Standing in the middle of the street wearing a high-district damask tunic was basically like wearing a neon sign that screamed I looked down at the fancy silk. It was comfortable, sure, but in the midday sun, it made me look like a noble who had lost his horse and his mind. I needed to blend in. I needed to look like a man who actually worked for a living, rather than a man who jumped over balconies for a living.

  I stopped a passing street-sweeper—a man who looked like he hadn’t smiled since the last century—and asked for the nearest market. He pointed a bony finger toward the East Gate and grunted.

  The market was a chaotic mess of noise, smells, and people trying to sell you things you didn’t need for money you didn’t have. Perfect. My natural habitat.

  I found a merchant whose face was more wrinkled than a dried plum, standing behind a pile of "pre-loved" garments. I picked out two rough linen shirts, a pair of sturdy brown trousers, and some boots that looked like they had only survived one previous owner’s death.

  "Five Silver Crests for the lot," the merchant squeaked, rubbing his hands together.

  I stared at him. I stared so hard I think I gave him a headache. "Five? For this? I’ve seen better fabric used to plug sewage leaks. I’ll give you three Coppers and a thank you."

  "Coppers?! This is fine weave! Four Silver!"

  "One Silver Crest," I said, leaning in close so he could smell the "roasted sausage" Lady Belrose had complained about. "And you’re going to throw in a belt, or I’m going to start telling everyone in this market that you’re selling clothes stolen from a plague ward."

  We went back and forth for ten minutes. It was glorious. I hadn’t felt this alive since I arrived in the Upper City. By the time I finished, I handed him one Silver Crest

  "May your descendants be born with two heads and no ears, you thieving rat!" he hissed as I walked away with my new (old) clothes.

  "Have a lovely day, friend!" I called back, feeling much better.

  The "Sallow Gutter" was the kind of motel where you didn’t ask why the sheets were damp, you just thanked the gods they weren’t on fire. It cost me three copper marks for a room that was essentially a closet with a grudge. The walls were so thin I could hear the man next door dreaming about soup.

  I woke up at the crack of dawn, my teeth still vibrating from two days ago My brain felt like it had been scrubbed with steel wool. I dragged myself out of the lumpy straw mattress and pulled on my work clothes—the scratchy linen shirt and the boots that looked like they’d been salvaged from a shipwreck.

  The biggest problem? No mask. No scarf. In the Warrens, my face was always a mystery, hidden behind layers of soot-stained fabric. Up here, pretending to be a common laborer, my face was just... out there. I felt naked. Like a turtle that had lost its shell and was trying to convince everyone it was just a very small, very ugly dog.

  I reached Oren’s Fine Silks before the sun had fully cleared the horizon. Oren was already there, looking like a gargoyle that had been cursed with sentience and a permanent scowl.

  "You’re four minutes late," he barked, shoving a broom into my chest. "The floor doesn't clean itself, and the dust is starting to look more productive than you are."

  "Good morning to you too, Oren. Did you sleep on a bed of nails, or is this just your natural radiance?" I muttered.

  He didn't answer. He just pointed toward the back. My morning consisted of two hours of sweeping up silk offcuts and another three hours of hauling heavy bolts of velvet up from the cellar. My back was screaming.

  I thought, hauling a roll of crimson fabric that weighed as much as a small horse.

  Around midday, Oren emerged from his workshop holding a small, cedar-wood box tied with a ribbon of pure gold.

  "Take this to the Sterling Estate," he commanded. "It’s a specialized order for Lady Elara. If you drop it, don't bother coming back. I’ll have your hands turned into pincushions."

  The Sterling Estate was a monument to "too much money." It was all white marble and statues of people who looked like they’d never had a bad day in their lives.

  I was led into a sun-drenched terrace. And then I saw her.

  Lady Elara was standing by a stone railing, overlooking the gardens. She wasn't wearing the heavy, suffocating gowns I’d seen in the market. She was in a morning robe of translucent silk that seemed to be held together by a prayer.

  In the Warrens, women were practical. They were bundled in wool, covered in soot, or hidden in shadows. Beauty down there was a sharp knife or a clean drink. This... this was different. She had curves that felt like they were designed by a mathematician with a dirty mind. Her skin was the color of cream, and her hair was a cascade of gold.

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  I stopped dead. My face, usually hidden and stoic, suddenly felt like it was sitting on top of a furnace. Without my mask to hide behind, I felt every twitch of my lips, every widening of my eyes.

  "The... the delivery, My Lady," I croaked. I kept my head bowed so low I could see the peeling leather of my shitty boots.

  I heard the soft of her heels on the stone as she approached. "Oh? Oren sent a new boy? Lift your head, messenger. I like to see who I’m speaking to."

  I didn't move. I couldn't. If I looked up, I was fairly certain my brain would melt out of my ears. "I’m just a laborer, My Lady. The box is quite delicate."

  I saw her hand—soft, manicured, smelling of jasmine—reach out and tip my chin upward. I had no choice. I looked. Up close, she was even more terrifying. The way her robe draped over her... it was an anatomical disaster for my concentration.

  "My," she whispered, a playful smirk dancing on her lips. "You’re as red as the velvet in your shop. Are you ill, or is it just the sun?"

  "It’s... a very bright garden," I managed to say. My internal monologue was screaming at me to jump, to blink, to run, to do anything other than stand there like a vibrating idiot.

  She took the box, her fingers lingering against mine. The contact felt like a spark of static. "You have very intense eyes for a delivery boy," she remarked, her gaze scanning my face. "Most men in this city look at me like I’m a statue to be bought. You look at me like you’re afraid I might bite."

  She leaned in just a fraction, her perfume filling my head. "Would you like me to?

  I almost swallowed my tongue. "I... I think I’m needed back at the shop, My Lady. The dust doesn't sweep itself, and Oren's temper has a very short fuse."

  She chuckled, pulling back just enough for me to breathe, though her eyes remained locked on mine. "Actually, laborer, you look like a man who knows how to use those shoulders for more than just carrying velvet. I have a small problem. My son, Julian, is... delicate gentle child. A group of boys in the alley just past the north gate have taken an interest in his pocket money and more . The City Watch is too busy polishing their buttons to care about a few 'youthful scuffles'."

  She reached into a hidden pocket of her robe and produced two heavy Gold Marks. My heart did a little skip that had nothing to do with her curves and everything to do with my my my whatever .

  "Discourage them," she whispered, dropping the coins into my palm. Her fingers were cold. "Properly. I want them to have a very vivid memory of why they should never approach a Sterling again."

  "Consider them discouraged," I said, my voice finally losing its stutter. Give me a group of thugs over a beautiful woman any day. Thugs I know how to handle.

  The alley was narrow, damp, and smelled of spoiled cabbage—the kind of place where the sun goes to die and the shadows feel like they have teeth. I saw them immediately: five of them, looking like they were trying to grow moustaches and failing miserably. They were surrounding a kid in an expensive academy cloak who looked like he was about to burst into tears.

  "You know," I said, leaning against the damp brick wall and cracking my knuckles. "I’ve had a really weird morning. I got yelled at by a gargoyle, moved half a ton of velvet, and had a very confusing conversation with a lady in a bathrobe. I really need to hit something."

  The boys turned. They weren't men; they were teenagers who had grown too fast and thought that made them kings.

  "Beat it, peasant," the leader sneered, waving a rusted pipe. "This doesn't concern you."

  "Actually, it does. You see, your face is currently bothering me. It’s too... intact."

  The first one lunged. I didn't jump. I didn't want to pay anything for these losers. I stepped inside his swing, my movement a blur of practiced violence. I drove my fist into his gut, feeling the air leave him in a satisfying .

  The other four came at once. It was a mess. I wasn't being elegant; I was being a brawler. I took a hard punch to the mouth that tasted like copper and iron, and a glancing blow from the pipe caught the bridge of my nose. I felt the warm slip of blood start to leak down my lip.

  No void, no ringing teeth,. Just knuckles on bone. I caught one by the hair and slammed his knee into his chest. I hooked another across the jaw, sent him spinning into a pile of trash crates.

  "Don't," I spat, wiping a glob of blood from my mouth and staring at the remaining two. "Touch. The kid. Ever again. If I see you near this gate, I won't just hit you. I’ll make sure you forget how to walk."

  They scrambled away, dragging their groaning friends with them. I turned to the Sterling kid, who was staring at me like I was a ghost. "Go home, kid. Stay in the light."

  He bolted. I stood there, breathing hard, enjoying the dull throb in my jaw. It was the most honest I’d felt since I arrived in this sun-bleached city.

  "Impressive," a voice hissed.

  From the shadows at the end of the alley, a final figure emerged. He was a "kid" in the way a bull is a "calf." He was massive, his head nearly touching the low-hanging laundry lines. He was wearing a leather vest that was straining against a chest the size of a beer keg.

  As he walked, a faint, whistling sound started. White vapor began to leak from his pores, thick and scalding.

  An ability user.

  "You hurt my crew," the giant rumbled. His voice was wet, like steam trapped in a pipe. He raised a fist, and a blast of superheated air shot toward me.

  ’Fuck your crew asshool’

  I rolled to the left, the heat singeing the hair on my arms. He swung again, his movements heavy but powerful, another burst of steam whistling through the air like a boiling tea kettle. He was focusing entirely on his power, his eyes glowing with the effort of cooking the air around him.

  He lunged for a third time, his hand open, ready to blast my face with a direct hit. I didn't dodge this time. I dived low, sliding through the puddles of filth, and drove my shoulder into his lead knee.

  He buckled. His steam hissed aimlessly into the sky. Before he could recalibrate, I stood up, grabbed the back of his thick neck, and used his own massive momentum to help him.

  I slammed his forehead directly into the corner of the stone building. It was a brutal, ugly sound. The steam stopped instantly. The giant crumpled into a heap of dead weight, his ability flickering out like a doused candle.

  I stood over him, my nose bleeding freely now, staining my scratchy linen shirt. I looked down at the "powerhouse."

  "That’s the problem with you lot," I muttered, wiping my face with my sleeve. "You focus so much on the fancy tricks that you forget the world is made of hard corners. You don't need magic to break a skull. You just need a wall and a bad attitude."

  I looked at my hands. They were shaking, but not from the Jump.

  I headed back toward Oren’s. I had silver and two gold in my pocket, blood on my shirt, and a very long afternoon of sweeping ahead of me