alive when I reached it—noisy, crowded, and smelling of fresh bread, sweat, and damp stone. Sunlight spilled between the buildings, glinting off polished apples and bolts of dyed cloth. For a city preparing to be burned from the inside, Bredford looked remarkably content.

  Marcel spotted me first, standing behind our stall with his sleeves rolled up and a grin plastered on his face. Cran—shorter, older, and permanently unimpressed by everything—was already deep in conversation with a pair of customers arguing over the price of wool.

  “Ah, Thomas!” Marcel called out. “Good to see you. Busy morning.”

  I glanced at the small pile of coins already stacked near the scale and felt my shoulders sag. “I can tell.”

  “We’ve got a lot of customers today,” Marcel continued cheerfully. “So please be a dear and help us, hmm?”

  Cran snorted. “He means stop standing there like a wounded dog and start counting.”

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  I sighed, forced a smile onto my face, and stepped behind the stall. Merchant mask on.

  For the next hour, I became someone else.

  I weighed grain, counted coins, nodded sympathetically at complaints about prices, and bartered like my life depended on it—which, in a way, it did. I learned quickly that people loved to talk when they thought you were harmless. A woman buying cloth complained about rising tithes. A farmer grumbled about guards skimming off the top of grain shipments. A dockworker mentioned which mills ran through the night and which shut down early.

  I listened. I remembered.

  Coins passed through my fingers in a steady stream—warm, dirty, real. Not like the SIN. Not like blood.

  “Careful there,” Cran muttered as I slid a scale weight back into place. “You’re shorting yourself.”

  “Right,” I said, adjusting it. “Sorry.”

  Marcel leaned over with a smirk. “Look at him. If this mercenary thing doesn’t work out, we’ll make a trader of you yet.”

  “Don’t curse me like that,” I muttered.

  A man with ink-stained fingers haggled fiercely over a length of linen. A woman with tired eyes paid in exact change and thanked me twice. A pair of guards passed by, barely sparing us a glance.

  I smiled. Bowed my head. Counted coin.

  All the while, my eyes kept drifting toward the eastern quarter—toward the granaries and mills Ashe had been watching the night before. Wagons came and went, heavy with grain. Light guards, just as he’d said.

  Two weeks, I reminded myself.

  Two weeks of smiles and small talk.

  Then fire.

  As another customer stepped up to the stall, I straightened my shoulders, fixed my expression, and reached for the scale again—playing my part in a city that had no idea how close it was to losing everything.

  The afternoon wore on, the sun climbing higher as the market grew louder and more crowded. My hands moved on their own now—counting coin, folding cloth, answering questions—while my thoughts drifted elsewhere.

  Then the noise changed.

  Trumpets cut through the marketplace, sharp and ceremonial. Drums followed, slow and deliberate. Conversations faltered. People turned.

  Gilded stagecoaches rolled into view, their lacquered sides gleaming, drawn by matched horses with braided manes. Church banners fluttered from their flanks—white and gold, pristine, untouched by dust.

  Fanfare echoed between the stone buildings as the procession moved through the square.

  My stomach dropped.

  “They’re early,” Cran muttered under his breath.

  I watched as the crowds parted, some bowing their heads, others craning their necks to see. The stagecoaches were filled with girls and young women, seated stiffly behind glass windows, hands folded in their laps. Some cried openly. Some stared ahead, hollow-eyed. A few clutched small tokens—charms, bits of cloth, prayer beads—like lifelines.

  The Right of First Calling.

  They were being taken to the cathedral to swear vows.

  My hands went numb.

  The coaches passed slowly, deliberately, as if the Church wanted the city to look. Wanted everyone to remember who decided what happened to their daughters.

  And then—

  I saw her.

  Black hair, pulled back but loose at the edges. Older. Thinner. Her face angled just enough toward the window that the light caught her cheek.

  My heart stopped.

  “Mara?” I whispered.

  The world narrowed to that single pane of glass.

  She lifted her eyes.

  For one impossible, unbearable heartbeat, they met mine.

  Coins slipped from my hands, scattering across the stall with a clatter I barely heard.

  “Mara,” I said again—louder this time.

  I stepped forward.

  Hands seized my arm.

  “Don’t,” Marcel hissed, yanking me back hard enough that I stumbled.

  I thrashed instinctively, panic flooding my chest. “That’s her,” I said hoarsely. “She’s alive—Marcel, let go—”

  “Thomas,” Marcel said sharply, his grip iron. “Look at me.”

  I did, breath coming too fast.

  “You run now, you die,” he said. “And you take all of us with you.”

  The coach rolled on.

  I twisted again, straining for one last glimpse through the crowd. The window slid past, sunlight flashing off gold trim—

  And she was gone.

  The trumpets faded. The drums moved on. The market noise slowly returned, as if nothing had happened.

  I stood there shaking, Marcel still gripping my arm, my pulse roaring in my ears.

  “That was Mara,” I said, voice breaking. “I know it was.”

  Marcel didn’t answer right away.

  He bent down, gathered the fallen coins, and pressed them back into my trembling hand.

  “Breathe,” he said quietly. “If that was her… then this city just became a lot more dangerous for you.”

  I stared after the vanished procession, the cathedral bells already beginning to ring.

  Alive.

  Or close enough to destroy me.

  Either way, the Church had just lit a fuse they didn’t know existed.

  I sank down onto the low stool behind the scales, hands resting uselessly in my lap. The weight of the moment pressed down on my chest until it felt hard to breathe.

  Alive.

  The word echoed in my head, clashing violently with everything I had accepted as truth. I could still see her face in the glass—older, yes, but unmistakable. The shape of her mouth. The way she held herself, tense but proud. No amount of time or fire could have carved that away.

  But I couldn’t move.

  If I ran, I’d tear the disguise apart. I’d bring guards, deacons, maybe executioners down on us before nightfall. I’d burn the mission, the Devils, Lucius, Ashe—everyone.

  And still—

  I clenched my jaw until it ached.

  Marcel and Cran exchanged a look. Not curious. Concerned.

  Cran cleared his throat and busied himself straightening a bolt of cloth that didn’t need straightening. Marcel stayed where he was, watching me carefully.

  After a moment, he reached out and gave my shoulder a firm, grounding pat.

  “It’s alright,” he said quietly, low enough that no one else could hear. “We bide our time.”

  I swallowed hard. “They’re taking her to the cathedral.”

  “I know,” Marcel replied. “And charging in after her would get you killed before you reached the steps.”

  My hands curled into fists. “I can’t leave her.”

  “You’re not,” he said, steady as stone. “You’re just not saving her today.”

  The market noise pressed back in around us—haggling voices, clinking coin, laughter that suddenly sounded obscene. I forced myself to straighten, to pick up the scales again, to look like a merchant who hadn’t just seen his dead return to life inside a gilded cage.

  Inside, something dangerous and fragile had shifted.

  I nodded once. Barely.

  “Alright,” I said, though the word tasted like ash. “We wait.”

  Marcel’s hand lingered on my shoulder a second longer, then withdrew.

  And as I weighed out another customer’s purchase with shaking hands, my eyes kept drifting—again and again—toward the distant spires of the cathedral.

  Two weeks, Lucius had said.

  I wasn’t sure the city had that long.

  The sun had begun its slow slide toward the rooftops when I felt it—that prickle at the back of my neck that told me someone important had arrived.

  Lucius stepped into view first, dust on his boots, cloak loosened like he’d walked half the city without caring who saw him. Ashe was a step behind, hood low, eyes already searching.

  They saw me at the same time.

  Lucius didn’t smile.

  Ashe stopped dead.

  Marcel noticed it too. He said nothing at first—just leaned closer to Lucius and murmured something I couldn’t hear. Lucius’s expression hardened, the easy humor draining from his face as his gaze flicked back to me.

  Ashe didn’t look away.

  Not once.

  Cran cleared his throat loudly. “Thomas,” he said, a little too casually, “give me a hand, yeah? Let’s load up the goods before the light goes.”

  I nodded and moved without arguing. My hands shook as I lifted the crates, muscles working on instinct alone. Cloth. Scales. Coin box. Everything went back where it belonged, neat and orderly, like the day hadn’t cracked open something dangerous inside me.

  I could feel Ashe’s eyes on my back the entire time.

  When the last crate was sealed, Marcel approached. His voice was calm, professional—too calm.

  “Good work today, Thomas,” he said, clapping my shoulder once. “Head back to the inn. Get some rest.”

  It wasn’t a suggestion.

  I looked past him. Lucius met my eyes and gave the slightest nod—approval, warning, command all wrapped together.

  Ashe’s jaw was tight. His hands were clenched at his sides like he was holding himself in place.

  “Alright,” I said quietly.

  I turned and walked away before anyone could stop me.

  The streets felt narrower now. Louder. Every bell toll in the distance made my stomach knot tighter. The cathedral spires rose above the city like accusing fingers, catching the dying light.

  Alive.

  The word burned behind my eyes as I made my way back to the inn.

  Whatever I had seen today had changed everything.

  And judging by the looks Lucius and Ashe had shared—

  They knew it too.