03 // SHORT STORIES // CITY OF THREADS 

Adrian Strand awakens in his own coffin. 

Robbed of his right arm, his memories and his purpose, he claws his way up through the gravedirt and gazes out at a city he once failed to save... but he is not alive of his own volition.

James Acker tends the graves and thinks about murder. Not his own, but the case he failed, years ago. He sees a man rise from the dead... and his day gets a lot more interesting.

Kimber Ross sits at her desk, staring at the map in her hands. This delicate filigree parchment, a work of love, gives her a beautiful, twinkling view of all the life in the city... until one light goes out forever.

An amnesiac. A grave keeper. A scholar. A grieving husband. A Governess. Five people, five stories, all with one terrible connection.

In thirty seconds, the most important man in the city will die. Their stories will shape the fate of this great city--or damn it forever.

A 17,000 word steampunk story, winner of Honourable Mention in the Writers of the Future competition in Fall 2025, placing in the top 15% of global entries.

City of Threads

A beautiful, impossible light exploded behind his eyes, and then Adrian Strand awoke in his own grave.

He wasn’t aware of this at first--all he knew was darkness, cold, and the crushing weight around him. He tried to speak, but the taste of death filled his dry mouth, heavy and cloying, and the smell struck him all at once--rot and rust, soil slick with worms. His lungs seized. Panic rose in him like a tide, and he moved to lash out.

Something pressed tight against his chest and limbs. Wood. A box. The answer came to him remarkably quickly, but offered no comfort--he'd been buried alive.

Reeling like a trapped animal, Adrian's left fist struck the wood above his head, groping about. He moved his right to do the same, but his hand didn't connect.

He reached, straining upwards, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't seem to reach the lid of the casket with both hands.

Frustrated, Adrian slammed his left fist against the bottom of the box, but reeled back when he felt his knuckles rap painfully against something jagged. Reaching out desperately, his fingers found a textured grip, some kind of leather.

A knife?

His chest heaving with panic, he brought the tool upward, driving whatever it was into the lid above his head. Wood cracked, splintering in his face. The coffin lid buckled under the thrust, bending, letting in a wet crumble of dirt.

He kicked then, planting his heels against the narrow confines and shoving against the lid until it caved inward. A rush of soil poured over him, smothering, choking--but he forced his body upward, kicking, clawing, packing the dirt down beneath him, then heaving again. Kick, pack, rise. Each motion burned his lungs raw, each gasp filled with grit, but still he fought.

The world pressed tighter with every movement. His chest heaved, stars swam behind his eyes, but at last his hand punched through--up into air, into the chill of night.

Adrian Strand dragged himself free. He sprawled across the loose earth, gasping, coated head to toe in grave-dirt. He rolled onto his back, his heaving breaths fogging the air.

Somebody had switched off the sky.

Above him was only empty blackness, endless and complete. It was darker, still, than even the coffin had been--pure pitch, without depth or horizon. For one mad instant, he thought he saw stars--four tiny pinpricks of light scattered across the dark. He lifted his right arm toward them--instinct, longing--only to find that nothing answered him.

The stars were gone. And so was his arm.

Adrian stared in disbelief. From the elbow down, his right arm was simply missing, as though it had been swallowed by the dark. The flesh at the end was not ragged or raw but smooth, sealed over like an old scar, pale and tight against the bone beneath. The sight of it wrenched his stomach into a knot. It was wrong--so wrong--that the phantom of his hand still twitched, still clenched and unclenched as though it remained.

A cry threatened to tear free of his throat, but he bit it back. Breath came harsh and shallow as the memory found him.

The roar of an army.

The gleam of steel.

The agony of metal biting through skin and tendon.

He was running now, but they were faster.

Their presence stripped the world of life.

The door flung wide.

Faces in the dark.

Tears in candlelight.

Death incarnate.

Each image came in broken fragments, jagged as glass. Then… nothing.

A hollow void where the rest of him should have been, and a terrible realization:

Adrian Strand was a man who had no idea who he was.

Fighting back his disbelief, he forced his gaze away from his right arm and further down his body. The grave-dirt had soaked into every seam and fold, but even beneath the grime the remnants of his clothing told him plenty. He wore what must once have been a trench coat, though its vibrancy had been leeched by time into a sickly, faded beige colour that seemed to have once been a bright yellow. He had no memory of the garments, yet looking at them he felt the weight of absent meaning.

Beneath the coat clung a white undershirt and slacks, or what remained of them, stiff with sweat and age and dirt. His boots fared little better--once solid leather, now cracked and half-rotted, their soles worn flat from journeys his mind refused to recall. Even his belt was ragged, its brass buckle dulled and scarred.

Had he been a soldier? An aristocrat?

Adrian raised his left arm, staring at the blade that remained clenched in his whitened knuckles. To his surprise, the object that had freed him from his grave was far from a simple knife--the ornate hilt of a rapier stared back at him. It was a beautiful, yet tarnished thing, rusted from years of neglect. The blade had snapped halfway up from the base, leaving a jagged shard of metal in its place that tapered off to an ugly point.

It was his sword.

Adrian knew it as well as he knew the reflection staring back at him in the tarnished metal, yet couldn't understand why it had once been so important to him.

Like the sword, Adrian Strand was incomplete; lying there in his own grave dirt, he felt as though his memory had been carved away from his very being, as his arm had been cut from his body.

However, one thing was now certain to him--he had not been buried alive.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

A beautiful, impossible light danced across the parchment, and Kimber Ross smiled. The young student stared eagerly at the paper as the pages shimmered, lines of ink sliding across the rough material in slow, deliberate patterns. Lines became streets, streets became neighborhoods, and soon the entirety of her world sprawled out before her, a circular labyrinth of streets and alleyways filling what had once been empty space.

The Great City was alive in her hands.

On her desk, a small vial of moss shriveled, the green of the plant fading away. Small sparks rose from the plant as it died, its life force pumped through Kimber and into her map.

She leaned closer, her breath heating the surface of the parchment as she traced a fingertip along one of the glowing streets. The paper pulsed faintly with light, creating points and lines, tethers and whorls, as though the tide of life itself flowed through them--because, in truth, it did.

The Great City was a place where nothing stood still; towers shifted their faces overnight and bridges stretched to meet new roads. It was said that the city’s founding alchemists had bound its stones with vitae, the same living essence that now threaded through the blood and bone of all its inhabitants. Even now, centuries later, the city drank deeply of vitae, reshaping and expanding when needed.

Every chart was already half out of date the moment it was drawn, which was why the shimmering sheet in her hands was worth more than a pouch of silver. It was no ordinary map, but a living one, inscribed with ink drawn from the same sources of vitae that fed the streets themselves. With it, any citizen would be able to follow the city’s every shift without waiting on the Wardens’ official notices or the slow updates of hired surveyors--a simple convenience in a place that never stood still.

She smiled wider, clutching it to her chest.

Most other students at the Collegium treated vitae like any other commodity--a thing to be measured, taxed, rationed. With a steady supply of extant life farmed for sacrifice, the status quo would be maintained, and the Great City would endure.

Kimber could never quite bring herself to think of it that way. To her, vitae was pure possibility--the life force that kept the lamps glowing, the forges burning, and the city’s heart beating. The Thread Engine, the great life-machine at the center of the city, was what kept the miracle alive, holding the nullmatter open and ensuring nothing was lost to the ravenous darkness that surrounded the city.

Without it, the Great City would be nothing--exist nowhere. The engine held reality in place, ensuring one plus one was two and that a step forward moved you in the right direction. With it, she felt certain there was nothing the world couldn’t be coaxed into becoming.

And with her map, she'd prove it.

Kimber took one last look at the surface of the map, gazing longingly at all the little dots of life that littered its surface, then set it carefully on her desk. Pulling open the drawer, she retrieved three vials of moss and placed them next to the dead one.

This was the day.

Kimber smoothed the creases from her skirt and tried to ignore the knot forming in her stomach. She had barely slept a wink. She had been waiting for this day for months, hounding bureaucrats, sitting through endless appointments, and presenting her case to committees who had barely looked up from their ledgers. But finally, impossibly, she had secured what most journeymen alchemists never even dreamed of--an audience with the Grand Weaver himself.

The title carried weight in the Great City--more than a crown, more than any heraldic sigil or old-world title. Nicholas Flamel, the man who bore it, was the only one permitted to be bound directly to the Thread Engine.

The Grand Weaver’s power kept the Great City stitched together, his mind flowing through the Thread Engine’s mechanisms like veins through flesh, arranging streets to his design. He was the fulcrum of the entire alchemical order, the one trusted to mediate between the Collegium, Governor, and old dynastic families at the city’s center. To be granted even a moment of his time was to stand in the presence of living history that stretched back to the time of the old world.

And best of all, Kimber had attained this opportunity without the one connection that should have made it easy. Lydia Teryx-Linet, scion of the most powerful alchemical family still alive, had once been her sponsor. Lydia oversaw the day-to-day details that Nicholas Flamel couldn't handle, unburdening the Grand Weaver of the mundane. To walk the inner rings of the city was, in many ways, to walk inside her domain.

But the two of them had parted on bad terms, the sort of break sharp enough that Kimber could never bring herself to speak of it.

And so here she stood alone, at the threshold of greatness, clutching her invention like a talisman. If the Grand Weaver saw in her map something more than a clever curiosity, then Kimber knew she might yet claim a place as a future alchemist of legend. She might even rise high enough that, one day, she would stand alongside Lydia again--not as a failed pupil, but as an equal.

The thought made her dizzy.

Staring at the map on her desk, she gazed longingly at the brilliant spot of light that illuminated the very center of the paper, the glow of vitae from the Thread Engine itself. Soon she would be part of it, another in the sea of life at City Hall.

She rose from her chair and caught her reflection in the tall, warped mirror bolted to the corner of her room. A young woman gazed back--dark-skinned, her hair a frizzing halo she'd tried and failed to tame with a comb. At least her dress was presentable, patched neatly where the fabric had worn thin. She straightened her collar, brushed flecks of dried moss from her sleeves, and forced herself to stand tall, shoulders back, as though posture alone might lend her the dignity of someone twice her age.

Kimber Ross was a woman who knew who she wanted to be.

“You look like a scholar,” she told herself, squaring her jaw. “Not a child.”

The scholar in the mirror gave no reply.

Kimber tucked the living vials into her satchel, fastened the clasp, and whispered a silent prayer--not to the old gods, but to the Great City itself. Today, she would prove that she belonged among the best of them.

And then a light on the map went out.

At first, Kimber wasn't sure she'd seen it right. One moment the map had been working perfectly, vitae tracing the outline of every living thing in the city. Light pooled in some places and shrank away from others, ebbing and flowing where vitae was most prominent. But now, right at the center, was a spot of darkness, an absence of light atop City Hall itself.

The map was broken.

Kimber bit back a muttered oath, grabbing the map with one hand and shaking it about in annoyance. Her last few attempts had gone poorly--too much infused vitae tended to cause heat, and a heated parchment led to a painful lesson in fire safety--but this was another level of frustration.

Seizing another vial of moss from her satchel, Kimber felt the small rush of energy flow up her right arm and down her left as the moss died, contributing its life force to the map. In front of her, the ink seemed to redistribute itself in places, altering to match what few changes had been made to the city in the last minute.

But still, the dark spot stayed.

Kimber sighed. Walking to the inner ring of the city would take a good half an hour, depending on what changes the Grand Weaver was currently making, and if she was even a few minutes late she would miss her allotted appointment.

She held the parchment up to the light, tilting it this way and that, as though the flaw might vanish with a better angle. Sometimes bubbles of vitae got trapped in the ink, little pockets of light that refused to flow properly until coaxed. But the dark blotch didn’t flicker or smear--it stayed perfectly still, an inky wound in the heart of the city.

“Come on, don’t you dare do this to me now.” She gave the page another sharp shake, half-expecting the ink to slosh back into place.

Nothing.

Her annoyance soured into unease. The map wasn’t perfect yet, but it had one principle that never lied--vitae flowed where life did. The map couldn’t invent an absence where life still pulsed.

Kimber swallowed, suddenly aware of the silence in her little house. She snatched another vial from the satchel with hands that trembled more than she wanted to admit, watching the moss wither as its vitae bled into her skin. Heat rose through her arms, tingling at her fingertips, and the ink lines on the parchment brightened, sharpened, corrected.

The Great City unfolded in perfect detail--streets, towers, pulsing rivers of life. But in the exact center, where City Hall’s great spire anchored the skyline, the darkness yawned wider.

Not a bubble. Not a smudge. A hollow.

Her stomach turned as the realization began to sink in.

It wasn’t the map.

Kimber’s chair scraped across the floor as she lurched to her feet, parchment clutched against her chest. The vials rattled in her bag as she slung it over one shoulder, heartbeat hammering in her ears. She didn’t even pause to snuff the lantern by her desk.

Something was terribly, horribly wrong.

Kimber Ross tore open her front door and sprinted into the streets.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

A beautiful, impossible light danced behind the glass, and James Acker swore loudly.

The kettle on his stovetop gave a sputter like a dying cough, then flared with sudden brilliance, a tongue of blue fire licking the ceiling before snapping back down into the brass vessel.

“Rotten thing!” James grabbed a rag and yanked the kettle off its stand, the vitae reservoir inside rattling loudly. The glass window inset in the handle glowed far too bright, threads of living moss shriveling to ash as the kettle greedily drank them dry. He slapped at the release valve, hissing as a fraction of the scalding heat bled through the cloth and into his unprepared hands.

A puff of smoke belched from the spout, carrying with it the acrid stink of burned moss and boiled tea. For a moment James thought the whole contraption might blow apart in his hands. Then, mercifully, the light guttered out. The kettle gave one last pitiful wheeze before collapsing into silence.

James stood there in his cramped kitchen, breathing hard, rag smoldering faintly in his hand. He glanced up at the black scorch mark now adorning his ceiling and let out a long, exasperated sigh.

“Right. It's going to be one of those mornings, I suppose.”

Tossing the kettle into the sink with a loud crash, he shook out his hands, gritting his teeth. There were no burns, thank goodness, but his early morning tea was ruined.

James Acker was a man who knew exactly who he was.

A gravekeeper.

Not a glamorous calling, but a job nonetheless. A job that kept the roof patched, the pantry stocked, and his boots in one piece. A job so low on the ladder it barely qualified as work at all, a single rung above Null Miner, which was to say--one rung above hell.

Graves were relics of a bygone age, before the Revolution had taught the city the cost of nostalgia for the old world. No one spent coin on stone markers and dirt anymore, not when fuel was scarce and the furnaces were always hungry. The dead were cheaper to burn, both vitae and flesh bled dry to keep the Thread Engine running. What graves remained--those stubborn monuments from years past--were kept only because tearing them down was more expensive than leaving them to decay.

And so, it fell to James to tend them. To sweep the overgrown paths, to shore up the tilting headstones, to chase off vandals drunk on boredom and cheap rotwine. Or, more often, to repair the damage after the fact--chiseled profanities and shattered stone.

Stalking across the small room with a glower, James set about readying himself for the day. His house was hardly more than four walls and a roof, a crumbling shack in the corner of the old cemetery. It was unique only in its solitude--these days it was hard to find an open bed anywhere but the row-houses along the edge of the outer ring, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder like drunks trying to stay upright.

The whole of his life fit into that single room--a narrow bed tucked beneath the window, a squat iron stove and a scarred table that served as desk, counter, and cutting board alike. Shelves sagged under the weight of chipped crockery and the odd book rescued from the refuse heap. The floorboards groaned at every step, their gaps stuffed with rags to keep the wind from howling straight through. A lantern hung crooked from the beam overhead, its flame guttering weakly as if resenting the approaching dawn.

The only thing that James was truly proud of was his vitae farm--though most with any sense wouldn’t have called it that. In the far corner of the room, stacked carefully on a rickety set of shelves, sat rows of glass vials and jars. Some were narrow tubes swarming with fat, pale maggots that writhed and clung to the glass, feeding on scraps of old chicken bone and withered plant. Others were broad-mouthed mason jars, their sides fogged with condensation, where plants with wide, leathery leaves and thick black bulbs pressed against the glass as though desperate for more space.

It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. The maggots kept him stocked with vitae when coin for moss was scarce, and their castings and life force made for rich soil to coax the stubborn nullflowers into growing. Between the two, James managed to keep himself alive without begging the ration office for more than his due. It was a quiet defiance, in its own way--a patch of life wrestled out of a city that seemed determined to bleed it dry.

James shrugged into his long coat, patched at the elbows and frayed at the hem, and tugged his boots on. His shovel leaned against the wall beside them, the blade dull and dusty from years without use.

He paused long enough to glance at the mirror nailed above the washbasin. It was cracked through the middle, distorting his reflection into two uneven halves--one grim, one weary. James sighed, ran a hand through his unkempt hair, and turned away.

The dead were waiting.

It was early, far too early for the glow of the Thread Engine to fill the city with what passed as daylight, so James was forced to light his lantern. Seizing a mason jar, he inspected the nullflower within for oddities before sliding the plant, jar and all, beneath the brass frame he kept beside the door.

Tucking a handful of vials into his pocket, he held the last one firmly in his fist, watching as the maggots dropped lifeless to the bottom of their glass prison. In his other hand, the bulb of the flower, once black as pitch, began to expand, unfurling as vitae flowed into it. Deep purples flowed across the surface of the plant, casting the room in a strange hue, until they glowed with an unearthly light bright enough to see by.

Nullflowers, while technically illegal, were commonplace in the outer rings of the city. Cheaper and more readily accessible than lantern fuel, they were the only weed that could survive in a world of concrete and metal, cropping up near the borders of the Great City in the thousands. While their exact nature wasn't fully understood, their exposure to the nullmatter made them a perfect source of phosphorescence for any desperate enough to risk retrieving them. Physical contact with raw nullmatter drained vitae fast enough to kill a person in seconds, but the flowers had evolved to withstand it, becoming an essential, if odd, part of daily life.

James cracked the door to his hut, wincing as the chill seeped in. The world beyond his door was cold and wet, a polluted fog still clinging low where the heat of the Thread Engine hadn’t yet burned it away. The air smelled of wet stone, ash, and something faintly metallic, the way it always did in the outer rings.

The graveyard stretched out before him, a patch of stubborn tradition fenced off from the rest of the city. Rows of tilted headstones jutted from the soil like crooked teeth, their names weathered into illegibility, their borders hemmed in by rusted iron rails. The old park gate were long gone--torn down, melted, and fed to the furnaces after the Revolution--so the graveyard lay open to the world, a relic left to molder.

Beyond its rusting fenceline, the skyline of the Great City's outer ring rose in a jagged thicket of brass and iron, smokestacks coughing into the morning gloom. Somewhere behind them, obscured by distance and haze, the inner rings climbed higher, stacked and interlocked like gears in some vast machine. And higher still, at the very heart of the city, loomed the tower of City Hall, its crown spiked with channels of brass--silent now, but soon to blaze with the excess light and heat of the Path Engine that would chase the night's darkness from the streets.

Without the engine to see by, most of the world was a dim shadow of itself--James could see a scant few lights in distant windows, either early risers like himself or those stubborn few night owls who were soon to retire for the day. All else was silent, the streets almost tranquil in their vacancy.

To James, mornings were the best time of all.

Lifting his lantern and suppressing a yawn, he stepped outside to greet the day.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Mornings were the worst time of all.

It was a fact that Adrian knew intrinsically, a detail about himself not obfuscated by the hole where his memory should've been.

Adrian Strand hated mornings. It wasn't much, but it was a start, and more than he'd known about himself ten minutes ago. There were a great many more parts to the whole of his person, he knew, but even a single piece was better than nothing.

As he drew himself to his feet, brushing off dirt, he tried to focus on the other information in his grasp, the details about himself that he could confirm.

His name was Adrian Strand. He hated mornings. He'd lost a fight and had been buried with his coat and most of his sword.

It was the broken sword that vexed him the most--seizing the ornate rapier from the ground with his left hand, he held it aloft, staring at the tarnished metal. Inscribed on the pommel in thin, careful scrawl was one word.

Ignition.

He clumsily tucked the blade into the belt of his tattered slacks, nearly prodding himself, then took a good long look at his surroundings.

The graveyard he now occupied was located at the edge of the Great City; a name that came to him, now, as naturally as his own. He could see the city in the distance, a rounded jigsaw of metal and stone, and could surmise that in his death he'd been relegated to the outskirts of this world, forgotten.

Something about that thought terrified him, but he wasn't certain why.

That fear, however, paled in comparison to the dread he felt when he looked the opposite direction of the city streets.

The outskirts of the city did not end in countryside or forest, nor in the rolling fields that some dim part of Adrian expected. Instead, barely half a kilometer beyond the graveyard’s broken fence, the world itself simply… stopped.

The Great City trailed off into a vast sheet of raw, unfinished metal, its surface flat and featureless, already dulled with rust at the edges. Scattered across it lay the carcasses of half-abandoned drills, scaffolds, and mining rigs--iron teeth frozen mid-bite, as though their work had been interrupted and never resumed. Some still leaned precariously, skeletal arms clutching at nothing. Others lay collapsed, twisted into heaps.

And past that began the null.

Adrian felt the name as soon as he saw it, as though it had been carved into the marrow of his bones. Nullmatter.

It stretched out in every direction, a featureless black ocean that shifted and rippled without truly moving, as though the world had been stripped of shape and left behind only a raw absence. It swam and held still all at once, like ink suspended in water and yet impossibly firm, pressing against the edges of reality itself. Looking at it too long made his stomach churn, as though the emptiness was reaching for him.

The null wasn’t a distant horizon--it was unreality given shape. And the city, sprawling and imperfect though it was, existed only because it fought against that unreality at every waking moment.

Adrian turned back toward the crooked stones and rusted skyline, shivering. Forgotten or not, being inside the Great City was better than being outside it.

A pinprick of light caught his eye.

At first he thought it was another hallucination--like the phantom stars he’d seen above his head--but no, this light bobbed and swayed, a strange purple that was warm against the fog behind it.

It was a person!

Adrian froze. Every instinct screamed at him to find a place to hide. But what was the point? He was cold and alone; huddling behind a tombstone would only delay the inevitable moment he was noticed.

But at that moment, Adrian Strand learned something else about himself.

He had faith in people.

Against his better judgement, he straightened up, trying and failing to brush more dirt off his clothes, and swung the tail of his jacket across the hilt of his sword, covering it.

The strange purple lantern swung into view between two leaning headstones, and a man in a long coat appeared behind it, boots crunching against gravel.

He was older than Adrian by at least a decade, maybe two--early forties, if the lines at the corners of his eyes were to be believed. His hair was a scruffy brown, pulled back into a careless knot that did little to hide the fact it hadn’t seen a comb in days. A shadow of stubble clung to his jaw, thick enough to suggest he’d long since abandoned the idea of shaving regularly. The beige trench coat that hung from his shoulders had once been fine, but years of weather and wear had left it stained, patched, and frayed at the seams.

He looked tired, irritated, and utterly bored--until his eyes lifted and landed on Adrian Strand.

The gravekeeper stopped dead. His jaw worked silently for a moment, as if processing his reaction, and then he spoke.

“Ah, not again.”

For a heartbeat, they simply looked at one another. Adrian, half-covered in dirt, hair wild, coat in tatters, stared back like a child caught stealing from the pantry. He opened his mouth, searching desperately for something that would explain why he was standing on top of a freshly disturbed grave.

What came out of his mouth was… less than optimal.

“Mornin’.”

The gravekeeper blinked. Then, with all the weariness of a man who had seen far too much and slept far too little, he sighed loudly.

“It’s too early for this.”

“You're telling me,” Adrian attempted. “I… slept like the dead.”

“Get out.”

“I, sorry, I'm--” Adrian stammered. “Look, I don't know why I'm--”

“Out,” the man stated again. He pointed his free hand to the gate, eyes narrowing. “I’m being nice here, pal. Get out before I make you.”

The gravekeeper lowered his hand, placing the lantern at his feet, and drew something from his pocket. Adrian tensed, half expecting a blade, but instead was met with the sheen of a beautifully carved smoking pipe. It was, somehow, the only untarnished thing about the man, an item of such pristine condition that Adrian could see his reflection in the polished wood.

The man then drew forth a vial from his jacket that appeared to contain a small quantity of writhing white maggots.

As Adrian watched in disbelief, the man snapped his fingers and a spark of flame appeared at the tip of his index finger, a candle in the early morning gloom. He touched it to his pipe and then shook out his hand, inhaling deeply.

Seeing that flame, there was a profound wrongness about it to Adrian, an inexplicable sense of dread that stuck in his gut. As the light flickered out, extinguished by the man's gesture, the feeling subsided.

“Listen,” Adrian attempted. “I swear to you, I'm not trying to cause trouble!”

“Oh yeah? Then what happened there?”

The gravekeeper exhaled loudly, smoke pouring from his lips as he inclined his head. Reaching out, he unscrewed the glass vial in his hand and let the dead maggots fall to the disturbed soil beneath his feet.

“I’m sick of you people thinking you can deface these plots just because the Revolution failed,” the man snapped. “I don’t care what you think they did, you need to have some respect for your fellow humans.”

Adrian struggled for words as the gravekeeper's glare deepened. There was no possible explanation for his current state. Defeated, he turned and began to walk away, plodding across the graveyard toward the missing gate.

And that was when the situation went from bad to worse.

“Hang on…” the man muttered, almost to himself. As the strange, pale intruder turned and began to walk away, James’ eyes narrowed, purple lantern-light flickering against the yellow of the intruder's jacket. He knew that garment--had seen it before, years ago, when the streets still burned with slogans and banners.

“Stop right there!” James barked.

Adrian froze, spine stiffening as if the word itself had nailed him in place. He half-turned, palm raised, but James was already moving. The gravekeeper dipped into his coat, fingers closing around three of his glass vials.

“You think you can just walk in here, strip the dead, and expect me not to notice?!” James snarled. He snapped his fingers again, and the maggots withered. The charge was electric, heat running through his core and out the other arm.

Some part of Adrian's gut twisted, deeper this time, and he felt the action before he saw it, whipping around just in time to see the tips of the gravekeeper's fingers ignite in flames once more. A fan of fire arced wide, flashing through the air just left of Adrian’s head and showering him with cinders.

Adrian yelped, ducking instinctively, heart hammering in his throat. His left hand went to his rapier and he drew it with one motion. The grip felt wrong, the balance off, but he gripped that broken blade like it was any kind of protection.

“You can't begin to understand who you've just looted, you bastard!” the gravekeeper snarled. James discarded the used maggots, vials and all, and drew another two from his coat. He didn't want to hurt the grave-robber, but if the man knew how to use the blade in his hand…

“I didn't loot anybody!” Adrian cried. He tried not to let his arm shake. “I swear, it's mine! I woke up wearing it!”

James froze, unsure if he'd heard the man correctly, and silence fell over the graveyard. His pipe tilted in his slackening mouth, threatening to fall, and he pushed it back up with one hand.

“What did you just say?”

“It's… mine,” Adrian repeated. “The jacket, the sword, these clothes… and that grave. It's all mine.”

With one smoldering hand still raised defensively, James glanced behind him, to the defaced plot the intruder had robbed. He felt a sense of familiar calm wash over him, and for the first time since his demotion to gravekeeper, James Acker began to think like a detective again.

The headstone had long since been defaced by vandals, leaving nothing but ugly scratches where the occupant's name had once been. Below it, the freshly upturned soil had been tossed about the vicinity but lacked the intentional placement of a man with a shovel. It was a frantic spray of dirt on the dewy grass, as if the earth had been clawed aside.

James let his eyes drift from the ruined plot back to the intruder. The lantern’s purple glow washed across the man’s features, stark and unforgiving.

The first thing he noticed was the man’s skin--pale, almost ashen, stretched too thin across sharp cheekbones. The man had the kind of gauntness that wasn’t malnourishment so much as… absence, like the world had forgotten to fill him in properly. His black hair hung unevenly around his face, matted in places with dirt, and his eyes--deep-set, weary things--caught the light strangely, like they weren’t quite sure how to reflect it. Most bizarre of all, the right sleeve of his once-yellow coat ended in a ragged slash below the elbow, tattered and empty. Only his left hand gripped the blade, awkward but determined.

Every inch of him was caked in grave dirt, ground into his clothes, hair, even under his nails. It clung to him not in patches but in layers, as if the man had crawled through the earth itself, dragging it out with him.

James felt his mouth go dry. Even the most incompetent looter didn’t come out of the ground looking like that. The only conclusion, impossible as it felt, was--

“--you're telling the truth,” James announced. He hardly believed his own words. “And that means you're exactly who I think you are.”

Adrian blinked. “That’s… good?”

James rubbed at his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “No, it’s not. It means I’m either losing my godsforsaken mind, or you just dug yourself out of a grave buried seventeen years ago.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “If I knew I'd be dealing with all this crap, I would’ve transferred to waste management when I had the chance.”

Adrian shifted uncomfortably, his sword hilt glinting in the lamplight. “Look, I don’t know what’s happening.”

“That makes two of us,” the gravekeeper replied. Stepping forward, he extended his hand and Adrian flinched, expecting a blast of flame. When the feeling in his gut failed to manifest, however, he lowered his sword.

“The name's James Acker,” the gravekeeper announced. He extended his right hand further, expectantly, and Adrian shook it with his left. “And, of course, you're--”

“Adrian Strand,” Adrian replied. He attempted a smile, but felt the gritty sensation of dirt in his teeth and wisely kept his lips closed.

“Huh,” James frowned. “I was going to say Ozymandias, but first-name basis works fine.”

“Who?” Adrian frowned.

James wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. Mental dissociation was a new feeling to him, but the sheer strangeness of his morning so far was quickly making it his default state.

“Let's start again,” he attempted, forcing a smile onto his lips. He took a deep drag of his pipe, trying to center himself. “I just need a second to process here. Uh, do you smoke, Mister Strand?”

Adrian frowned. Did he?

“I… don't remember,” he concluded. He nodded, matter-of-factly.

“How don't you--” the smoke caught in his throat and James coughed, exhaling a sizable cloud as he gasped for air. “It's a binary question, man!”

“I know that!” Adrian blurted. Frustration and confusion became a heady mix of panic as the words poured out of him. “I hardly remember anything, let alone my smoking preferences! I just crawled out of a godsforsaken grave, cut me some slack here!”

James paused, pulling the pipe from his mouth, and tapped the excess ash on the ground. He stared back at the strange man in his graveyard, the man whose face had once been plastered over half the city.

“Okay,” James stated. He softened his tone a little, taking a step back from Adrian. “I apologize for the way I introduced myself, I'm used to chasing off vandals. It's not every day that a very famous, very dead revolutionary pops out of the ground, and I’ve gone too long without a drink to deal with that. Care to join me?”

Adrian hesitated. “I was a revolutionary?”

James shook his head. “Later. You--inside. If you’re going to haunt my graveyard, you’re certainly doing it over whiskey.”

Adrian’s lips twitched despite himself. “Sounds good. I'm parched, actually. Dead thirsty.”

James groaned, exhaling smoke. “If you keep that up, I’ll put you back where I found you.” Still, he jerked his head toward the shack at the end of the graveyard, and together they started toward the lantern glow spilling from its crooked door.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Kimber Ross ran as fast as her legs would carry her.

Her boots struck the cobblestones in a staccato rhythm that echoed off brass facades and shuttered windows, each sharp report swallowed by the fog. The middle ring of the Great City would be stirring soon, but for now the streets lay deserted, slick with condensation.

She risked another glance at the map clenched in her fist. The glow of life still pulsed along the avenues she’d left behind, but the tower at the city’s heart remained a dark void.

Impossible. Inconceivable. Wrong.

Kimber’s throat tightened as she sprinted through an empty market square, past stalls that smelled faintly of cold grease and wilted greens. The spire of City Hall loomed ahead, barely visible through the haze, a silhouette of whitened stone and skeletal girders that stretched high into the air above the city. Each time she checked the map, she half expected the ink to have shifted, to reveal some mistake or hidden detour that would explain the absence of light.

But the lines remained the same, a perfect lattice of streets feeding toward a center that should have been ablaze.

She forced herself faster. Alone in the Great City’s hollow dawn, Kimber could not decide which idea was worse--that everyone at City Hall had fled at once… or that they had not fled at all.

Cobblestone gave way to ornate bricks as Kimber tore into the inner ring of the city. These were the largest, most ancient buildings in the entire city, constructed in the time of the founding. Every building was centuries old, but most of the facades were brand new--the Revolution had done a number on the inner rings, and the repair work was still somewhat visible, metal and plaster barely covering old wounds.

Kimber rounded the last corner and stumbled to a halt.

The street opened into a vast, perfectly circular plaza ringed by manors that climbed like ornate cliffs. Balconies jutted out like watchtowers, every window dark.

Beyond them all, dominating the square, rose City Hall.

It was more sculpture than building, a gleaming sphere of white stone and gilded metal, its surface braided with ribs of polished brass that spiraled upward into a slender tower. The spire speared the blank space of the null ceiling high above, and somewhere within its heights the Thread Engine should have been blazing, flooding the city with light and heat.

Kimber’s breath came ragged. The plaza stretched empty around her, cobblestones slick beneath her boots, and the silence pressed in like a weight. The map in her trembling hands offered no answers.

She needed to speak with someone, anyone, who knew what was happening, but it would take too long to find help. The city was still asleep, but when it woke, the panic would be immeasurable. It would be another Revolution in all but name, a second cataclysm that the Great City wouldn't survive.

 If she didn't get to the bottom of what was happening now, she never would.

Mustering all her courage, Kimber resumed her run for City Hall. With every step she gathered more speed, crossing the plaza with growing confidence. She would get to the bottom of this mystery herself, get the answers the city needed, then bring them to the first magistrate or Warden who would open their door for her.

She was running full tilt once more, shoes pounding across the ancient brickwork. Ahead of her, she could see the immense doors of City Hall, immaculate wood engraved with brass inlay. They beckoned her onward, foreboding, and with one hand outstretched she~

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

~struck the side of a garbage can, stumbling to one side, and felt her shoulder strike a wall. Kimber cried out in pain and felt her legs give way, sending her sprawling to the flagstones.

Pain, hot and sharp, flared in her palms as the rough, dirty stone cut into them, and the map slipped from her grasp, fluttering away.

Kimber clutched her hands to her chest as she rolled to one side, dazed and confused. A brick wall greeted her gaze, but it was far from one of the beautiful facades she'd been staring at moments ago, overgrown with moss and filth.

Where was she?

She rolled onto her back, staring upward, and found an identical wall on her left side. She was in an alleyway, a claustrophobic dead end filled with trash and overgrowth. The narrow space pressed in on her like a vice, walls streaked with rust where old gutters had bled dry. The air smelled of wet brick and something faintly sour, the reek of rotwine and stagnant air. A single nullflower had poked its way through the bricks, pulsing faintly as its petals breathed a dull violet light that threw long, warped shadows across the alley. Its glow caught the edge of the faded poster on the nearby wall--a smiling soldier of the Unbound, arm raised in triumph, the once-blazing yellow of his jacket now bleached to the colour of old bone.

“Who are you fighting for?” it asked her.

Kimber blinked hard, but the alley remained stubbornly identical.

Her heart hammered. She could still taste the clean air of the inner ring, feel the smooth brass inlay of City Hall’s doors just beyond her fingertips.

She scrambled to her feet, palms stinging, and felt the hot sting of blood rising to the surface. Turning in a slow circle, she tried to remain calm.

This was the outer ring of the city.

“This… isn’t possible,” she whispered. But the bricks were solid beneath her feet, rough and real, and the nullflower could only grow near nullmatter--at the edge of the city.

City Hall--if it had ever been there at all--was nowhere to be seen.

The sound of rustling paper drew her attention to the map, splayed out on the ground. Seizing it in her hands, she held it tightly once more, fighting back tears as she checked it for damage.

Kimber flattened the creased parchment against her thigh, the violet glow of the nullflower breathing across the lines of ink. Her finger traced the familiar spokes of the Great City, following the lattice of streets inward toward the center, trying to orient herself.

A dark red bead trembled at the edge of her palm.

Drip.

The droplet struck the parchment dead-center, a sharp red blooming across the gold. Kimber hissed, snatching her hand back, as blood welled from the shallow cuts in her palm, warm against the morning chill.

“No, no, no…” she tried to brush the stain away with the side of her sleeve, but the crimson mark only deepened, soaking through the fibers. When she lifted the cloth, the dot remained--darker than ink, almost luminous.

The paper shifted.

Kimber froze as lines of ink bent like molten metal. Whole districts rotated, the map folding in on itself until the red dot sat at the center of a new configuration. Alleys and thoroughfares spider-webbed outward, a perfect compass with her blood at its heart.

Her breath caught. The orientation was unmistakable.

Her map was showing her where she was.

The outer ring.

“That… isn’t possible,” she repeated, but the map didn’t care. The red dot shimmered faintly, steady and sure, as though the map itself were stitched to her quickening pulse.

Being careful not to bleed on the parchment again, Kimber steadied herself, stepping out of the alley and into the city streets. The map followed her with every step, ink shifting like water as she moved. She was on a dark and nameless road somewhere in the center of the outer ring, kilometers from where she'd once been. As the largest of the city's three districts, it would take her hours to reach the middle ring, let alone the City Hall.

But why?

The question hammered at her mind incessantly.

Why was she here?

Kimber kept moving, her every step matched by the red dot. The streets around her lay hushed and dim, rows of narrow houses leaning together like conspirators. From behind shuttered windows came the occasional creak of settling wood, but no voices, no lamps--only the hollow echo of her own footfalls.

She glanced down at the map again. To her surprise, the line of ink marking the street ahead stopped abruptly, opening into in a thick blot of white space where there should have been more road. Yet when she lifted her eyes, the street clearly continued--row after row of crooked brickwork carried onward, laundry lines hanging across the road like tangled webs.

Kimber slowed, heart tightening. She turned the parchment sideways, then upside down. No mistake--the map ended in a blank expanse that looked like someone had rubbed the ink away with a thumb. Beyond that edge was nothing but emptiness.

But her eyes told another story. She could see houses. She could see the next block.

Her mouth went dry. Maybe this was a way back. Maybe the map was simply behind, failing to keep up with her steps.

She edged forward, one hand tight around the parchment, the other brushing the clammy stone of the nearest wall. The moment her boot crossed the invisible boundary, a sudden hush fell over the city--a pressure, like stepping into the pause between heartbeats.

She put one foot after the other, and~

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

~it saw her flinch/hesitate before she could take the final step.

Her outline flickered against the darkness as she stood, frozen. She was so young/fragile. So beautifully/terribly human.

It remained still, motionless, behind the shutters of a ruined shop. No breath to give it away. No heartbeat to betray its presence. Only the faint creak of the old wood beneath its borrowed feet.

Nobody knew it was there. The girl was oblivious, and the store's owner was now sleeping/indisposed.

The map in the girl's hands pulsed/breathed.

She didn’t understand/see.

Gathering her courage, she crossed the threshold/tetherpoint.

Sound folded inward, a hush/absence.

The girl vanished.

Gone/moved.

It tilted its head, the motion small. The air where the girl had been shimmered with a faint afterimage, then nothing at all.

It needed to investigate/pursue.

Curiosity/command.

Find/find/find/find/find--

It struck itself with a flat palm, jostling loose the stuck thread.

Find/locate.

Follow to source/knot.

Moving with practiced efficiency, it opened the door to the shop, silencing the small bell with one delicate finger, and stepped out into the street.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

Adrian let the warmth of the house settle over him, though describing the space as a house felt generous. The place was more a crooked box than a house, its ceiling low enough that the rafters nearly grazed his hair when he straightened. Smoke from the iron stove swirled through a haze of damp earth and pipe tobacco, mixing with the sharp tang of old whiskey.

This man, James Acker, had his life scattered across the cramped floor, entirely contained by four sagging walls.

Across a scarred table, James tipped the neck of a green glass bottle and filled two cloudy tumblers.

“You’re telling me,” he pressed, “you don’t remember anything before crawling out of your own grave?”

Adrian wrapped his fingers around the glass, the chill of it biting through the skin of his left hand. He glanced toward the door--just a warped plank held shut with a single iron latch--then back to the gravekeeper’s weathered face, the amber liquid trembling in his hand.

“I know my own name,” he replied. “I know this city. I know it's been a long time since I was… awake.”

“Seventeen years,” James contributed. He wasn't sure what to think of the man in his kitchen yet, but he owed it to him to try and rationalize the morning's events.

“Seventeen years,” Adrian repeated. “Seventeen years since I led the bloodiest conflict the Great City has ever seen.” He took a tentative sip of the whiskey, then glanced down at the cup in his hands. The alcohol was tasteless and bland, devoid of life.

“That's the score,” James nodded. “You and the rest of the Unbound wanted a way out of the city--to topple the Governor and find a way to punch out of the null and back into the old world. You opened everyone's eyes to how little freedom the middle and outer rings had, and tugging that thread nearly unwound the entire city.”

“Seems I didn't accomplish much,” Adrian replied. “All I did was wind up dead, and from the sounds of it I took a lot of good people with me.”

“You didn't take them anywhere,” James deflected. He downed the glass in one go, slapping it against the table. “They followed you willingly.” He stood from his chair, gesturing to the man in front of him with open arms. “You weren't just a leader, you were their symbol! You were Ozymandias!”

“Some king of kings,’’ Adrian spat. The name felt wrong, like it wasn’t his. He set down the whiskey, drumming the fingers of his left hand on the table. The beat sounded empty, lacking. “I don't care if I ever get those memories back. If I was that man, then that man is still dead.”

“Fair enough,” James retorted. He shrugged. “It's not my place to tell dead men how to live. I just clean their plots.”

“That's what I don't understand, though,” Adrian frowned. He glanced up from the table, staring James down. “You're just a gravekeeper. But you weren't always one, were you?”

Now it was James' turn to sour at the taste of the alcohol. Setting the glass down on a shelf nearby with a sigh, he turned back to Adrian with a look of apprehension on his face.

“Not even close,” he admitted. “If we're putting all our cards on the table, my life was pretty good before the Revolution. I don't blame you or the Unbound, to be clear, it's just a statement of fact.”

“You supported my cause,” Adrian concluded, “and you paid the price.”

“It was never anything official,” James explained. “Before the revolution, I lived in the middle ring, working as a private investigator. I took on clients from the inner ring, usually doing the regular investigations into cheating spouses and stolen jewelry. It was somewhat mundane, but it had… benefits.”

Pulling the pipe from his jacket, James turned it in his hand. Along the underside of the bowl, nearly hidden beneath a thin patina of soot, was a line of engraving so fine it could have been spun from wire.

Forever intertwined.

L.T.L.

The letters were small enough to disappear in the grain, but Adrian caught them as the pipe rotated, a quiet gleam of brass beneath the black.

“You… lost someone?” Adrian attempted. “In the Revolution?”

“Everyone lost someone,” James shot back. “But no, I didn't lose her in the way you're thinking. It was my own greed that caused it.”

Adrian waited expectantly as James snatched a fresh vial of maggots from the shelf in the corner of the room, then lit his pipe again, flame dancing from his fingertip. He couldn't take his eyes off the little creatures, their wriggling forms now still and silent at the bottom of the vial. That uneasy feeling in his gut had returned in full force.

James drew a long breath through the pipe, the ember at its tip pulsing like a slow heartbeat.

“I took… side work,” he said finally. “Little bits of information, passed along to the Unbound for coin. Routes. Names. Movements. Nothing grand, nothing that would topple an empire on its own. But it was enough.” He tipped the pipe toward Adrian, smoke curling in the lamplight. “The Unbound paid well, and I had a connection--someone close to the old families who would tell me things the average citizen was never supposed to hear.”

Adrian leaned forward. “An… intimate connection?”

James’s mouth twitched around the stem, a half–smile that never reached his eyes. “Intimate enough for me to be stupid about it. Intimate enough that when the Unbound collapsed, every loose thread unraveled. Every name, every secret, laid bare. It got a lot of good people killed, people who might’ve escaped their notice.”

He knocked the pipe against the table and watched a scatter of ash fall like gray snow.

“They stripped me of everything. Apartment, investigator’s license, the right to live anywhere but the outer ring. Should’ve sent me out to mine away the null like the rest of the survivors, but… that connection of mine felt she owed me one last favor.”

James spread his arms to the crooked little room as if presenting a stage. “So here I am, caretaker to the people I helped bury--your people. The ones who thought they could break the cycle and found out the hard way.”

Adrian studied him, the taste of flat whiskey lingering on his tongue. “They left you to rot here,” he said at last, “and called it a mercy?”

James met his gaze. “Mercy’s a funny word,” he said quietly. “It all depends on which side of the grave you’re standing.”

Adrian rolled his glass between his palms, the faint clink of ice against crystal almost too loud in the silence. Something brushed the edge of his awareness. Not sound. Not sight. A pressure, as if the air itself had shifted a fraction off key.

He stilled.

His heartbeat slowed, then mis-stepped, each pulse echoing like a tap against the inside of his ribs. The smell of damp stone and smoke thickened, metallic now, a taste of iron that hadn’t been there a breath ago.

James had once been paid to notice odd details, and that's what he did now--turning away from his pipe, he glanced down at Adrian Strand to see the man's gaze was far away, unfocused and glassy.

Adrian’s neck prickled. Wrongness, that was the only word his mind could catch. The room was the same, yet it wasn’t--angles slightly skewed, the lantern’s circle of light bending like heat haze.

All at once he felt a quiet pull, a tether tightening somewhere beyond the walls, and his head turned toward the door.

“Do you feel that?” He set his glass down, slow and deliberate.

James looked up, brow furrowing. “Feel what?”

“Something isn't right out there.”

Adrian stood, approaching the door, and pushed it open.

“Wh--” James stammered. “Hey!”

Outside, the city seemed to hold its breath. Beneath the steady pale of fog, a rhythm pulsed--discordant, out of tune.

Someone was coming.

Adrian Strand knew it as surely as he knew his own name. It was a sense beyond hearing, a vision beyond sight. It was a tether to the here and then, something that pulled his mind and body in two directions at once.

As James moved to catch up with Adrian, his gaze passed by the clock on his mantle. It was an old, dented thing, salvaged like most of his equipment, but it had never told a lie.

Even so, he found himself double-checking the beaten hands.

It was almost seven in the morning, but the tower at City Hall was still dark.

Where was the morning light?

Thinking better than to leave unprepared, James turned on his heel and scooped up all the remaining vials of maggots he had left, tucking the handful of glass into his breast pocket before rushing out the door.

Adrian was halfway into the cemetery by then, walking almost as if in a trance. He was staring in one direction--the gate--expectantly, as if he already knew what was to come.

Then, at last, James heard running footsteps. They were uneven, almost stumbling, and he tensed, expecting the worst--thugs, or maybe Wardens.

Instead, he saw a young woman, a girl barely older than his youngest cousin.

She broke through the fog like a figure hauled from a nightmare. Her copper-brown skin shone with sweat and street grime, her hair loosed into wild tangles. Her dress was a ruin--fabric ripped open at both knees, hem trailing like spider silk. She clutched a folded scrap of canvas to her chest, the edges stained and damp.

Her breath came in ragged pulls, half sob, half gasp, and every step landed off-beat, a desperate staccato against the stone path. Her wide eyes fixed on Adrian, then James.

“Help,” she gasped. “You have to help me, I think something bad has happened at--”

The rest of her sentence was subsumed, dissolved into the low clang of a distant chime. It was a deep, discordant tone, a haunting, echoing metal din that carried across the length and breadth of the Great City.

James' heart dropped into his stomach. He knew that sound all too well--the morning bells, marking the beginning of the day. But with it still came no light, no great flare of brilliance in the sky that marked a fresh new day.

Something had, indeed, gone terribly wrong.

He shook his head, forcing back the tide of old memories. This was no Revolution yet--whatever crisis that was occurring was something he would fight to prevent.

“Are you alright?” he attempted, stepping forward. He moved past Adrian, who remained motionless, eyes locked on the street beyond the open gate.

“I'm not--it’s not me,” the woman blurted. “It's City Hall. I was experimenting with my map and everything… it all went dark. I need to get back to City Hall and figure out what’s--”

“Hang on, slow down a moment!” James prodded. “You need to breathe, and I've got to treat those cuts before they--”

“There's no time!” She exclaimed. “The longer I spend explaining, the harder it will be to get back! The city is already starting to unravel!”

“Hey!” James barked. It was enough to shock the woman out of her spiral, and her wide eyes met James'. “I'm going to help you, but I need to understand the situation properly.”

Taking a step back, he drew his pipe from his pocket and held it tightly in his grasp, feeling the comforting weight beneath his fingers.

“My name is James Acker,” he continued, “and my, uh,” he glanced at Adrian, who had yet to move, “my friend here is Adrian. Now, can you please start from the beginning so we can figure out how to help you?”

The woman nodded, wiping a tear from her eye, and smoothed out the piece of parchment in her hand.

“Good,” James nodded. “Now, can you start from the beginning, miss…”

“Kimber Ross,” she replied. “I really hope you can help me, because if we're too late, it all falls apart.”

Those three words twisted in Adrian’s mind, pulling sharply on the tether to his past. The memory crashed over him like a wave, dragging him under.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

It was all falling apart.

The barricade rose around him, a crooked wall of broken furniture and splintered doors. Lanterns guttered in the fog like dying stars. Beyond the smoke, yellow-coated soldiers crouched low with muskets poised, holding a street choked with debris against the advancing Wardens in their bright red uniforms.

Drums pounded. Trails of gunpowder smoke wove through the night air as the Unbound hunkered down in the center of the park, dug into the last free dirt the Great City had to offer.

“We won't last the night without the fifth barricade!” A voice exclaimed. “Where are the reinforcements that Julian owed us?!”

A flash of yellow cut through the gray haze as she vaulted a toppled bench, landing lightly on the churned mud. Smoke clung to her like a veil, but even in the half-light she stood out--tall, striking, the lines of her face sharp enough to be etched in steel. A black scarf bound her hair tight against the wind, a few strands of dark silk escaping to whip across her cheek.

Her coat was a rebel’s compromise between elegance and necessity--deep yellow wool cinched at the waist with a bandolier of brass cartridges, the hem tattered from days of fighting. A pistol rested in a holster at her hip, but she instead gripped a bayonet-tipped rifle with the confidence of someone who had lived too long with death to fear its weight. Soot streaked her gloves, and a streak of blood--someone else’s--painted her jaw like warpaint.

Adrian Strand knew that name, knew the woman's face all too well, but when he wracked his memory he came up with little more than an absence.

“We need to push forward,” he was saying. His mouth moved of its own accord, the words already long since spoken, but he felt the cold horror they carried. “Any further retreat is to be forced into the null, and that’s exactly what they want. I have faith in Julian, I know he'll pull through!”

He drew Ignition from his belt, holding the blade aloft in his right hand. It felt light, perfectly balanced in his grip.

The woman nodded. “You heard Oz! Sixth barricade, bayonets at the ready! Anyone with vitae left to spare, cover our flank!”

The roar of the street seemed to draw inward, every sound sharpening until each heartbeat cracked like a drum. Sparks leapt from shattered lanterns, skittering across the cobbles like fireflies.

Ozymandias set a boot to the sagging barricade and climbed. Splinters scraped his palms as he rose above the tangle of broken chairs and overturned carts. From that height the whole park lay revealed--an ocean of shifting shadows and blood-slick grass.

The Wardens massed at the far end of the avenue, a tide of scarlet and steel. Silver bayonets caught the torchlight, glittering. Behind them, the distant towers of the inner ring loomed like black teeth against a bruised sky.

Ozymandias raised Ignition high, the blade’s edge drinking in the firelight until it burned a molten gold.

“Unbound!” his voice carried through the smoke. “For every one of ours they’ve cut down, remember this--no king of kings endures, and no throne stands forever! Stone cracks, crowns rust, and every tyrant’s name will be dust in the wind! When they look upon our works, the Governor will know that her power is fleeting--and freedom is eternal!”

A cry surged up from the barricade, ragged and fierce. Muskets lowered, bayonets levelled. Vitae flared along the line, waves of heat in the night.

Ozymandias swept the sword forward, its tip a comet’s arc toward the waiting Wardens.

The wave of crimson and yellow collided like a burst of flame, a blossom of bloody red against the grey streets. All was mud and smoke and terror, the basest instincts of the human mind rearing their ugly head in full force.

For all the chaos, Ozymandias moved like the world was in slow motion--Adrian saw himself descend the wooden mountain, rapier extended, as the first wave of Wardens charged forward, cavalry blades in hand.

The first soldiers to reach him fell before they even knew they'd been cut--Ignition cut through flesh and cloth alike with lightning speed, a thin needle in the firelight. Scarlet uniforms darkened as men fell, their life force spraying across the battlefield.

“Forward!” he exclaimed. “Forward for our future!”

And for one beautiful, terrible moment, Ozymandias truly believed that they would all live to see the next dawn.

And then that moment ended.

It began with a feeling--a strange pressure in the ears, a biting chill in the air. It was hardly noticeable at first, a mild inconvenience, but Ozymandias knew the sensation all too well.

“Conduit,” he breathed. “Conduit!” He raised his voice, attempting to carry the warning to his allies, but his cries were almost lost in the din.

“That's not possible!” someone exclaimed. Adrian turned to see the woman from before at his side, bayonet bloodied and expression dire. “They'd be killing their own men!”

The hissing seemed to build, gathering steam until it became a shriek. It bled through the din like a razor to the ears, a gathering horror that made all present freeze in place.

“They know,” Ozymandias breathed. “I just don't think they care.”

In the distance, one of the yellow-coated soldiers turned toward them with terror on his face. Ozymandias wanted, wished so desperately, that he could cross the bloody expanse to the man and carry him from his fate, but he could only watch in horror as the soldier's scream was cut off mid-breath.

He stiffened as if an invisible hand had seized his spine, head snapping back, mouth yawning wide in a soundless plea. The musket slid from his grip and clattered against the cobbles. For a heartbeat he simply shuddered--and then his skin sank against his bones, colour leaching from his cheeks as though the world were drawing him empty.

A ripple of silence tore across the battlefield.

Men on both sides staggered, muskets half-raised, eyes widening as an unseen tide swept through them. Lantern flames guttered and dimmed, their light dragged inward. The very air seemed to thin.

Through the smoke, it came.

The shell of a man shuffled forward from the Wardens’ line, each step jerking against the heavy irons cinched at its wrists and ankles. Frost bit at the creature’s skin, delicate patterns of gathered ice. Chains rasped like dry leaves. A band of blackened steel wrapped its eyes, a blindfold fused into a cruel crown that bit into its temples.

Where it passed, soldiers crumpled.

First a Warden, his cavalry blade dropping with a dull clatter. Then an Unbound a few meters from Ozymandias, knees buckling as a rattle tore from his throat. Skin shriveled, their vitae stolen in a slow, agonizing spiral.

“Back!” The woman warned him. “We’re just out of its radius!”

The Conduit simply wandered on, unaware of the devastation in its wake. It was an empty vessel moved by a distant mind.

Ozymandias felt the pressure tighten behind his eyes, a cold pull at the center of his chest. The battlefield was dying around him, and his true enemy wore a man’s chained body like a mask.

Adrian Strand looked on in horror, watching through the fog of time, as soldiers that he'd once known withered and died where they stood, writhing in agony.

“Ada, find anyone from the artillery company still alive!” Ozymandias was saying. “We need nullmatter rounds, now!”

Ada. The name returned to him now. She’d once been his loyal friend/general.

The woman, Ada, nodded, turning to run, but stopped mid-stride. She wheeled, eyes full of fear, as a second wave of noise filled the battlefield, the thunderclap of muskets firing volleys anew.

Ozymandias felt hands at his back as he went down hard, striking the dirt. As he rolled to his side, Ada stared back at him with tears in her eyes.

“Reinforcements from the east,” she informed him. Her voice broke. “They're not ours.”

“But that's…” a cold chill settled over Ozymandias as the reason for Ada’s despair became apparent. “That's where the fifth barricade was stationed.”

“We need to go,” Ada demanded. She pulled Ozymandias to his feet, even as the world swayed beneath him. “If we can reach the seventh barricade there may be hope--”

Ozymandias wrenched his hand free. “Hope dies if we run.”

“Hope dies if you do.” Ada gripped his arm hard enough to bruise, eyes burning through the smoke. “Fifth’s gone, the east side of the ring is lost, and that abomination will drain your vitae next. Seventh barricade is the rally point. If you fall here, we lose more than a battle--we lose our symbol.”

The words struck harder than any blade. Around them, the screams were thinning into a terrible silence. Ozymandias glanced at the chained horror drifting closer, at the soldiers, friend and foe, crumpling like paper in its wake.

 “All Unbound who can hear these words, fall back to the seventh barricade!” he exclaimed, the words tasting of bitter ash. “Move!”

Sheathing his blade, they ran.

Beyond the iron fence of the park, the last of the Unbound scrambled west, half-carrying, half-dragging the wounded across a carpet of spent cartridges and broken glass. Boots skidded on blood-slick cobbles; someone wailed for a missing brother.

At the far eastern edge of the park, the Wardens stood as a crimson wall, bayonets lowered but rifles silent.

What were they waiting for?

The Conduit no longer wandered. It simply knelt in the field of corpses, chains slack against its frame, iron blindfold tilted toward the heavens as if listening to something only it could hear. The air around it shimmered with a heatless mirage, a visible hunger that drew the smoke into slow, spiraling eddies. It was almost sad to look at--the thing that had once been human moved almost like a toddler, withered hands tentatively feeling the bloodied grass with splayed fingers.

Ozymandias ran onward. Every heartbeat thundered in his ears; every glance over his shoulder revealed more comrades stumbling after them, pale and trembling but still alive. Behind, the battlefield had gone eerily quiet--no musket fire, no clash of steel, only the sound of boots on pavement.

And then the Conduit screamed.

It was an awful, abhuman noise, so raw and pained that Ozymandias felt himself stagger, whipping around. But instead of an incoming attack, the creature clutched at its iron blindfold, tearing at its own skin in desperation.

It wasn't a war cry--it was in agony.

The only thing louder than the Conduit's scream was the sound of flexing metal--the groan of iron as the creature's blindfold seemed to flex, rippling as if it were a liquid. The Conduit's shriek reached a crescendo, and then the metal violently folded inward, silencing the beast forever.

“Oh, gods,” Ada breathed. “But why--”

“To reclaim the vitae it stole,” Ozymandias replied.

To his horror, Adrian Strand found that he, too, could recall exactly what had just occurred.

“Then you're saying--” Ada levelled her musket.

Ozymandias nodded. “She's here.”

The ground trembled with a new rhythm--boots, hundreds of them, echoing from the western streets.

Ozymandias slowed, the sound lodging like ice in his chest. Through the thinning smoke, the truth revealed itself.

The seventh barricade was gone.

Where the Unbound’s last refuge should have stood was only ruin--shattered timbers, toppled carts, and the faint gleam of muskets and swords in endless ranks.

Wardens, their crimson uniforms a tide spilling down the boulevard, and at their center were four people. They carried no weapons, yet the soldiers parted around them like the tide.

Death incarnate.

He could see them now--three more emaciated Conduits, each trailing a narrow chain that coiled back to the fourth figure at the center. They did not feed--not yet. Their blinded faces turned only to their master, waiting.

They needed permission.

Ada skidded to a halt beside him, musket half-raised. “Gods above,” she whispered. “The Governor.”

Ozymandias raised his sword, ready to fight, as the Wardens closed in, drawing blades of their own. The gleam of steel filled the night air.

“Oz,” Ada called, almost pleading. “We need to run! If we cut through the residences…”

He couldn’t answer. The name Ada used--Oz--felt foreign, like a costume he’d outgrown. What happened next? Did he fight? Run? Hadn't he been somewhere else entirely?

She stepped closer, voice breaking. “Adrian?”

The name struck him like a blade through the fog, and he felt a searing pain tear through his right arm.

The Conduits began to shriek, and with them came fear like no other.

His mind whirled, the weight of memory and… something else, pressing down on him all at once.

“Adrian!”

His name was Adrian/Ozymandias. He was alive/dead. This was only memory/history.

He was running now, but they were faster.

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

“Adrian!”

James stared Adrian down with a look of concern, eyebrows raised. Seeing the man's eyes snap back into focus, he let out a slow breath.

“Oh, good,” he breathed, voice edged with dry relief. “You’re back with us. I was starting to think I’d have to bury you again.”

Adrian blinked, the echo of gunfire still ringing in his skull.

Memory. It had only been a memory.

 “While you were daydreaming, our new acquaintance has been telling me her story.” James jerked his chin toward the woman, Kimber, who clutched the rolled parchment tight against her chest, giving the two of them a worried look. “And if she’s right, we’re sitting on the edge of a collapse.”

Kimber’s face was pale, but her voice was steady. “The Thread Engine never lit at dawn. Without it, the Great City will start to unravel. Streets will start to… slip. First alleys, then whole districts, and when there are gaps the nullmatter will fill them in until--"

“The city comes apart,” James concluded, standing again. “Not metaphorically--literally. Nothing connects to anything else, and we all fall into the dark, untethered and alone. It’s already starting to happen, that’s what brought her here in the first place.”

Adrian dragged a hand down his face, trying to remain present. “But what’s stopping the Engine?”

Kimber took a deep breath, pressing the map tighter against her chest, and finally uttered the words she'd been terrified to admit.

“I think someone has murdered the Grand Weaver.”

The words rolled over the two men in Kimber's presence in different ways. The calm one, James, seemed to bristle at the thought, shoulders straightening. She'd spoken with enough professors at the Collegium to know what the reaction likely meant--denial. James was a man of facts, and she'd just asked him to accept something impossible.

The other man, the dirty fellow by the name of Adrian, seemed almost completely unphased by this revelation. Despite his odd behavior, he was somehow the harder to read of the pair--it was as though he didn't grasp the severity of the situation.

“Murdered?” James let the word hang there, sharp and disbelieving. “That’s not something you just think, Miss Ross. Nicholas Flamel is the heartbeat of this city. If he’s dead…”

Kimber flinched at his tone but held her ground.

“I know how it sounds,” she shot back. “But this--” she lifted the rolled parchment, fingers whitening on the edges, “--is how I know.”

James straightened, skeptical eyes narrowing at the scroll. “And that is…?”

“A living map,” Kimber replied. “It’s linked to the entire city. Each point of light represents a pool of vitae, tracked in real-time. The brighter the light, the stronger the life force…” she hesitated, “and the opposite is true too.”

Adrian’s gaze drifted over the trembling paper as Kimber unfurled it. It was the first he'd ever seen of this, yet the map seemed so familiar.

James exhaled a short, incredulous laugh. “By that logic, one missing light means one death. But hundreds of people work at City Hall. You’re saying they all vanished at once?”

“I’m not saying anything,” Kimber replied, voice tightening. “I'm just showing you what the map showed me.”

James shook his head. “Maybe the map’s broken.”

Adrian barely heard them. The longer he stared at the dark center on the paper, the heavier the pressure behind his eyes grew.

“She’s right,” he stated. “Something’s wrong. I can feel it--like the city’s seams are fraying.”

James turned toward him, startled by his sudden conviction.

“Why do you believe me so quickly?” Kimber’s brows knit, suspicion flickering behind the fear in her eyes. “You don’t even know me.”

“I don’t know why,” Adrian admitted. “I think I just… have faith in people.”

“Hello?”

A shout echoed out across the graveyard. Heads whipped around to face the gate, where, to the shock of all present, there stood a young woman.

She was striking in a way that felt almost unreal; hair the colour of pale wheat falling in gentle waves to her shoulders, the faint lamplight catching on its silken strands. A simple blue dress clung to her frame, and wide eyes searched the trio with terrified intensity.

“Today's just the day for visitors, ain't it?” James sighed. He glanced down at the map in Kimber's hands, then back up at the woman by the gate. “I'll… leave you two to discuss our next steps, give me a moment to deal with this.”

“Are you sure?” Kimber offered. She moved to step forward, but James extended an arm, stopping her.

“It's my graveyard,” he retorted. “My house, my rules.”

“Technically I lived here, too!” Adrian added. He frowned. “I guess that's the wrong word for it.”

Kimber stared at him, incredulous.

“What?”

Sauntering away from a very confused Kimber, James slowed his stride as he reached the gate, lifting a placating hand. “Evening, miss. You gave us all a scare.”

The woman turned toward him, clutching at her own arms.

“I--I can’t find my daughter.” Her voice was soft, but edged with panic, intercut by shallow sobs. Her breath fogged the air. “We were out for a morning walk, just a few minutes ago. She was holding my hand, and then she wasn’t. I’ve searched every street, every alley. It’s like she just… disappeared.”

James’ brow furrowed. “That’s a hell of a thing.” He kept his tone gentle, the way he might soothe a startled animal. “How old is she?”

“She has blonde hair, the same as mine,” the woman continued. “Please--have you seen her?”

“No, ma’am,” he replied, pulling a slow breath through his teeth. “But I’ll help you look. The whole city’s gone strange, but we’ll find her.”

Her shoulders trembled with a fragile relief.

“Thank you. Thank you so much!”

James patted his coat pocket out of habit and drew out his pipe. As he did, something small and glassy slipped from his pocket and rolled across the gravel with a soft clatter, coming to rest against the woman’s shoe.

She glanced down, eyes narrowing, at the maggots writhing within.

“Would you mind passing that back?” James asked. He extended his hand.

Her gaze snapped up. “You’re thinking of smoking? Now?! My daughter is missing!”

“It helps me think,” he replied, evenly. “And I mean what I said--I’ll help. But that vial’s my last.”

For a long second she stared at him, anger and disbelief flickering across her perfect features. Then, with a sharp huff, she stooped and snatched the vial from the ground, holding it out stiffly.

“Fine. Here.”

James didn’t move to take it. His eyes fixed instead on the frosted glass in her hand. The maggots inside were now perfectly still, as if a breath of death had passed through the vial the moment she'd touched it.

James stared at the woman, a knowing smile playing out across his lips.

“Well now,” he breathed. “That’s a hell of a thing indeed.”

In one swift motion, James drew three more vials from his coat pocket, clasping them in his left hand. Swinging his free hand outward, he felt a flash of energy travel down one arm and up the other, before, with an incredible roar, a jet of flame burst from his fingers, engulfing the woman.

There was a scream, loud and long, but it came from Kimber, not the woman in blue.

“What did you just do?!” Kimber roared. She rushed toward James and the burning woman, but the gravekeeper whipped around, fury in his eyes.

“Stay back if you value your life!” he demanded.

Adrian stared at the woman as she burned, staggering backwards into the street. He expected to hear her scream at any moment, but the sound never came.

“You’ve killed her!” Kimber wailed.

“I can't kill what was never alive, dammit!” James barked. “She wasn’t crying real tears!”

That was when Kimber Ross glanced down at her map, and realized that she could only see three dots.

One blazed a brilliant crimson, her own.

The second glowed like any other, a brilliant point of life.

The third was faint, but pulsed steadily.

There was no fourth person in the graveyard.

Adrian staggered as the pressure in his skull surged without warning. The gentle tug that had drawn him to the gate at Kimber's arrival was nothing compared to this. This was a crushing, cold weight that bled into his chest and down his arms, every heartbeat sharp as broken glass.

His hand went to his sword, drawing the damaged blade from his belt and clutching it clumsily in his left hand. He knew this feeling. Not just memory, not just history--something present.

The words clawed its way up his throat like bile.

“She’s some kind of Conduit.”

And somewhere within the flames, the woman began to change.

Shadows flailed across the gravestones, stretching and twisting as the figure convulsed. With a sickening crack, the engulfed silhouette split down the middle, arms coming undone as what should've been bone divided. As the fire died, the thing that had once been the woman finished its transformation.

False hair hung in melted clumps against a face of blackened wood, false skin burned away to reveal a lattice of steel gears. The torso creaked as it swiveled, joints clicking like an unwound clock. From each arm now jutted a long, curved blade--scythes that rotated on ball-and-socket wrists with a slow, deliberate grace.

The Conduit lifted its head, the faint glow of coals smoldering where eyes should have been, and stared straight at Adrian. When it spoke, it was as if two voices were talking at once, words overlapping. He could hear the woman's own voice and something much deeper.

“We found you.”

Without another word, the Conduit pounced, blades spinning as it ripped through the air. It moved with inhuman speed, leaping past James and running on all fours.

Adrian moved on instinct alone, bringing his rapier upward, moments before a singing blade ripped through the air above his face. The creature was fast, far too fast, and unfathomably strong.

He felt his back strike the ground, propelled by the sheer force of the impact, and rolled to one side, narrowly evading the second shimmering blade that plunged into the dirt to his side. A freezing hand caught his arm and squeezed, hard enough that he felt his bones straining against the force. The creature's eyes bored into his as its rictus grin of an expression widened, and he…

felt…

himself…

being…

unraveled…

“Adrian!” James roared. Swinging his arm to one side, he felt the heat leave his fingers, vitae forming a narrow cone of fire. The blast tore through the air above Adrian, warming his face, and caught the Conduit off guard. Its grip on his arm loosened and he rolled once again, bringing the rapier upward to carve a deep gouge in the beast's wooden chest.

A second burst of flames caught the creature in its head and it hissed, the remaining hair burning off its skull. James felt his stomach twist as the thing's head snapped around, twisting backward to face him.

Rolling to his feet, Adrian braced for another round--but he was losing energy, fast. Whatever the Conduit had tried to do to him hadn't succeeded, but his one good hand was aching from the sheer force of the attack.

The Conduit rose, wooden chassis blackened, and turned one spinning scythe toward James with what could pass for a grin. To the gravekeeper's horror, it rotated in place and lunged at him, blades flashing in the lamplight. He dove to one side, desperately hoping to escape its reach, but felt a burning line carve down his leg before he struck the ground. He screamed, voice ricocheting off the gravestones, and rolled to one side, desperate to avoid a second attack that never came.

With horror, he realized why--he was already out of the fight. His boot had been cut up, leather split down to the bone by a glancing blow, but worse, something jagged in his jacket dug into his skin. His remaining vials lay shattered beneath him, maggots pulverized by the impact.

The creature turned away from James, left scythe coated in a thin film of blood, and stalked back toward Adrian.

“We’ve… lost our daughter,” it rasped. “Can you help us?”

Adrian Strand swung his damaged blade experimentally, trying to gauge the weight, and sighed loudly.

“I just remembered I'm not left-handed.”

The Conduit's blades sang as it leapt through the air, and--

“Get away from him!”

The wooden monster's head snapped to one side as a ripple of pure concussive force struck it, a blast of heated air so severe that altered the beast's course in midair. Adrian watched in disbelief as it flailed helplessly for a second before it struck earth, impacting the flat edge of a gravestone with enough force to crack it.

Then everything was absolutely still.

Kimber stood, panting softly, with her trembling hands extended. In her grasp was a withered vial of moss that she let fall to the dirt as she dropped to her knees, exhausted.

“Is everyone okay?” James exclaimed. He was limping across the graveyard, dragging his left leg behind him, but a look of relief washed across his face when he saw the Conduit lying in the dirt. “Thank the gods.”

“We need to leave,” Adrian demanded.

“That… was a real Conduit!” James exclaimed. “I thought they banned them after the Revolution!”

“They banned human conduits,” Kimber offered. She seemed shockingly calm, despite the circumstances, but James knew from the tremble in her voice that she was far from okay. “That wasn't… human.”

“We need to leave!” Adrian repeated.

“How is that even possible?” James continued. “During the revolution they blinded Conduits to prevent the mental overlap from overwhelming the people controlling them.” He turned to the crumpled doll with a look of revulsion. “If someone was animating that… that abomination, they'd be…”

“They would be taking on the mental strain without a second mind to help,” Kimber concluded. “The vitae cost would be immeasurable.” She turned to James, and her eyes widened. “You're hurt! Are you… did it…”

“I've felt worse,” James lied. “If that thing had wanted to kill me, I'd be a shriveled husk right now.” He frowned. “It felt like it was only after--”

“Guys, we have to go right now!” Adrian shouted. He was already a few steps into the street.

Kimber very quickly realized why. Her stomach dropped as the Conduit’s neck gave a dry snap. The thing lurched upright, dirt cascading from its limbs.

“Let me go first!” she shouted, scrambling to her feet. “If you go any further without me, we'll be separated! The streets aren't safe!”

Jogging back toward James, Adrian threw the gravekeeper's arm around his shoulders, bracing the injured man. The trio limped out into the street, the graveyard filling with the dry scrape of bone and soil as the Conduit gathered itself again.

“Now would be a very good time for that map of yours!” James exclaimed.

Kimber risked a glance at the flickering map in her hands, searching desperately for a place to hide. The ink wavered--and then, abruptly, one of the streets seemed to twist back in on itself, impossibly sharp.

“There!” she gasped, pointing ahead. “Take a left!”

Adrian veered without question. James stumbled, nearly pulling them both down, but Kimber shoved from behind, heart hammering.

The Conduit’s footsteps--too many, too fast--pounded the cobbles, closing the gap.

“This street is a cul-de-sac!” Adrian shouted. His voice was ragged.

“Don’t stop!” she yelled, voice breaking. “Just run! Trust me!”

They sprinted into the courtyard, the cobblestone street widening into a rotunda of squat buildings. Lights dotted the windows, families awakening to discover the crisis at hand, and Kimber had to hope that she was right to trust her map after all.

Somewhere behind them, the hiss-click of the creature's rapid sprint grew louder and louder. The trio, wounded and scared, sprinted forward with reckless abandon as~

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

~the sound of shouting voices filled the street.

James looked on in disbelief, fighting through the pain in his leg, as the world around them snapped into focus. What had been a cul-de-sac moments ago was now a wide street of polished brick, lined with shops.

“This… I know this street,” he gasped. “This is the edge of the middle ring, a stone’s throw from where I used to live!”

Faces emerged from doorways and windows, bleary-eyed shopkeepers and families clutching each other. Their alarmed murmurs rippled outward as they caught sight of the blood-spattered trio.

“We have to keep moving!” Kimber exclaimed. She forced the group forward, tugging on James' other arm. “If we made it here, then that thing could also--”

A shriek from somewhere behind them finished her thought for her.

The crowd’s gasp became a single, collective scream as the Conduit appeared in the middle of the street, seemingly from thin air.

Adrian felt his breath slow, ragged and unsteady. His arm was numb from the Conduit's touch and he felt weaker than ever, sapped of strength.

“It's not going to tire,” he realized. “It's not going to stop. We can't outrun this thing.”

Adrian shifted James’s weight off his shoulder, easing the gravekeeper against a lamppost. All around them, the market street dissolved into panic--mothers yanking children inside, shutters slamming, the ringing of warning bells beginning to rise.

The Conduit lifted itself upright, its gait once again taking on a mimicry of human form. Its blades spun once in a slow, deliberate circle, throwing sparks against the polished brick. The sound alone--metal rasping against stone--set Adrian’s teeth on edge.

“I’m dry,” James hissed, forcing himself upright. His fists clenched, but the only remains of his vitae supply were painful shards that cut into the skin of his chest. “Got nothing left to burn.”

“You could… draw vitae from me,” Kimber attempted. Her voice trembled at the notion, but she held fast. “If I have to die to save everyone, then so be it.”

“Fat chance!” James spat. “We need to get you to City Hall, don’t we?”

Despite the circumstances, Kimber smiled.

Adrian tightened his grip on the sword, the steel suddenly heavy, almost leaden. He could feel a strange cold crawling along his arm where the Conduit had touched him, a throb that pulsed in time with the creature’s slow advance.

“Figures,” he sighed. His voice came out low, steadier than he felt. “Crawled out of one grave just to wind up in another.”

 “At least I get to die close to home.” James gave a sharp, humorless laugh. He squared his stance beside Adrian, shoulders back, the faint tremor in his injured leg the only betrayal.

The Conduit tilted its head, false face catching the lamplight. One blade snapped forward with a metallic click.

“Our… daughter,” it repeated. “Lost.”

Adrian raised his damaged sword, fractured point levelled at the thing’s burning eyes. James readied his fists, trying to ignore the numbness spreading through his leg. Kimber took a breath, preparing to use what energy she had left to force their enemy back.

The creature crouched, joints coiling with an insect’s precision.

And then it folded itself in half.

It was a sudden, vicious motion, as severe as it was surprising. The Conduit's wooden chin met its metal shins in a half-second, a riotous chain of cracking and popping filling the emptied street. Wood splintered. Metal ruptured. Glass shattered, and with every dying sound the creature shrieked, not in agony, but in rage at being denied its prey.

Its mangled body dropped to the street as if discarded, radiating waves of searing heat, and the terrible light in its eyes finally flickered out.

James felt his breath catch in his throat. He knew of only one person who was capable of such ruthless power. His heart hammered in his ribs as the sound of heels on brick echoed down the street behind him.

Kimber was the first to turn, and what she saw filled her with equal parts relief and frustration. Striding down the road, flanked on all sides by the crimson Wardens, was a woman with whom she was acutely familiar.

A cascade of pale-gold hair spilled over her shoulders in deliberate waves, the colour catching the lamplight like molten metal. A slim circlet of deep red ribbon bound it back from her face, the same shade as the long crimson gown that swirled around her boots with each confident step. Eyes the colour of burnished copper glowed with vitae, sweeping the street before settling on Kimber with a look that managed to be both warm and imperious.

“Lydia?” James breathed. His face was a mixture of all the joy and concern that came from meeting an old flame.

“Miss Teryx-Linet?” Kimber echoed. If it was at all possible, she looked even more afraid than before.

“Oh, great!” Adrian declared. “Everyone knows this lady. Should I… be excited?”

Lydia inclined her head, staring the trio down.

“James,” she stated, her voice a velvet blade. “You’re limping, my dear. That won’t do.” Then her eyes slid to Kimber. “And you, Miss Ross--your expression tells me you’re aware of the trouble this city is in.”

Kimber swallowed hard. “The Grand Weaver. I… I fear he’s been murdered.”

A flicker of real concern crossed Lydia’s face, quick as a heartbeat, before her composure returned.

“I had my suspicions.” she glanced down at the shattered Conduit. “This attack was planned--and so was the Grand Weaver’s death. Something dark is at work here.”

Only then did her gaze find Adrian, and he shifted under it, uneasy.

“Uh… thank you for saving us.”

A small, amused curve touched her lips. “It is rather ironic, isn't it?”

Adrian frowned, searching her face. “Ironic?”

“Well of course,” Lydia replied. “I never thought I'd see the day I was saving your life.”

The street seemed to tighten around them as she stepped closer.

“After all, the great Ozymandias was quite difficult to bury the first time.”

“Bury?” Adrian’s breath caught. “You mean… my grave…”

Her copper eyes gleamed, calm and merciless.

“Yes,” she intoned. “I’m the one who put you there.”

Extending one manicured hand, Lydia smiled. “Governor Teryx-Linet, at your service.”

⬥ ⬥ ⬥ ⬥

A terrible, impossible light flickered out, severing his connection, and the old man settled back into his chair with a sigh, listening to the rustling of the hanging cages around him. Tiny claws scraped against brass wire as the birds shifted about in silence.

They knew better than to sing.

He adjusted the blanket across his knees, the soft squeak of the wheelchair the only answer to the restless flutter overhead.

Somewhere deep in the house, a latch clicked--a soft, deliberate sound.

“Master Richter?”

The voice was perfectly composed, belonging to a young woman in a blue dress. Her eyes, gray and depthless, met his as she approached.

“I'm here, darling,” he rasped. She strode forward into the dark, finding his arm with delicate care.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked.

“Yes,” he sighed, “and no. I may have found him, but things are… different, somehow.”

“I thought you'd be happy,” she replied.

“Never, my love,” he replied. “Not until I can rest with you and Clara.”

Richter traced a finger across her cold cheek, then frowned. He could feel the grain. It wasn't her; it was imperfect--he'd have to start anew.

“Your time is short,” it replied. The Conduit stared at him, and he could see himself staring back, all withered skin and bony, emaciated hands. “Your mind is weak. We are dying/fading.”

The words seemed to overlap now, he was losing track of who was talking.

“We’ll try harder,” he promised himself. “I don't get to give up yet--not after what we learned today.”

He tilted his head, the snap of wood filling the room, then realized he hadn't moved at all.

“How so?” he/it asked.

Sentences were blurring--who was speaking now? Which voice was his?

“When I touched him, I felt it.”

“It?”

“The same pull. The hollow center. The cold. The body of Ozymandias is a Conduit like no other.”

“Then why does he live again? Whose soul controls that form?”

Anger boiled beneath his skin, and he wanted more than ever to stand on his own two feet.

“I don't know!” His fist struck the arm of his wheelchair and pain radiated up his arm. “Leave me alone!”

The doll fell to the floor, and Richter's thoughts were his own once more.

“I don't… know,” he breathed. “I'm just an old man talking to myself.”

The memory was burned into his mind.

The screams and gunfire outside in the park.

His daughter, close to his chest.

Tears in candlelight.

His wife's murmured assurances.

Frantic footsteps. Their door kicked wide.

A coat, yellow and blood-red.

A sword held awkwardly in the left hand.

A pale face, filled with fear and regret.

He knew what he'd just done.

The man ran past them anyway.

Left them to what was to come.

As the Conduits entered, his heart withered with them.

Richter’s gnarled hand tightened around the armrest, and a ripple of silence swept outward from his chair. One by one, the songbirds slumped against their perches, tiny bodies stilling. The faint glow of their vitae bled from the cages in threads of pale light, curling through the air like smoke and sinking into his withered frame.

The house grew quiet. No rustle of feathers. No breathing but his own.

From somewhere deeper in the darkness came a sound like timber groaning under an impossible weight. A vast presence shifted beyond the reach of the lantern’s glow--slow, deliberate, heavy.

Richter closed his eyes and let the silence settle around him, the stolen warmth of a hundred small lives burning faintly in his veins.

As something immense moved just out of sight, drawing itself to its feet, a chill swept through the room.

And then the Conduit’s eyes snapped open.

End/Beginning