For a few moments after Seo Hyunmin and his companions disappeared into the street, the square remained unnaturally quiet.

  The market had not stopped. Merchants were still calling to customers, carts still rattled over stone, servants still moved through the crowd with baskets balanced against their hips. But all of it felt muted now, as though the square itself had taken a breath and not yet decided whether to release it.

  Too many people had seen what happened.

  A beggar had forced a noble to his knees.

  That was not the kind of thing a crowd forgot.

  Min was the first to move. He snatched up his bowl with both hands as if someone might kick it again and stared at Chunma like he had just watched a man walk into a fire for no reason.

  “Are you insane?” he hissed.

  Chunma sat back down against the wall and brushed a little dust from his sleeve. “If I were, I doubt I’d have done it so cleanly.”

  Min blinked at him.

  For a second he looked too stunned to speak. Then he leaned closer, lowering his voice even though half the square was already whispering.

  “That was Seo Hyunmin.”

  Chunma glanced toward the street the young noble had vanished into. “So you said.”

  Min stared harder. “No, listen to me. Seo Hyunmin. Upper district. Hangs around Hwang Jinhyuk like a damn shadow.” His voice dropped even lower. “People like that don’t just let this go.”

  Chunma looked at him, then at the crowd.

  The murmurs had already started spreading in little waves.

  “That beggar grabbed him.”

  “I saw it.”

  “He made him kneel.”

  “Who is that boy?”

  A merchant standing near a tea stall kept glancing over his shoulder as he spoke to a customer. Two servants whispering near the fruit stalls tried not to stare and failed. Even some of the beggars sitting along the walls had lifted their heads now, their expressions somewhere between disbelief and caution.

  The whole square had felt the shift.

  Good, Chunma thought. Let them talk.

  Min dragged a hand through his hair. “Why are you sitting down? We should leave.”

  “And go where?”

  “Away from here.”

  Chunma’s mouth twitched faintly. “Brilliant. I’m sure the city will forget my face if I walk quickly enough.”

  Min looked like he wanted to say something sharp in return, but nothing came out. He just exhaled hard and dropped down beside him again, gripping his bowl so tightly his knuckles turned pale.

  Chunma let his gaze drift over the square.

  The city was the same as it had been before. Stone streets. Market stalls. Servants hurrying from errand to errand. Guards pretending not to notice what didn’t concern them. Only the mood had changed.

  That, too, was familiar.

  He had seen markets fall silent before. He had seen crowds pull back and whisper after a single act of force made the ordinary rules stop applying. In his previous life, that silence had usually come before blood.

  Here, it came after humiliation.

  Smaller stage. Same instinct.

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  A pair of older beggars approached from the far side of the square, both men dressed in robes so worn they were little more than stitched-together scraps. Chunma recognized them from earlier. They had been sitting near the tea stall, listening while the merchants talked and pretending not to.

  Now they had no interest in pretending.

  One stopped a few steps away and looked directly at Chunma. “You’re the one who did it.”

  It was not a question.

  Chunma met his gaze. “Yes.”

  The older man studied him in silence, then glanced once at Min’s bowl. His eyes moved back to Chunma.

  “You knew who that was?”

  “No.”

  Min made a noise under his breath, halfway between panic and disbelief. “That wasn’t the important part.”

  The second beggar chuckled softly, though there was no humor in it. “Maybe not to him.”

  The first man ignored the interruption. “And if you had known?”

  Chunma leaned his shoulder back against the wall. “Would the answer change what happened?”

  The older beggar’s brow twitched.

  Min turned toward him. “Please don’t talk like that.”

  Chunma didn’t even look at him. “Then stop asking obvious questions.”

  The second beggar laughed outright this time, earning a sharp glance from his companion.

  “You’ve got a mouth on you,” he said.

  Chunma’s eyes stayed on the first man. “I had stronger reasons than courtesy.”

  The older beggar followed his gaze down to Min, then back again. Whatever he saw in Chunma’s face seemed to make him pause.

  “Seo Hyunmin won’t take this well,” he said at last.

  “No,” Chunma replied. “He didn’t strike me as graceful.”

  The second beggar barked out another laugh. Even Min looked horrified at that one.

  The first man exhaled through his nose. “Forget Seo Hyunmin. He’s only a dog with a rich collar. The problem is the house he runs back to.”

  At that, Chunma’s eyes sharpened slightly.

  Now that was the part worth hearing.

  The beggar noticed. “So you can listen.”

  “I was always listening.”

  Min groaned quietly. “You really are trying to get killed.”

  The first beggar nodded toward the upper districts. “Hwang Jinhyuk.”

  The name settled into the air with more weight than the others had.

  Even some of the nearby whispers seemed to falter around it.

  Chunma said nothing.

  The older man continued. “If Seo Hyunmin follows anyone, it’s him.”

  “And what exactly is Hwang Jinhyuk?” Chunma asked.

  Min turned to stare at him in disbelief. “What is he?”

  The question had come out flatter than Chunma intended. Still, he did not take it back.

  The second beggar rubbed his jaw. “You really don’t know.”

  “Should I?”

  Now even the first beggar seemed uncertain whether to be annoyed or impressed.

  “He’s Hwang Jinhyuk,” Min said, almost choking on the name. “Young master of the Hwang family. A Resonant. Nyros, they say.” He lowered his voice instinctively, though Jinhyuk was nowhere near the square. “People like Seo Hyunmin don’t have pride of their own. They borrow his.”

  That was useful.

  Chunma let the information settle.

  A noble house. A young Resonant. Enough influence that even the mention of his name tightened the square around them.

  He had started smaller fires than this before and watched them burn cities.

  The first beggar was still watching him closely. “Do you understand now?”

  Chunma looked at him. “I understand that your city raises soft men with expensive robes and lets them mistake fear for authority.”

  Min shut his eyes. “Oh, for the love of—”

  The second beggar grinned despite himself. The first one did not.

  “You speak boldly for someone wearing rags.”

  Chunma’s gaze cooled. “Rags are easier to replace than pride.”

  That earned him a full second of silence.

  Then the first beggar slowly shook his head. “You’re either very brave or very stupid.”

  Chunma shrugged. “They usually say that before they realize the difference.”

  Min looked at him like he wanted to physically cover his mouth.

  The first beggar studied him one last time before stepping back. “Whatever you are, the square will be talking about you by sunset.” He cast a final glance toward the street Seo Hyunmin had taken. “And if he has any pride left, he’ll be talking too.”

  With that, the two older beggars turned and left, disappearing back into the market crowd.

  Min watched them go, then rounded on Chunma the moment they were out of earshot.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Chunma raised an eyebrow. “That’s a broad question.”

  Min leaned in closer, voice tight with panic. “You don’t talk to elders like that. You definitely don’t talk about noble houses like that. And you absolutely do not force one of Hwang Jinhyuk’s lackeys to kneel in the middle of a crowded square and then sit down like nothing happened.”

  Chunma looked out across the market again. “He kneeled. The square watched. Then the market kept moving.”

  “That is not the point.”

  “It usually is.”

  Min stared at him for a long moment, then dropped his face into one hand.

  “You really have changed.”

  At that, Chunma finally glanced at him properly.

  The boy was frightened. Not just startled. Not just anxious. Truly frightened. His shoulders were tight, his breathing shallow, his fingers still wrapped around that bowl as if it were the only thing keeping him anchored.

  For all his muttering, Min had still stayed.

  That was worth noticing.

  Chunma’s voice, when he spoke again, was quieter.

  “If they come for you because of this,” he said, “stay behind me.”

  Min looked up slowly. “What?”

  “I’m not repeating myself.”

  For the first time since the square had gone quiet, Min fell completely silent.

  The market noises gradually returned to something like normal. Merchants resumed shouting over prices. Customers moved from stall to stall. A child laughed somewhere near the fountain in the center of the square. Life, as always, preferred momentum over meaning.

  But the whispers had not disappeared.

  They had only spread outward.

  And somewhere beyond the market district, beyond the common streets and merchant squares, beyond the walls that divided silk from mud, word was already climbing toward someone who would not ignore it.