Doskvol doesn’t sleep. It festers.

By day, the city breathes thick coal smoke and fog—the two curling together into something more permanent, more alive. The soot settles into every crevice: on the rooftops of leaning brick tenements, on the cloaks of dockhands hauling crates of stolen goods, on the faces of street children who haven’t known clean air in years. At night, the glow of gas lamps cuts through the mist like daggers, making every shadow deeper, every alley darker. It’s a city that lives in twilight, where the sun never fully breaks through and the moon is always watching. The skyline is a battlefield between crumbling cathedrals and looming smokestacks, old gods and new machines. Between them stretch cables, walkways, and pipes like veins in a dying beast. And underfoot? A second city. Older. Forgotten. Tunnels and catacombs wind beneath the cobblestones—some built for the living, others not. Smugglers move contraband through collapsed sewer lines. Cultists chant in forgotten chapels. And in the coldest, deepest places, ghosts walk, drawn to the echoes of unfinished lives. The people of Doskvol live elbow to elbow but trust no one. The noble elite wear silk and smirk behind crystal glasses in their manors up in Brightstone. The workers below breathe poison and break their backs in coal refineries and electroplasm mills. The middle class, what little remains of it, clings to dignity by its fingernails—often slipping into vice, bribery, or quiet desperation just to stay afloat. Immigrants from across the Shattered Isles fill the cracks in the city’s social order, and none are more determined—or more feared—than the Skoulanders, war-weary refugees with nothing left to lose. Technology in Doskvol is a twisted marvel. Steam engines chug beside arcane generators, and the ghost-fueled spectroplasm hums in wires like nervous energy waiting to be unleashed. It’s innovation born of desperation, stitched together with rust and ritual. The most prized inventions are those that blur the line between science and the supernatural—possessed lanterns that glow with sentience, pistols that whisper secrets when fired, clockwork limbs imbued with stolen spirit energy. And always, there’s the quiet truth: every magical thing costs someone, somewhere, a little piece of their soul. Law and order exist here in theory, not in practice. The Imperial Military Police patrol in crisp uniforms, but most citizens know better than to expect protection. Corruption is baked into the institution, with bribes, threats, and favors changing hands faster than court rulings. Their captain, Marik Ishtar, is as ruthless as he is effective—a rising star with a public smile and a private kill list. His Espiritas division is worse: masked, unfeeling, and coldly efficient, their job is to dispose of corpses before the ghosts rise. They say the Espiritas can sense a death before the blood has cooled. And in this city, there’s always blood cooling somewhere.

Tucked into the ragged edge of Crow’s Foot, where the crooked buildings leaned like gossiping drunks and the canals ran thick with ash and forgotten things, there sat a house the city had given up on. Brickwork blistered by acid rain, a collapsed chimney spilling soot into the second floor, and a door that hung just slightly ajar—as if it had been opened in a hurry and never quite shut again. No landlord came here. No lawman knocked. Even the rats seemed cautious, as if the place itself had teeth. But behind its cracked windows and sagging eaves, three figures had made themselves at home—if not by comfort, then by mutual necessity. They weren’t a crew. Not officially. Just three desperate souls with nowhere better to be and too many enemies to go alone. They didn’t even know what to call themselves yet.

The oldest among them went by Rabbit Foot, a nickname earned more in reputation than truth. He was quiet in the way a candle burns just before it gutters out—always watching, always calculating, like a man who knew how easily luck turned. He rarely smiled, but when he did, it meant something was about to go terribly right… or terribly wrong. Then there was Jack—“the Boy,” as he was known in the street corners of Six Towers and the card dens of Silkshore. Greedy, clever, and endlessly charming in that way pickpockets often are, Jack had a gift for knowing what people wanted and how to convince them he already had it. He talked fast, moved faster, and carried a deck of cards he claimed could tell the future—though more often than not, they seemed to only tell who he was planning to cheat next. And last was Harry.

Young. Too young. Eager, clumsy, wide-eyed like he hadn’t yet learned that in Doskvol, light draws shadows, and hope gets you killed. But there was something different about Harry. Something dangerous. He carried a warmth in his fingertips, a whisper of spectral flame just beneath the skin, as if he had swallowed the spark of some old, forgotten power. He wanted to prove himself. And that made him the most dangerous of the three. They had found the house not through planning, but through accident. Rabbit Foot had spotted the place first, during a fog-thick night after a job gone sour. It was far from the patrol routes, and the neighbors had the good sense to mind their own business. The old place groaned with every gust of wind, and the rain made a permanent tattoo against the roof tiles—but it was dry, and in Doskvol, that was more than most could ask for. It had no table, so they’d stacked crates. No beds, so they’d claimed corners. The only light came from an oil lantern Jack had nicked from a dockworker’s satchel and a spectral glowstone Rabbit Foot kept close but never explained. They cooked over a dented stove, when they cooked at all. Mostly, they drank cheap gin and made plans. Not grand ones—at least not yet. They were still feeling each other out. Still deciding whether this alliance would last longer than the week. But the city didn’t wait. And neither did the job that was coming.

The old house wheezed like a dying man in the fog, every gust of wind pressing its fingers into the loose shutters and splitting floorboards. Crows Foot’s abandoned fringe was full of places like this—homes left behind during evictions, gang raids, or mysterious disappearances. This one had no known owner, no neighbors curious enough to ask questions. Just three would-be criminals and the dust of its former life. The sitting room was a dismal affair, lit only by slanted rays of gray morning light stabbing through cracks in the boarded windows. Faded wallpaper peeled like sunburned skin. Damp had turned the air thick and sour with mold, and something old and vegetal squished unpleasantly beneath their boots. A pile of broken furniture leaned against one wall, and cobwebs crowned the high ceiling like lace worn by the dead.

“I’m just saying,” muttered the boy near the door, arms crossed tightly, “this place smells like a drowned library.”

Harry looked like he didn’t belong there—not yet. His striped shirt was too clean, his slacks too pressed, his glasses recently mended. But there was something strange behind his eyes, like the afterimage of a spark still glowing. He had the aura of a boy who’d stumbled into the arcane before learning to fear it. Slung over one shoulder was a worn satchel stuffed with scribbled glyphs, potion ingredients, and a fire-conjuring ring tied crudely to a loop with string. He ran a hand through his messy hair, scowling up at the sagging ceiling. “Are we really going to live here?”

“Of course we are,” came the cheerful reply from the other side of the room.

Jack “the Boy” sat on a crate like it was a throne, one leg dangling lazily over the edge, a club resting against the side of his boot. He looked like trouble dipped in charm: a mane of unkempt dark hair framed a face half-hidden beneath a scruffy beard and wild grin. His coat, long and faded from too many years on the streets, fluttered slightly even indoors—as if it, too, was up to something. He flipped a playing card between his fingers with the grace of a stage magician, his dark eyes always scanning, always calculating, always amused.

“Bit of scrubbing, a few stolen linens, maybe a flower in the corner—this’ll be grand,” Jack said. “Cozy, even. Like a haunted cottage, but with better acoustics and fewer judgmental ghosts.”

Harry gave him a dubious look. “You don’t hear the screaming?”

“No,” Jack said, deadpan. “But if it starts harmonizing, I’m forming a quartet.”

“It’s serviceable,” came a third voice—low, calm, and precise. “More importantly, it’s off the ledgers.”

Sitting cross-legged on an overturned barrel was a man who looked like a scholar caught mid-wager with fate. His suit was once fine, but worn soft at the cuffs, and a bone-white charm hung from a chain at his wrist. His coat, midnight blue and threadbare at the hem, was carefully pressed, even in disrepair. He held an iron-bound ledger on one knee, pen tapping gently against its edge. They called him Rabbit’s Foot. Everyone did. He never gave another name—not even to these two. Rabbit’s glasses glinted in the half-light, reflecting the room like a broken mirror. His gaze was unsettlingly still. “This property hasn’t been claimed since the oil riots of ’53. The previous deedholder vanished without heirs. As far as city records go, it’s a ghost. That makes it ours—until someone decides they want it more.”

Harry blinked at him. “That sounds… illegal.”

Rabbit didn’t look up. “So is breathing on the wrong day in Doskvol. Pick your battles.”

Jack threw back his head and laughed. “That’s the spirit, wizard boy! We’re not decorators, we’re thieves. Scrappy, opportunistic, semi-talented thieves who happen to be alive at the same time. You don’t ignore a sign like that.”

Harry raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You think us meeting was destiny?”

“I think,” Rabbit said softly, closing his book, “that survival creates strange partnerships. But luck… luck might keep them together.” Silence hung for a moment—heavy, but not unpleasant. Rain started to tap against the boarded windows, soft and persistent. A raven cawed once from the chimney above.

Harry finally dropped his bag beside the hearth with a reluctant grunt. “Fine. But I’m not cleaning the upstairs bathroom. Something in there growled at me.”

“Fair,” Jack said, stretching like a cat. “But if it talks back, I call dibs on recruiting it.”

Rabbit stood up, brushing the dust from his trousers. “This will serve. Not just as shelter, but as something far more valuable in this city—anonymity.”

“Now all we need,” Jack added, cracking his knuckles, “is a job.”

As if summoned by the idea itself, a soft rustle echoed from Rabbit’s coat. He reached into the inner lining and pulled out a folded slip of parchment, the wax seal already cracked. His lips curved into a faint, unreadable smile.

“No name,” he said, holding it up. “Just an offer of coin and a very curious proposition.” Jack leaned in eagerly. “What kind of proposition?”

Rabbit’s gaze turned distant.

“Break someone out of Ironhook. Death row. Tonight.”

Rabbit Foot’s voice fell over the room like a shuffled omen, soft but impossible to ignore. Jack let out a low whistle, sitting back on the edge of a battered windowsill, the city’s distant fog curling around the frame behind him.

“Well, that’s bold,” he said, brows raised. “Ironhook’s the kind of place that eats people and forgets they ever existed.”

Rabbit tapped the parchment once against his palm. “Whoever sent this thinks we’re either desperate… or expendable.”

Harry, standing by the crumbling fireplace, hesitated. “Thing is... I don’t think it’s Ironhook.” Both Rabbit and Jack turned to him at once. “What?” Jack asked, eyes narrowing. Harry scratched the back of his neck. “You two assumed Ironhook. But I never said that.” Rabbit tilted his head. “Alright. Explain.”

Harry took a breath. “Last night, near the flooded park—I was looking for glowmoss—I ran into someone. Looked like a street drunk at first, but... not really. Older man, well-dressed but frayed around the edges. Like someone out of place, you know? Fancy coat, plum cravat, satchel full of papers. Smelled like ink and seawater.”

Jack blinked. “You’re telling me a homeless professor gave you this?”

“Didn’t just give it to me,” Harry said. “He said it was meant for us. Called me by name. Introduced himself as Márcio Keel.”

Rabbit’s brow furrowed. “Never heard that name.”

“Me neither,” Jack added, arms crossing. “And I know all the good conmen and all the bad ghosts.”

Harry pressed on. “He wasn’t begging. He was... watching me. Like he knew something. Said we were walking sideways through fate. Then handed me the letter and told me if we were ready for change, the door was already open.”

Rabbit Foot leaned forward, suddenly more serious. “And the prison?”

Harry nodded. “He said it’s not Ironhook. Said the man we’re supposed to break out is being held under the Governor’s House. Some secret black site, built beneath the ballroom.”

Jack barked a laugh. “What, like a dungeon under the wine cellar?”

“I’m not joking,” Harry said. “Keel said real enemies of the state don’t go to Ironhook. They vanish underground. No trial. No records. Just disappear.”

Rabbit leaned back, digesting it. “That... makes a disturbing kind of sense.”

“None of this makes sense,” Jack muttered. “It makes opportunity. We’re being offered a job to break into the most fortified place in Doskvol—and you’re saying the payment is what, coin?”

Rabbit unfolded the rest of the parchment, running a finger along the ink. “And information,” he murmured. “Access to something old. Something the Unseen may have once tried to get their hands on.”

Jack’s grin returned. “Well, when you put it like that...”

“Then we’ll do what we always do,” Rabbit said. “Step lightly. Look twice. And prepare for everything.”

Harry’s hand closed around the ring at his finger, and the flicker of ghostlight sparked to life for just a moment between his knuckles.

Jack cracked his knuckles. “Looks like we’re going to a party.”

The next few days passed like ghosts whispering through old brick. Dust hung in the air like a curse, stirred with every bootstep as Jack, Rabbit Foot, and Harry took to the abandoned manor with broom, crowbar, and stubborn optimism. The house had clearly once belonged to someone important—arched doorways, intricate moldings, and a hand-carved banister that curled like a vine around the central staircase. But time had gnawed away at it. Moss crept between the cracks of the wooden floorboards, and damp patches bloomed on the walls like bruises. Wallpaper hung in tatters. A bird’s nest had claimed the upper corner of the fireplace. Jack pried boards off the windows with the same flair he brought to a con, working in bursts of energy between lazy smokes. His dusky leather coat lay tossed over a broken armchair, revealing the scuffed shirt beneath and a knife tucked into his belt. “There’s potential here,” he kept muttering with a smirk, his eyes flicking between the hearth, the high-beamed ceiling, and most of all—the enormous stone staircase spiraling down into the manor’s cavernous basement. “Smells like rot now, sure. But give me a few weeks, some decent coin flow… and this place’ll sing. I’m talking black-market poker nights. Maybe a rotating auction house. Hell—pop-up bar with spirit-chased cocktails.” Harry, sleeves rolled and hair a wild tangle, poked at a moldy curtain with his conjuring ring aglow. “If we survive the ghost mold, maybe,” he muttered, wiping dust from his glasses. “Or we all get cursed and die in our sleep.” Rabbit Foot, who had just swept out the hallway with methodical precision, cast a sidelong glance. “Then I suppose we better make the most of the week.” By the end of the third night, they’d carved livable space from the rot. The walls still wept moisture, and the wind still sighed through cracked tiles—but now there were cots against the walls, a battered table near the fire, and crates stolen from docks serving as chairs. Jack had even unearthed a faded red carpet and insisted on rolling it out, claiming it “added class.” The room smelled like old wood smoke, candle wax, and a faint, ever-present undertone of mildew. Still, it was theirs.

Rabbit Foot returned late that night, coat damp with canal water and fingers ink-stained. He carried a scroll tucked under his arm, brittle and yellowed with time. Without a word, he spread it across the long oaken table, lit the surrounding candles, and pinned the corners down with bone dice and a heavy metal pocket watch. “The Governor’s House,” he said, brushing soot from the margin. “Commissioned seventy years ago by an architect who believed in secrets more than symmetry. Baroque layout. Grand halls, imperial vanity, but the foundation’s like an onion—layered and full of rot.”

The scroll revealed a sprawling estate drawn in elegant ink: east and west wings, a central dome, multiple entrances, and paths leading to courtyards, gardens, and stables. The ink had faded, but the detail remained—enough for a plan.

Jack leaned in, dragging a chair beside Rabbit’s. “It’s like a palace crossed with a labyrinth,” he said, eyes lighting up.

Rabbit nodded, tapping near a junction just beneath the west ballroom. “Here. This section. See how it’s boxed in? No doors. No vents. No windows. But structurally, the space exists.”

Harry squinted. “That’s where they’re keeping him?”

“If I were hiding a man the city wants forgotten,” Rabbit murmured, “this is where I’d put him. Beneath the ballroom. Hidden behind servants’ walls and silence.”

Jack whistled, already spinning the angles in his head. “Alright, so we just crash a governor’s estate, break into a secret prison no one admits exists, and vanish with a corpse-in-waiting. Easy.”

“We’re not crashing,” Rabbit corrected. “We’re being invited. We won’t need to sneak past a masquerade or charm our way through a servant’s door,” he said, finger tracing the main entry hall. “We walk in.”

Jack, slouched sideways in a cracked armchair with a pipe dangling from his lips, raised a brow. “Just stroll in through the Governor’s front gates, knock on the bloody door, and ask for a tour? We robbing a museum or breaking into a prison?”

Rabbit smiled faintly, and tapped the side of his nose. “We’re not thieves today. We’re family. Concerned relatives. And one of us,” he added, shifting his gaze to Harry, “has the key to making it believable.”

Harry, seated cross-legged on the floor with his spellbook open on his lap, looked up nervously. “You mean... Marcio?”

Rabbit nodded. “He’ll vouch for us. Says he’s arranged everything to get us through the door—at least as far as the outer offices.”

Jack sat up, smoke curling past his grin. “What’s our story, then?”

“We’re there to see our cousin,” Rabbit said. “Jack Napier. A poor, misunderstood soul wrongfully held without trial. We demand answers.”

“And if they call our bluff?” Harry asked, adjusting his enchanted glasses, which glinted in the dim candlelight.

“Then we improvise,” Jack said, already rising and stretching his shoulders. “Been a while since I talked my way out of a cell. Let’s just hope I don’t have to talk my way into one first.”

They spent the rest of the day readying themselves. Harry scrawled arcane glyphs on parchment slips, stuffing them into his satchel with jittery fingers. Jack ran drills in the basement with his club, shadowboxing with imagined guards. Rabbit wrote a forged letter—weathered edges, official ink, the mark of a minor noble family long since fallen into obscurity. It bore no crest, only a name: Napier.

By dusk, the manor felt like something closer to a headquarters. A bad one. But a start.

That night, Marcio Keel arrived without knocking. He stood in the threshold like a figure out of a forgotten play, his high-collared coat rain-slicked and faintly steaming in the hearthlight. His satchel bulged with old documents and scraps of occult nonsense. His boots were far too fine for someone who claimed no home, and his eyes held that same mixture of melancholy and mischief that had unnerved them the first time.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he said, voice warm but tired. “You ready to go make history?” Jack gave a half-salute. “As long as history doesn’t end with me strung up.”

“We’ll only be strung up if you speak before thinking,” Rabbit replied, snapping shut his pocket watch. “Stick to the story.”

Marcio gestured for them to follow. “Then let’s walk.”

They moved like shadows through Doskvol’s heart, slipping between fog and alleyway. The city pulsed with its usual nocturnal rhythm—far-off screams, the whistle of constables, the hiss of gas lamps. As they neared the Governor’s District, everything grew quieter, thicker, as though the mist itself respected the power that ruled here.

The Governor’s House loomed into view—a monolith of cold stone and iron, lit by silent lanterns and watched by guards who looked as if they hadn’t blinked in years. The gates were tall, barbed, and too well-kept for the city they belonged to. Behind them rose the estate: gothic arches, columned towers, and windows like slit eyes in a pale face.

Rabbit handed the forged letter to Marcio, who folded it with ceremony and stepped forward. The guards crossed spears at his chest.

“My name is Márcio Keel,” he said, voice steady and aristocratic. “We are here on behalf of our family. Our kin, Jack Napier, is being held here under suspicion. We demand clarity. And access.”

The guards exchanged a look.

“Wait here,” one said, before vanishing through a side door.

The silence that followed was taut, every second a drumbeat. Harry shifted uncomfortably in his boots. Jack adjusted his coat and flashed a grin to no one in particular. Rabbit stared straight ahead, hands folded behind his back.

Whatever lay beyond those walls—whether it was a dungeon, an interrogation chamber, or a trap—they would meet it not as burglars or liars, but as something far more dangerous. Family.

The gate creaked open just enough to allow the imposing figure of a uniformed officer through. His posture was rigid, chin held high, his brass-buttoned coat gleaming under the gaslight. The sword at his hip wasn’t ceremonial—it was used, sharpened. He looked over the group with open distaste.

“You’ve got the wrong address,” he said before they could speak. “This is a government estate. Not a visitation center.”

Rabbit Foot stepped forward calmly, his coat catching a faint breeze. “We were told Jack Napier is being held here. We’re his cousins.”

The officer blinked once, unimpressed. “Then your source is mistaken. No prisoners are held here. You’ll want Ironhook.”

Jack stepped forward with a grin too easy to be comforting. “Ironhook told us to come here.”

“That’s impossible,” the officer snapped, taking a step closer. “No one is sent here from Ironhook. This is the Governor’s House. We house offices, not inmates.”

“You also house secrets,” Rabbit murmured, more to himself than the officer. The officer’s eyes narrowed. “What did you just say?”

Harry cleared his throat nervously. “Look, we’re not here to cause problems. We know there’s another holding area—beneath the manor. A special place. Not on paper.”

The officer’s jaw flexed. “You are mistaken. And dangerously close to trespassing.”

Marcio stepped forward then, slow and deliberate. Despite the frayed edges of his coat, he held himself like a man who expected to be listened to. “Officer,” he said, voice low and smooth. “We paid well for the information we have. To the right people. This isn’t speculation. We know Napier is down there. We just want to speak to him.”

“Paid?” the officer hissed, tone darkening. “Who did you bribe, exactly?”

Marcio raised a brow with measured condescension. “Let’s not play games. If this is above your clearance, then fetch someone who knows the cost of silence.”

“I know my orders,” the officer growled. “And I’m telling you: there’s no prisoner by that name, no cell beneath this house, and no damn reason you should be here.”

“Then I want to speak to Captain Ishtar,” Marcio snapped, louder this time. “If he’s as diligent as they say, he’ll want to know someone’s been taking coin to whisper secrets from inside his own walls.”

That silenced the officer.

His jaw clenched, eyes darting from one face to the next. Rabbit watched him closely, noting the flicker of recognition—Ishtar’s name had struck somewhere it wasn’t meant to.

After a tense pause, the officer spoke again. Slower now.

“Stay here. Don’t move.”

The gate slammed behind him with a final, echoing clang.

Jack whistled low. “So… who thinks we just jumped up the ladder?”

“I think we just set it on fire,” Rabbit muttered, adjusting his glasses.

Harry, pale, gripped the edge of his coat. “Captain Ishtar’s really in there?” “If he is,” Marcio said, brushing invisible dust from his lapel, “then we’re already neck-deep.”

The iron gate groaned open again, slower this time. The officer stepped out once more—but the sneer had vanished from his face. His posture was more formal now, composed in the way a man becomes when someone of higher rank has pulled on his leash. Behind him stood two more guards, their rifles shouldered but hands tense.

“The Captain will see you,” he said stiffly. “This way.”

No apology. No admission. Just a command.

Rabbit Foot gave a sidelong glance at Marcio, who offered the faintest nod, then followed.

The party moved in silence through the threshold of the Governor’s House, into a high-ceilinged reception hall that smelled faintly of oil, incense, and wax. The marble floor echoed their footfalls like an accusation. Gas lamps flickered in polished brass sconces, casting long shadows up vaulted walls. A grand staircase loomed ahead, but they were steered instead down a side corridor, past portraits of Doskvol’s old governors—none of whom looked particularly kind.

At last, the guards stopped before a dark wooden door. One opened it without a word and gestured inside.

A waiting room. Ornate, but suffocatingly still. Velvet chairs, a low table with untouched papers, a grandfather clock ticking in the corner like it resented them.

“You’ll wait here,” the officer said, then closed the door behind them with a solid thunk. A shadow lingered in the frosted window on the door—one of the guards, posted firmly in place.

They were inside. But not free.

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Jack collapsed into one of the chairs, legs stretched, arms behind his head. “Well, that was civil,” he muttered. “You think they serve tea in here, or are we past the polite part?”

“I don’t like this,” Harry said, shifting nervously. “Feels like we just walked into a cage.”

“We did,” Rabbit replied, brushing dust from his coat before lowering himself into a chair with care. “Question is, whose.”

“I’m telling you,” Jack said, his voice low but tinged with excitement, “if they’ve got a prison under here, it means they’ve got secrets. Secrets we can sell.”

“That depends,” Rabbit murmured, gaze drifting to the ticking clock, “on whether we walk out of here.”

Marcio had remained standing, arms crossed, eyes on the window. “Ishtar won’t ignore this meeting,” he said quietly. “We’ve dropped too many names. He’ll want to see who’s at his gates rattling the locks.”

Jack tilted his head. “You’ve met him before?”

“Not in person,” Marcio replied. “But I know the kind of man who builds walls within walls. He’ll want to know how much we know—and how much we’re worth.”

Harry looked up at the door nervously. “And if he thinks we’re not worth anything?”

Rabbit Foot didn’t answer. He just reached into his coat and pulled out a small, palm-sized charm carved with runes—something quiet and lucky. He held it between his fingers like a gambler about to roll.

“They brought us in,” he said finally. “Now we see if they regret it.”

The clock ticked louder in the silence that followed.

The minutes dragged on like molasses. The ticking of the grandfather clock had grown unbearable, punctuating the silence with steady dread. Jack had started flipping cards on the table just to fill the quiet. Harry fiddled with his enchanted glasses, squinting through them at the walls as if they might reveal some hidden truth. Rabbit sat with his legs crossed, one hand on his lucky token, unmoving as a gargoyle. The tension felt like a held breath.

Márcio stood suddenly, pacing once, twice, then turned to face them with fire behind his eyes. “Which of you,” he asked, voice low and abrupt, “is the bravest?”

The three exchanged glances. None replied.

Márcio gave a thin smile. “Hmm. I suspected as much.”

Before they could respond, he turned to Jack. “You’ll do. Come with me—and play along.” Jack blinked. “Play along with what—?”

But Márcio was already moving, knocking twice on the door with the same casual rhythm someone might use to summon a servant. The frosted glass blurred the face of the guard who shifted outside. The door cracked open.

“Yes?” the guard grunted, clearly annoyed.

“I need to relieve myself,” Márcio said evenly. “And I’m sure you’d rather I didn’t do it in the governor’s fine upholstery.”

The guard hesitated. “You’ll have to be escorted.”

“Of course,” Márcio replied with a gracious nod. “One of your men will suffice.”

Then Jack stepped forward, putting on his most winsome smirk. “Might as well take me too. I’ve had three cups of nerves and a glass of poor decisions.”

The guard scowled, but turned and signaled another down the hall. “Escort them to the public lavatories. Don’t let them wander.”

Two guards now flanked them as they were led through a tight hallway lit by flickering lamps. The air here was colder, more clinical. Less opulent. Jack’s boots echoed on stone tiles.

He leaned closer to Márcio as they walked. “Care to tell me the plan, or are we improvising as we piss?”

Márcio didn’t look at him. “A little of both. Depends on what we see.”

Jack narrowed his eyes, suppressing a grin. “This better not be about actually needing the toilet.”

Márcio finally met his gaze, and in that brief moment, Jack caught a flicker of something in the older man’s eyes—resolve laced with reckless intent.

“Oh no,” Márcio murmured. “This is about finding the cracks in their walls. Even polite prisons have plumbing.”

They rounded a corner. Ahead, a simple metal door with a faded sign: Public Lavatory – Staff Only Beyond This Point.

Jack sighed. “We’re really doing this.”

“Of course we are,” Márcio said, pushing the door open.

And inside, behind flickering gaslight and cracked porcelain, Doskvol’s newest heist began in earnest.

The heavy lavatory door groaned shut behind them with the sound of damp wood and rusted hinges. Inside, the air was thick with mildew and the acrid scent of old ammonia. The cracked tiles underfoot were yellowed and uneven, the sinks chipped, and the mirror streaked with age. The single flickering gas sconce cast shadows that danced like ghosts along the mold-blackened ceiling.

Jack looked around, unsure of what exactly they were supposed to be doing in here. Then he noticed Márcio had stopped walking. The older man turned his head slowly and gave Jack a subtle glance—sharp and deliberate—two fingers pointed downward, then split outward in a small gesture. Almost imperceptible.

A signal.

Jack blinked. “What—?”

But Márcio was already moving.

With a sudden twist of his torso, Márcio slammed his elbow hard into the temple of the taller guard beside him. The impact echoed with a sickening crack. The man reeled, colliding with one of the ceramic sinks so hard it jarred loose from its rusted moorings. Water hissed from the ruptured pipe, spraying across the floor in a thin arc.

Jack’s instincts screamed. The second guard beside him reached for his baton, the leather strap snapping against his wrist as he drew it up.

Jack lunged forward, grabbing the man’s arm in both hands and twisting it sideways with a grunt. They spun together in a tangle of limbs. The baton fell with a clatter. The guard kneed Jack in the stomach, hard. Air rushed out of his lungs in a gasp, and he stumbled back, slamming into the door of a stall, which creaked open and bounced off the wall with a metallic clang.

“Damn it!” Jack wheezed.

He raised his club—nothing more than a heavy brass bar wrapped in leather—and swung hard. It caught the guard on the forearm as he reached again for the baton, and the man howled, backing up. Jack charged, wild-eyed and feral, and tackled him to the floor. They slid through the puddle of leaking water, fists punching, elbows driving. The guard was bigger, better trained, but Jack was faster—and desperate.

Across the lavatory, Márcio moved like a man who had done this a hundred times. He struck his opponent’s ribs twice in rapid succession—precise, practiced strikes to pressure points—and swept the man’s legs from under him. The guard crumpled into a heap between two urinals, unmoving.

Jack finally rolled atop his own opponent, pressing the club against the guard’s throat. “Sleep,” he growled. “Just go to sleep.”

A last punch. Then silence.

The only sounds were the slow drip of water, the hiss of the broken pipe, and both men’s labored breathing.

Márcio exhaled once, smooth and satisfied. He knelt beside his unconscious guard and began stripping off his uniform coat with the speed of habit, revealing a threadbare shirt underneath that clung to his frame like cobwebs.

“You’re welcome,” he muttered, without looking at Jack.

Jack leaned against the stall wall, chest heaving, sweat dripping down his forehead. “That... that wasn’t a plan,” he said. “That was suicide with extra steps.”

Márcio glanced up at him, one eyebrow arching high. “Plans don’t survive first contact with a locked door. Improvisation is the soul of survival.”

“You could have told me.”

“You came, didn’t you?”

Jack scowled but said nothing. The truth was, his blood was thrumming, his hands tingling. This was what he did—he danced on knives. But Márcio had leapt without warning, and Jack wasn’t sure he liked not knowing the tempo of the music. Jack adjusted the unconscious man’s coat in

his hands, staring at it like it might catch fire in his grip. The fabric was damp, the inner lining sticky with the warmth of someone else’s sweat. His chest still heaved from the brawl, the adrenaline not quite flushed from his system. “This is mad,” he muttered, glancing toward the door. Márcio didn’t answer right away. He was already buttoning up his stolen uniform, the crisp Imperial insignia now sitting strangely well on his borrowed frame. He straightened the collar with practiced ease, as if he’d worn this disguise a dozen times before. Jack’s stomach twisted. “What’s the next step here, huh? We just stroll out like nothing happened? Hope nobody notices two guards missing and one of them walking with a street rat at his side?”

Márcio turned to him, expression unreadable. “We move fast. That’s the step.”

“I haven’t even changed yet, for Void’s sake,” Jack snapped. “We could be hanged for this, Márcio. This isn’t just some back-alley grift. We’re deep in the Governor’s House.” A sound interrupted them—the sharp clack-clack of boots approaching just beyond the lavatory door. Jack froze. His breath caught in his throat. Too late. The door creaked open, and a uniformed guard stepped into the threshold, his eyes widening instantly at the sight before him—the wet floor, the groaning unconscious bodies, and one man already dressed in Imperial gear. Jack stood exposed, holding a half-buttoned coat in one hand like a child caught stealing candy. Márcio didn’t hesitate. “Sorry,” he muttered under his breath. “What?” Jack blinked—

—and Márcio’s fist slammed into his cheekbone with the weight of a sledgehammer. Jack crumpled onto the slick tile floor, the coat slipping from his grip. He saw stars, then darkness, then the dirty ceiling swimming above him in a haze of ringing ears and broken trust. “Help!” Márcio barked at the new guard, putting on his best performance. “This one and his friend ambushed us—must’ve followed us in. The other’s out cold in the stall!” The guard hesitated, blinking at the chaos.

“Don’t just stand there—help me restrain him before he wakes up!” The guard’s instincts took over. He rushed forward, grabbing Jack’s arms just as the thief groaned and tried to push himself upright. Jack tried to speak. “Marcio, what the hell—?” But a boot pressed against his back and shoved him down again. “Keep squirming and I’ll add resisting arrest,” the unfamiliar guard snarled. In moments, Jack’s wrists were bound behind him in cold, clinking manacles. Blood pulsed in his ears. He could still taste copper from the punch. Lying face-down on the filthy tiles, he looked sideways at Márcio, who crouched next to him now—one hand resting lightly on his shoulder, like a mentor soothing a disobedient pupil.

“Don’t worry,” Márcio whispered under his breath, low enough that the other guard couldn’t hear. “I’ll improvise something.” Jack gave him a look of pure venom. “You better. Or this is going to be the worst bloody con you ever pulled.” Márcio smiled—an infuriatingly calm, knowing smile—and rose to his feet.

“Let’s bring him to the holding chamber,” he told the other guard. “We’ll question him later.” And just like that, Jack the Boy was being hauled away—not as a conman, not as an intruder—but as a prisoner inside the very place he’d come to infiltrate. Alone. And utterly unsure whether he’d just been sacrificed… or saved.

The clock ticked loudly in the small, windowless room, its rhythm so regular it felt almost mocking. The air was stale, heavy with the scent of old tobacco and a faint tang of mildew that clung to the walls. Harry shifted in his seat for what felt like the hundredth time, tapping his fingers on his knee, his brows scrunched in quiet worry. “How long has it been?” he asked, his voice thin. Rabbit Foot didn’t look up from his place near the far corner, where he stood with arms crossed, back pressed to the wall. “Too long,” he muttered. Harry frowned. “What if they’re in trouble?”

“They’re in trouble,” Rabbit said flatly. “We all are. This was a bad idea from the start.” Harry leaned forward, whispering now, as if the walls had ears. “We should go. We haven’t done anything yet. Maybe we can still walk out. Say it was all a mistake.” Rabbit’s eyes, sharp behind the glint of his glasses, cut across the room to Harry. “Walk out of the Governor’s House? Past guards? With nothing but apologies?” He shook his head slowly. “This place isn’t built for honest mistakes.”

Harry swallowed. “I just don’t like being separated. Marcio’s... weird. And Jack—Jack could mess this up in three different ways just by breathing.” Rabbit’s expression darkened slightly, though he kept his voice calm. “Jack is reckless, not stupid. He wouldn’t blow this unless—” A knock. The door creaked open, and a guard in a dark navy uniform stepped in, his face unreadable under the gaslight overhead. “The Captain will see you now,” he said simply. Harry and Rabbit exchanged a glance. No time to speak. Just move. They stood, quietly following the guard through a narrow corridor. The deeper they went into the building, the more the air seemed to change—colder, more sterile, like the stone itself had been trained to listen. Lamps flickered on brass sconces, casting long, warped shadows on the brick walls. After a final turn, they were brought to a solid metal door. The guard knocked once, opened it without waiting for a response, and motioned them inside. The interrogation room was dimly lit, bare of any comfort or décor. At its center was a long steel table, two chairs on one side... and one on the other. Jack sat in that lone chair, slouched slightly, his wrists cuffed to a metal ring bolted into the table. His right eye was swollen, blooming red and purple, a smear of dried blood marking the corner of his mouth. He looked up as they entered, his usual smirk nowhere to be found.

“Bloody took you long enough,” he rasped.

Harry stopped cold. “Jack—what happened?”

But before either of them could rush forward, a second guard stepped from the shadows of the room. He was tall, sturdy, —his Imperial uniform worn too naturally, too confidently. But his eyes… Rabbit froze. His gaze met the man’s, and something ticked behind them. Recognition. “Marcio?” he mouthed. Harry’s eyes widened, darting between the disguised man and Jack. “Wait. What… what’s going on?” But Marcio—now dressed head to toe as an Imperial enforcer—said nothing. He stood by Jack’s side like any loyal guard might, arms crossed, expression unreadable. Just another uniform in a room of suspicion. Harry opened his mouth to speak again, but Rabbit stepped on his foot, lightly but firmly. “Not now,” he whispered under his breath. Something unspoken passed between them: play along. And then, from a door at the far end, footsteps echoed. A new presence about to enter the room. Captain Marik Ishtar.

The door opened without announcement—no creak, no thunderous bang—just a smooth, ominous hush like silk sliding across steel. Captain Marik Ishtar stepped into the interrogation room. The very air seemed to adjust around him, quieting as though bracing for his presence. Behind him came two guards clad in ceremonial black, their rifles polished and boots clicking in perfect rhythm, but it was Marik who drew the eye. Always him. He was not tall by soldier standards, nor bulky with brute strength—but he didn’t need to be. There was something immaculate in the stillness of his posture, in the way his silver-white hair fell like a wild crown above his calm, unreadable eyes. His skin was smooth and pale like moonlight carved into flesh, and his presence carried the weight of old things—not age, but experience. Danger. A golden circlet adorned his brow, catching the cold lamplight, while the feathered earring hanging from his left ear shifted slightly as he moved, whispering of rituals and meanings not yet known. His black uniform bore the fine tailoring of imperial command, crisp and creaseless, buttoned with precision. The white collar beneath his jaw gleamed unnaturally clean, like no blood, sweat, or smoke had ever dared to touch it. He didn’t speak at first. He didn’t need to.

Marcio—the disguised guard—straightened instantly, almost reflexively. The real guard near the door snapped to attention. The room itself seemed to contract, focus sharpened into one man. Harry gulped audibly. Rabbit didn’t flinch, but even he shifted his weight, angling slightly as if preparing for a mental duel. Only Jack grinned, blood still drying beneath one eye. “Nice place. Real welcoming.” Marik finally blinked. Slowly.

“Jack Napier,” he said, as if testing the name on his tongue. “That’s who you’re here for.” A pause. Not a question. A chess move. Harry sat up straighter, eyes wide. “He’s our cousin,” he said quickly, unconvincingly. “We—we were told he was being held here. We just wanted to see

him.” Rabbit Foot offered no assistance, choosing silence over improvisation. His mind was calculating, rewinding every step since entering the building. Jack, still in cuffs, leaned back. “You don’t look like a prison warden.” Marik’s lips curved—ever so slightly. Not a smile. A ghost of one. “This is a government building,” he said, tone polished and low, like velvet wrapped around glass. “Not a prison. We process military logistics, trade permits, and high-level law enforcement matters. I assure you, no such person is listed on the official register.”

“But,” he added, and here his voice shifted into something gentler—more dangerous, “it is Doskvol. Sometimes… things fall through the cracks.” He turned, hands behind his back, approaching the trio with deliberate pace, circling like a teacher addressing misbehaving students. “So I ask again—who exactly are you? A boy magician, a man who won’t give his real name, and a fast-talking gutter thief walk into my house... uninvited. What am I meant to believe? That this is a coincidence?” Rabbit Foot adjusted his glasses, voice quiet but even. “You’re meant to believe that we were paid to make a visit. That’s all.” Marik tilted his head, eyes narrowing. “Paid by whom?” The room thickened with silence.

Harry opened his mouth, but Jack barked, “A man, We don’t know his name. Dressed like a noble. Smelled like a sewer.”

“Fascinating,” Marik murmured. His gaze flicked—just for a fraction of a second—to the disguised man still standing at the wall. No reaction. None needed. He moved again, slower this time, toward Jack. “And you... You’re bleeding. Why?”

Jack smirked. “Fell down the stairs.” One of the guards behind Marik stepped forward at that—ready to speak, maybe correct the lie—but Marik raised one hand. The gesture was small. Absolute. “I’ll determine what’s true,” he said. Then he turned back to Rabbit and Harry. “You’ve come into one of the most protected places in the city, asking about a man who does not exist. You do not leave this room until I am convinced you are neither spies, terrorists, nor glorified fools being used as bait.” He stopped in front of the table and leaned forward slightly. Just slightly. “So let’s start again, shall we?” His tone remained maddeningly calm. “Tell me exactly why you’re here, and what you think you know about Jack Napier.”

The silence that followed Marik’s question stretched long enough for the lamplight to flicker in discomfort. Somewhere down the corridor, a clock chimed the half-hour—soft and distant. Inside the room, time felt like it had stopped entirely. Rabbit Foot folded his hands in his lap, steady as always. Harry’s eyes darted nervously toward Jack, who was still slouched in his chair, the growing bruise around his eye a blooming testimony of their failed plan. Jack’s lips curled in defiance, but for once, he held his tongue. Marik let the silence linger a second longer—just enough to unnerve, not enough to provoke. Then he straightened, pacing slowly along the wall again. “Tell me,” he said, voice low and razor-sharp, “does anyone else know you’re here tonight?” Rabbit tilted his head slightly, playing for time. “We keep a low profile.”

“That’s not an answer,” Marik replied, pausing mid-step. His eyes snapped to Rabbit’s. “I didn’t ask how flashy you were. I asked if anyone—anyone at all—knows you walked into the Governor’s House this evening.” Harry stammered, “We, uh… no. I don’t think so. We were supposed to be in the suburbs still. Nobody from the neighborhood even knew we’d left.” Marik gave a faint nod, as if confirming something only he could see.

“So no friends. No allies. No alibis,” he murmured. “That’s good to know.” He took another step closer. The air felt colder now, tighter. The two guards behind him remained statuesque, watching from the corners of their eyes. The one by Jack kept a firm hand on his holstered weapon. Still, it was Marik who dominated the space. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. Then came the next question—so casually delivered it nearly passed unnoticed: “And the fourth?”

Rabbit didn’t flinch, but the others did. Marik smiled—tight, knowing. “You said you were four. I count three.” He raised a single pale finger. “One bloodied con artist.” Another finger. “One street-taught magician.” Third finger. “One man who calls himself after superstition.” He turned to Rabbit and let the weight of the moment hang between them. “So where is your fourth?”

Harry shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “We were just supposed to meet someone. He’s not… really part of our crew.” Marik raised a brow. “So you don’t even know the man who asked you to break into my house?” He clicked his tongue. “Poor judgment. Or an obvious lie. Which is it?” Rabbit exhaled. Slowly. “He found us. We didn’t seek him out.”

“That’s still not a name,” Marik replied coldly. Jack leaned forward now, elbows on the table despite his cuffs. “Tall guy. Ragged beard. Dressed like he thinks he’s royalty but smells like rotgut. Had the look of someone who used to be important, before Doskvol spat him out.”

Marik listened. His smile never changed, but the shadow it cast grew darker. “Now we’re getting somewhere,” he said softly. He took another step forward, lowering his voice even further. “And yet… somehow, you walked right through the front gates, escorted by guards who shouldn’t know your names, asking about a man who shouldn’t exist… because of him.” His gaze sharpened into something surgical. “You’re not the con men in this room. You’re the marks. And I want to know: what game is he playing? And what did he promise you?”

Rabbit spoke slowly, cautiously. “He offered us coin. And a name. Jack Napier.” Marik considered that. “A name with no records, no sentence, no origin. But... conveniently whispered into your ears.” He turned to Harry. “You. Tell me truthfully. If I sent my men to check Ironhook right now, would they find your cousin?” Harry faltered. His mouth opened. Then shut. Then opened again. “I—I don’t know,” he said finally, voice thin. “Maybe. Maybe not. I was just trying to help someone.” Marik moved closer to Harry now, too close, crouching so they were eye level.

“Then let me be clear, boy,” he said softly. “If your mystery man got you to walk through those gates thinking you were heroes on a rescue mission, then he’s either a fool using you as bait… or a mastermind using you as cover.” He rose. “And I do not tolerate cover stories in my city.”

No sooner had Captain Marik Ishtar spoken those words than the room subtly shifted. A distant boom pulsed through the floorboards—more sensation than sound. The walls quivered faintly, and dust trembled loose from a nearby gas sconce. The lights flickered once, then held. Everyone in the room froze. The guards snapped into posture, one already reaching for the communicator crystal on his belt. The sharp pop of distant shouting followed the vibration, muffled but urgent. Another explosion? Sirens began to echo somewhere outside. But Marik... simply stood still. He didn’t even flinch. Instead, he turned slowly, the faintest curl of a smile tugging at one corner of his marble-like face. “My, my,” he said, hands clasped neatly behind his back. “What a remarkable coincidence.”

He stepped past Jack, past Rabbit and Harry, stopping just beside the man wearing the guard uniform—Márcio Keel, still holding his rifle like a statue. “You,” Marik said, voice low but edged with frost, “will remain here. Watch them. If any of them so much as blink in the wrong direction... shoot to kill. No hesitation.” Márcio offered a curt nod. “Yes, sir.” Marik didn’t even look back as he motioned to the real guards. “With me.” They filed out silently, leaving a thick tension hanging in the air. The door shut behind them, followed by the unmistakable clack of locks sliding into place. Bolted. Barred. Soundproofed. A long silence followed, save for the crackle of a flickering gaslamp overhead. Then Rabbit Foot broke it.

“What the hell is going on?” He hadn’t moved from his chair, but his hands were clenched tight in his lap now. His glasses caught the lamp’s glow, making his eyes unreadable. “That explosion. That was you, wasn’t it?” Márcio—the guard—lowered his rifle with a dramatic sigh,

rolled his shoulders, and finally allowed a smirk to form beneath the regulation-issue mustache. “Everything,” he said lightly, “is going exactly according to plan.” Jack scoffed, shifting in his chair with an exaggerated rattle of chains. “Oh, perfect. So being interrogated by Doskvol’s deadliest bureaucrat and having my face rearranged was part of the plan?” he snapped. “What’s next, Marcio? We start a riot in the breakroom?” Marcio chuckled and moved to Jack’s side. “Wouldn’t be the worst idea,” he muttered, kneeling to unlock the cuffs with a small, stolen key. “And for the record, I did say ‘play along.’ The punch was for your cover.” Jack rubbed his wrists once free, grimacing. “You owe me a drink, or a new jaw.”

“Add it to the invoice,” Marcio said with a wink. Harry looked between the two, still catching up. “Wait... that explosion. You set that up?” Marcio dusted his borrowed uniform with care. “Not directly. But I might have arranged for a... delivery.” Rabbit narrowed his eyes. “Distraction team?”

“Think of them as... motivated volunteers,” Marcio said. “Now, while everyone’s busy looking at the front gates, we have about ten minutes to make this real quiet or very loud. Guess which one I’m aiming for.” Jack leaned back in his chair with a sarcastic grin. “Oh, I’ve got a guess. You’re planning to waltz us down into the bowels of this place and pull off a prison break in the most fortified government building in Doskvol.” Marcio’s grin widened. “Precisely.” Rabbit sighed and stood. “Let’s not waste the chaos.” Harry adjusted his sleeves, the subtle shimmer of heat already building at his fingertips. “Where’s the door?” Marcio turned toward the back of the room and ran a hand along the wooden paneling. With a soft click, a narrow cabinet popped open to reveal a maintenance hatch behind it—just large enough for one person to slip through. “Time to visit the underworld, boys,” he said. Jack cracked his knuckles. “Now this feels like a proper job.”

The hidden maintenance hatch opened with a quiet hiss, revealing a narrow crawlspace bathed in shadow. One by one, the four of them slipped inside, vanishing from the interrogation room like smoke slipping under a door. Behind them, the cabinet clicked shut again, returning to its place as if it had never been disturbed. The passage bent downward, each step taking them deeper beneath the Governor’s House. Cramped pipes lined the walls, leaking faint steam that curled around their boots. The air was close and smelled of rust, damp stone, and old secrets. Somewhere above, boots thundered and voices barked orders—but here, in the belly of the building, it was quiet save for the low hum of machinery and their own careful breaths. Marcio moved with uncanny certainty, navigating half-lit corridors like a man who’d memorized every brick. He turned corners with smooth precision, paused to listen, then motioned them forward again. They passed a hallway lined with polished doors and brass nameplates—offices belonging to Doskvol’s highest officials. One, in particular, caught their eye: Captain Marik Ishtar. The plate shone even in the dim light, immaculate and sharp-edged, like the man himself. Harry lingered for half a heartbeat, glancing through the door’s frosted glass. Inside was opulence in rigid order—paper-stacked desks, books locked behind brass grills, and a golden cabinet in the far corner that pulsed faintly with a warm, otherworldly glow. Not bright. Just enough to catch a glint in Harry’s glasses. He blinked once, and the light was gone. “Harry,” Rabbit whispered, tugging at his sleeve. The boy tore his eyes away and followed.

They moved in silence, weaving through hallways not meant for guests—areas where the tiled floors gave way to smooth concrete and unpainted steel. Guards passed at a distance, their voices echoing faintly, never noticing the four shadows flitting behind crates, stepping between doorframes, ducking under half-closed grates. At one point, they stopped beneath a wide stone stairwell as a pair of armed sentries clattered overhead. Jack held his breath, pressing his back to a wall that still radiated the day’s warmth. Marcio raised a finger, waited, then led them onward. Eventually, the tone of the building shifted. The decor fell away. Polished wood was replaced by raw brick. Carpet vanished. Lanterns grew fewer and farther between, and those that remained flickered with uneasy light. A low vibration throbbed beneath their feet now—something deep, steady, like the beat of a slumbering heart buried far below.

Marcio slowed. “This is it,” he said softly. They stood before a long, ominous corridor. The stone here was dark and worn smooth by time, the air colder than it had any right to be. There were no markings, no signs—just a narrow hallway that seemed to stretch far beyond the reach of their eyes. From somewhere deep within, a groaning creak echoed. Not metal. Not wood. Something older. Jack glanced sideways. “Feels like we’re walking into a grave.” Rabbit folded his arms. “Not far off.” Harry swallowed, his breath catching as he stared into the corridor. “Are we sure this is where they’d keep a man on death row?” Marcio looked down the hall, his expression unreadable. “They don’t call this place a prison,” he said. “But make no mistake—what’s buried under the Governor’s House is worse than any prison Ironhook could imagine.”

The corridor stretched ahead like the throat of some sleeping beast—silent, damp, and too narrow for comfort. The walls whispered with unseen drafts, and every step they took echoed back as if something farther down was listening. Rabbit’s hand rested on the spine of his arcane ledger, thumb absently brushing its iron clasp. His brow was tight, eyes scanning the surroundings with quiet unease. “This doesn’t feel right,” he muttered, voice low and sharp.

Jack turned back with a half-smile, the flicker of lantern light catching the gleam of mischief in his eyes. “You mean aside from breaking into a secret prison beneath the Governor’s House with a man we met two days ago?” Rabbit shot him a look. “I mean the weight in the air. The silence. Something’s coiled around this place, like a trap that’s already been sprung.” Harry clutched his ring-hand a little tighter, trying to still the tremor in his fingers. “You think it’s... magical?”

“I think it’s worse than that,” Rabbit replied, his voice thin. “It feels planned. Layered.” Jack chuckled under his breath, adjusting the collar of his long coat. “You two think too much. Maybe it’s just stone and shadows. Or maybe we’re finally doing something worth whispering about.” Harry hesitated before speaking. “You’re not scared?” Jack raised an eyebrow. “Scared? Of course I’m scared. But reputation, kid—that’s what matters in this city. You want to be taken seriously by the Unseen? The Dimmer Sisters? Hell, even Ulf Ironborn? Then we pull off something impossible.” Rabbit’s footfalls slowed. “Breaking a man out of a prison that doesn’t officially exist—on no one’s real orders, with no name, and no confirmation he’s even here... That’s more than impossible. That’s suicide.”

Jack’s smile widened, but it was thin now. “Or legend.”

Harry stayed quiet for a moment, staring down the long hallway ahead. “I keep thinking about what Marcio said. That this man—Jack Napier—he’s being held on death row, but not in Ironhook. Why go through all this trouble to hide him here?” Rabbit didn’t answer right away. “Because whoever he is… he’s not meant to come back.” A long silence passed between them. Their breaths fogged faintly in the still, cold air. Then Harry blinked. He looked left, then right.

“Wait,” he said. “Where’s Marcio?” The three of them stopped talking. The corridor ahead stretched on, the shadows thickening. But behind them— Empty. Jack’s smile finally faltered. “You’ve got to be joking.”

The corridor stretched on like a throat grown darker with every step. Stone turned damp. The gaslamps overhead flickered with unsteady pulses, casting long shadows that danced behind the three intruders like mocking silhouettes. Their boots echoed now with a sharper note—like they were being followed by their own doubts. But ahead of them, without a word, Marcio Keel

was already moving. He didn’t glance back, didn’t call for them to keep up. He walked like a man on a route he’d rehearsed a hundred times in his head. His steps were purposeful, steady, the weight of secrecy clinging to his frame like a second coat. Occasionally, he’d pause to glance into one of the narrow cells lining the corridor, but there was no uncertainty in his posture. He wasn’t searching. He was verifying. He already knew where he was going. Jack

muttered under his breath. “Friendly of him not to mention the disappearing act.” Rabbit gave no reply, but his eyes never left Marcio’s silhouette—tall, still clad in the stolen uniform, the dim light catching the plum thread of his tattered cravat beneath the collar. He looked like a noble who’d lost everything and decided to take it back one corridor at a time.

They watched as he came to a halt. The cell door in front of him was like the others—thick iron bars, no handle, a single slit at eye level—but something about the air shifted the moment he stopped. The hallway, already cold, seemed to exhale. Marcio leaned in slightly. Not enough to be seen as a threat, but enough to show confidence. Maybe even reverence. Inside the cell, something moved. A shape hunched low on the bench, arms resting loose over his knees. Prison clothes hung off him in folds, stained and fraying at the edges. The light didn’t reach all the way in—but it caught his smile. That was the first thing to emerge from the dark. A grin, wide and feral, carved into a face that didn’t blink, didn’t twitch—just watched. Marcio’s voice, when it came, was soft. Almost respectful. “Jack Napier.” The figure didn’t answer. He cocked his head slightly. His eyes—brilliant, precise—glinted from the shadow like glass cut too thin. Marcio let a breath slip between his teeth. “Today’s your lucky day. Not the day you die, after all.”

Still no words. Just that smile. It didn’t grow or fade. It just… persisted. As if it had always been there. As if it belonged to the dark more than the man. Behind Marcio, Jack the Boy swallowed something dry in his throat. “That him?” he whispered. Rabbit nodded slowly, eyes narrowing. “That’s him.” Harry, standing a step behind the others, stared through the bars with something closer to awe than fear. “He looks like he already knows we’re here.” Inside the cell, the man who had been called Jack Napier tilted his head again. A slow, deliberate motion. Then—for just a moment—he closed his eyes. The grin remained. And the silence deepened.

Marcio slipped the ring of brass keys from his belt and held them up for just a second—long enough for them all to glint in the flickering light—before selecting one with practiced fingers. The iron lock clicked open with a low, resonant clunk, and the cell door creaked outward. Inside, Jack Napier didn’t move. He simply watched, the smile still glued to his face like a painted mask. His eyes, however, sharpened. Marcio stepped in first. The two men regarded one another in heavy silence—one in stolen black-and-gold uniform, the other in grey inmate linen, bare-footed and feral-eyed. Between them passed something electric. A tension so subtle and strange that even Jack the Boy didn’t dare crack a joke. Napier’s voice was rasped and low, yet theatrical in its irony. “And what should I call you lot?”

Marcio’s expression barely shifted. “Call us friends.” Napier’s grin split wider. He gave a short, sharp bark of laughter. “Heroes, then,” he said, voice dripping with mirth. “How poetic.” He stepped forward slowly, uncoiling from the bench like a man waking from a dream. Rabbit tensed, hand near his coat. Harry blinked as if trying to understand if this was really the man they were meant to save. Marcio didn’t flinch. He was already tugging loose the high-collared tunic of the Imperial Police uniform, the ceremonial buttons catching in his hair as he pulled it over his head. Underneath, his shirt was sweat-stained, his frame thinner than they expected. He folded the uniform jacket and extended it toward Napier. Harry frowned. “Wait. What are you doing?” Marcio turned to him, calm. “Someone must stay. Someone must go.”

“You mean—” Rabbit started, but stopped. The look in Marcio’s eyes was enough. Final. Certain. Napier, chuckling quietly, was already shedding the coarse prison garb. He folded it neatly—surprisingly neatly—and passed it to Marcio like a man handing off a costume at the end of a play. “You sure about this?” Rabbit asked, voice lower now, more intimate. “Not the kind of place known for good hospitality.” Marcio slipped on the inmate’s shirt and met his gaze evenly. “Just get them out.” Jack raised an eyebrow, watching Napier as he buttoned the collar of the guard uniform. “And the pay? If he’s walking free… how do we get what was promised?”

Napier laughed again, the sound echoing strangely against the stone corridor. “Charming.”

Jack scratched the back of his neck, muttering, “This is mad. We’re just gonna leave you here?” Marcio nodded once. “You’ve done your part. Now let me do mine. Don’t worry, payment will arrive.” A long moment passed. Rabbit watched the man—this strange, tattered noble—and tried to decipher his intent. Harry looked uneasy, but there was a reluctant understanding behind his eyes. Jack glanced from Marcio to Napier, visibly unsure which one he trusted less.

“Time’s ticking, friends,” Napier said, now fully dressed as a guard, hair slicked back with prison sink water, his boots mismatched but convincing. “Let’s not ruin the dramatic pacing.”

With a final look back, the three turned to go. Napier followed behind, adopting the swagger of authority disturbingly well. His posture changed. His gait. Even the way he breathed seemed to shift. As they rounded the corridor, Rabbit looked back once. Marcio stood in the cell now, quiet and still, hands behind his back, head lowered like a man who’d already accepted the next part of the story. The door creaked shut behind them.

The halls of the Governor’s House no longer felt like polished corridors—they felt like the throat of some beast, tightening, trembling. Gaslamps flickered with an unnatural rhythm as the four figures moved through the interior, careful as ghosts. Footsteps echoed faintly from far-off patrols, distorted by high ceilings and thick stone walls. The shadows were their allies now—so long as they moved quickly and kept silent. Jack Napier led the way, his borrowed uniform fitting him poorly but worn with the swagger of a man who could command attention in rags. The Imperial crest gleamed faintly on his shoulder, the same one Marcio Keel had worn only minutes before. Napier’s pace was deliberate but relaxed, a contradiction to the tension humming in the air. There was something too fluid in the way he walked, like he wasn’t sneaking but performing.

Behind him, Rabbit Foot traced their route on a mental map, adjusting their course with subtle gestures. His coat brushed the walls as he moved—never hurried, always controlled. “We’ll need to take the east stairwell,” he murmured. “The one with the portrait of the masked governor. That puts us two halls from the exit.” Jack the Boy kept glancing over his shoulder. “And if that stairwell’s blocked?”

“Then we lie, cheat, or vanish,” Rabbit replied dryly. Napier glanced back at them over his shoulder, his smile visible even in the gloom. “My kind of crew.” Rabbit didn’t smile. “Not yours,” he said evenly. “We’re just the ones fool enough to open your cage.”

That earned a chuckle. “A cage is a matter of perspective, friend.” The group paused at an intersection. Rabbit held a hand up, listened. Voices echoed from a side hall—two guards, passing. Napier pressed himself to the wall with them, still smiling, still calm. When the voices faded, he pushed off and resumed walking like it was all a stroll through a garden. But Rabbit wasn’t done.

“You’ve said nothing real since we met you,” he whispered sharply. “Who are you? Who were you before that cell?”

Napier raised an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

Jack scowled. “Yeah, it bloody does. We risked everything back there.”

“And gained everything,” Napier replied smoothly, his voice a coiled serpent wrapped in silk. “Or do you not feel it? That tingle at the back of your neck? The thrill in your bones? That’s the world shifting, boys. Because of you.”

Harry, quiet until now, piped up. “You’re dodging the question. Should we know your name?”

Napier turned toward the youngest of them, his gaze steady. In this dim light, his expression looked carved from marble and madness. “You should’ve,” he said softly. “But now? You’ll never

forget it.” The words landed heavy, like a prophecy. Harry took a slow step back. Napier grinned wider. “This is how legends start, kid. In dark halls, whispered names, and favors owed.”

They continued moving, ducking into alcoves when boots thundered past, slipping through doors left ajar, weaving their way toward freedom. But the tension never left. Rabbit walked stiffly beside Napier now, as though waiting for him to snap like a trap left open too long. Jack rubbed the bruises on his wrists, still raw from the cuffs, eyes narrowed at the back of their new companion. And Harry? Harry didn’t say another word—he just kept glancing at that grinning man in the guard’s uniform like he was waiting for the punchline of a joke no one wanted to hear. Only Napier remained at ease, humming quietly to himself. A lullaby, maybe. Or a funeral march. Outside was only minutes away. But something about the man they were walking beside made it feel like Doskvol had already changed behind them.

They rounded the final corner—and there it was. The heavy double doors to the Governor’s House loomed ahead, lacquered black with iron filigree, framed by narrow stained-glass windows and flanked by the soft sputter of gaslight sconces. Just beyond those doors waited Doskvol’s polluted fog, the sweet stink of coal smoke and seawater, and freedom. But then a voice cracked the silence, sharp and authoritative.

“Hold it there.”

A lone guard stepped into their path from a side corridor. His boots struck the tile with weight, and his hand hovered near the short baton at his hip. He was broad-shouldered and thick-necked, with a mustache that bristled as he squinted at the quartet. “Identification?” he demanded. Rabbit Foot exhaled slowly through his nose. Jack the Boy instinctively reached for his pocket before remembering he didn’t carry anything that could help. Harry looked wide-eyed and guilty, every inch the teenage accomplice.

“Evenin’,” Jack the Boy tried, stepping forward with a practiced smile. “We were just…”

“We’re being escorted. Just civilians trying to get out.” Rabbit said at the same time, his voice more composed, though tight.

The guard narrowed his eyes. “Escorting them where? Orders from whom?” Harry floundered. “We were—uh—just here to ask about a cousin. A prisoner. Name’s Napier.” The guard’s posture changed. Not alarmed—but colder, more alert.

“Napier’s no regular name,” he said. “There’s no public access to anyone in this wing. Who cleared your visit?”

Silence. It crawled up their throats like vines. Rabbit opened his mouth—nothing came. Jack looked at the floor. The guard took a step closer.

“Let me see your badge,” he said to Napier. And then, finally, the disguised man spoke.

“You really want to make this your problem?” Napier said, voice calm, bored even, as if they were interrupting a routine errand.

The guard blinked. “What?” Napier stepped forward. Slow, deliberate. His uniform hung slightly loose, but the weight in his posture made up for it. Authority radiated from him like a second skin. “I was ordered to clean up a mistake,” Napier continued, voice low and level. “Three civilians with questionable clearance wandered into an area far above their pay grade. Someone’s gonna lose their job over it. Maybe two people, depending on how loudly they complain. Maybe a guard who decided he needed a badge more than a future.” The man’s

brows furrowed. He hesitated. Napier kept walking—just a few more paces, close enough now that only a few feet remained between them.

“You’re standing between me and getting them out quietly. What you should be doing,” he said, his voice dropping almost to a whisper, “is thanking me for sparing you the paperwork. Unless you’d rather wake the Captain to explain how you tried to block an extraction already in motion.”

“I—I wasn’t told—” the guard stammered.

“No,” Napier said, with a tight smile. “You weren’t.” He held the man’s gaze. It wasn’t intimidation through brute force. It was surgical—like he’d carved into the guard’s insecurities with a scalpel. The fear of punishment. The anxiety of stepping out of line. The chill that comes with realizing you’re not sure who outranks whom. The guard swallowed. Slowly, he stepped aside. Napier inclined his head. “That’s better.” He turned, motioning the others forward with a flick of his hand, never once looking back at the guard as they passed. Rabbit cast a brief glance over his shoulder. The guard stood frozen, unsure whether he’d been played or promoted. Jack let out a long breath the moment they stepped past the threshold. “Bloody hell.”

Harry whispered, “How did he…?” Rabbit didn’t answer. He was staring at the man beside them. Napier’s smile remained faint and amused, like the performance had meant nothing.

“See?” he said, tone light. “Told you. Legends.”

Doskvol’s night air hit them like a wave of soot and salt. The city was wide open again, but it didn’t feel like freedom—more like they’d slipped out of one cage and into a larger, colder one. The trio moved quickly through the maze of streets, gaslamps flickering overhead, the wet cobblestones slick beneath their boots. Each corner they turned, each shadow they passed, felt sharper now. More uncertain. Jack Napier walked a few paces ahead, his stolen uniform hanging loosely around his frame, but his posture unbothered—as if this entire night had been nothing more than a mildly interesting detour. Rabbit Foot lagged slightly behind, watching Napier the way a man watches a lit fuse—curious, wary, too afraid to reach out. He could feel it: something in Napier’s aura didn’t sit right. Not the way he moved, not the way he spoke, and certainly not the way the city itself seemed to recoil from his steps. Even Doskvol, which had seen monsters of flesh and spirit, seemed unsure of what to make of this man. Harry stuck close to Rabbit, pulling his coat tighter around himself as if trying to keep something invisible out. The boy’s usual curiosity was dulled. He didn’t even ask where they were going next. His eyes stayed on Napier’s back the whole time—narrowed, unsure. They passed an alley where a stray cat hissed and darted into the darkness at the mere sound of Napier’s footsteps. Finally, in the lee of a broken warehouse, Napier stopped. The wind tugged at his borrowed collar. His hair—matted and unkempt, not quite wild, not quite tame—lifted faintly in the chill.

“Well,” he said, turning to face them. “This is where we part ways, I think.” Jack furrowed his brow. “That’s it?”

Napier held up his hands in mock innocence. “Unless you want me to tuck you in?” None of them laughed. He chuckled to himself anyway. “Don’t worry,” he added, voice slipping into something like theatrical concern. “Do you boys have a way home? Should I walk you? Maybe fetch you a lantern? A bedtime story?” He tilted his head with exaggerated sweetness. “I worry. I do.”

Rabbit’s lips pressed into a thin line. Harry looked away, visibly uncomfortable. Jack took a step forward. “Not funny.”

Napier raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?” A silence fell again. The city around them kept moving—far-off voices, the clatter of hooves, the soft screech of a skiff engine grinding somewhere near the canal. Life carried on as if the night hadn’t shifted on its axis.

Jack squared his shoulders. “We were told we would get paid to free you tonight.” Napier gave him a slow blink. “And?”

Jack’s voice lowered. “Until we are, maybe we ought to keep an eye on you.” Rabbit stiffened at those words. Harry’s fingers sparked faintly with residual magic. Napier’s grin widened—without joy. Just teeth.

“You want to hold me?” he asked, with quiet incredulity. Jack hesitated. Napier leaned in slightly, his voice no louder than a whisper, yet somehow too loud. “You and what army?” The words hit like a chill running under the skin. Jack blinked, his smirk faltering. For a moment, none of them moved. Napier let the silence linger before turning on his heel. He walked into the alley beyond,

the shadows swallowing him bit by bit. That smile lingered—almost floating behind, like an afterimage burned into their retinas. No one spoke as he disappeared around the corner. Only when he was gone did Rabbit finally let out the breath he’d been holding. “Well,” he said softly. “Now we know what fear smells like.” Harry hugged his coat tighter. “What have we done?” No one had an answer.

The next few days passed with an uneasy quiet hanging in the air—thick like the fog that never quite lifted from Doskvol’s cracked cobblestones. Life, or something like it, had returned to the decaying house tucked in a forgotten corner of Crow’s Foot. The boarded windows no longer wept dust when the wind blew through, and someone—probably Rabbit—had finally nailed the back door shut to keep the rats from organizing. Their little stronghold, once abandoned and half-consumed by mold, had started to transform. Not into a home—not yet—but into something functional. Usable. A den for the city’s unwanted, perhaps. But it was theirs. Jack spent most of his time in the basement, stomping across its wide floor like a man overseeing a construction project only he could see. The old stone walls were still damp, the ceiling too low in some corners, and the air stank of mildew. But Jack had vision, and that was more valuable than a clean floor or breathable air. He’d taken to sketching rough plans with charcoal on a salvaged wooden board, half blueprints, half nonsense. Shelves. Curtains for makeshift privacy. A corner for tools, another for bandages. Syringes, scalpels, sutures—things most people didn’t think about until they were bleeding.

“You know,” Jack muttered one afternoon, adjusting a lantern hook with a bit of rusted chain, “I’ve been thinking…” Rabbit, perched on the stairs with his ever-present book of fate calculations, didn’t look up. “You’ve been doing a lot of that lately.”

“This basement,” Jack said, tapping the stone floor with the heel of his boot. “We could turn it into something useful. Not just for us—for everyone. Well—everyone who can pay.” Harry, sitting cross-legged on an old mattress upstairs, poked his head over the stair rail. “Like… a hideout?” Jack grinned. “No. A clinic.”

Rabbit finally looked up, eyebrows raised. “A clinic?”

“A place where cutthroats, thieves, smugglers—anyone too banged up for the city hospital and too scared to risk the spirit wardens—can get patched up without questions.” Jack tossed a crowbar onto the ground for effect. “People will pay handsomely not to die.” Harry made a face. “Do you even know how to patch someone up?”

“Don’t need to,” Jack replied. “I know a doctor. Used to work the docks. Got caught selling painkillers out the back and now he’s stuck tending to drunks for copper coins. He owes me a favor. This could be his second chance.” Rabbit let the idea hang in the air, then gave a slow nod. “Useful. And profitable.” They sat in silence for a beat, contemplating the shift in their fortunes. Just a few days ago, they were nobodies crawling through the mud for scraps—and now they had money, a base, and… notoriety. Maybe not the kind they wanted, but the kind Doskvol always paid attention to. Then came the knock.

Three short raps on the front door—sharp, deliberate, like someone knocking a rhythm they hoped wouldn’t be answered. Harry blinked, half-expecting to find no one at all when he crept through the hallway and cracked open the front door. The street outside was empty, thick with fog that twisted around the lamplight like smoke from a ghost’s pipe. No footsteps. No shadows. But a small brown package rested neatly at the doorstep, as if placed with great care. Harry scooped it up and brought it inside, already calling out, “Something’s here.” Jack and Rabbit were at the table in an instant. Jack untied the coarse twine and flipped open the lid with the caution of someone who’d once opened a box filled with teeth. Inside: a velvet pouch, heavy with coin. The sound of it alone was enough to draw a low whistle from Rabbit.

“Well,” Jack said, tilting the pouch slightly, “either we’ve been paid... or someone’s bought our silence.” Rabbit pulled out the second item—a folded clipping from the Blades Chronicle, the city’s most persistent whisper mill, often more accurate than the official records. It smelled faintly of ink and wet pavement. And a note. No signature.

They laid the paper flat on the table. Three pairs of eyes scanned the headline. Silence followed. No one spoke. The lamplight flickered above them, casting long, crooked shadows on the peeling walls. The moment the note fluttered out of the envelope, the air in the old house thickened—as if even the shadows wanted no part in what was about to be revealed. Rabbit unfolded the newspaper clipping with slow, deliberate fingers, the paper brittle at the edges, still faintly damp from the night air. The note had been written in an elegant, tight hand, the ink flowing like a whisper laced with regret:

“I’m sorry it had to be this way, but you will understand soon.”

No signature. Just that ominous line, hanging like a noose over whatever fragile sense of peace they’d reclaimed since returning from the heist. Jack peered over Rabbit’s shoulder, his jaw tensing as the headline came into focus: HORROR RETURNS TO DOSKVOL: JEROME VALESKA ESCAPES IRONHOOK. The article wasted no time with subtleties. The name itself was wrapped in blood and dread.

Jerome Valeska, the infamous anarchist and orchestrator of several mass civilian incidents, has reportedly escaped from Ironhook Prison late last night. Known for his calculated chaos and theatrical violence, Valeska was arrested two years ago after a city-wide crackdown spearheaded by the Espiritas and the Imperial Police. Officials described him as unstable, manipulative, and capable of inflicting ‘symbolic terror’ that struck not just the flesh, but the very identity of Doskvol’s people. He was believed to be in solitary confinement under death row supervision at Ironhook’s highest-security wing… until now.

Harry froze at the image printed beneath the text. The face in the grainy photograph was unmistakable—sharp cheekbones, the too-wide smile, those dancing eyes that glinted like they were watching a joke play out three steps ahead. It was the man they’d helped walk out of the Governor’s House disguised as a guard.

It was “Jack Napier.”

And it had all been a lie.

“I knew something was off about him,” Harry whispered, the breath catching in his throat. “The way he smiled… he looked like he was already thinking about burning something.” Jack leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed tightly, lips drawn into a tight line. “So his name wasn’t Napier. Big surprise.” He scoffed bitterly. “Of course it had to be Jerome Valeska. Why not the most dangerous bastard this city’s ever seen?” Rabbit, still gripping the edge of the paper, didn’t speak at first. His brow furrowed deeper, lenses catching the candlelight like twin moons. “Read that again,” he said. “They say he escaped from Ironhook. But we pulled him out of the Governor’s House.” There was a pause as the realization settled like dust in their lungs. Harry looked up. “They’re hiding the truth?”

“No,” Rabbit murmured. “They’re rewriting it. They can’t let people know he was kept somewhere secret. Somewhere extra-legal. They don’t want Doskvol asking why a man sentenced to die wasn’t in Ironhook.” Jack paced a few steps, dragging a hand through his mane of hair. “And now it makes sense. Why Marcio was so jittery. Why there was no name. Why it had to be us. That man wasn’t meant to come back.” Harry folded his arms, staring down at the newspaper as if willing it to change. “He was never supposed to walk out of that cell. Ever.” Jack glanced over at the gold coins on the table—their “payment,” now tainted. “Well… we walked him out. Smiled while doing it.” Harry shook his head. “He killed people. Families. Blew up a streetcar. Poisoned a reservoir in Charhollow. And we just… helped him.” Rabbit exhaled slowly, the paper crinkling as his grip tightened. “We didn’t help him, Harry. We unleashed him.” A long silence followed.

Outside, the wind hissed through the cracks in the old brickwork, carrying the distant sound of a siren. Inside, the house felt smaller than ever, as if the walls were closing in, thick with the weight of their mistake. “I mean…” Jack tried to speak, his voice unusually unsure. “We didn’t know. We were just—”

“Desperate?” Rabbit cut in, not unkindly. “Greedy? Stupid?” Jack didn’t reply. Harry looked between them. “What do we do now?” Rabbit finally set the newspaper down with slow reverence, like laying a body to rest. “Now?” His eyes flicked to the window, to the flickering shadows of Doskvol beyond. “Now we pray he forgets about us.”

Jack chuckled darkly. “Yeah, well... didn’t you hear what he said? That we’d never forget him?”

He walked to the boarded window and pulled one slat aside. Fog drifted through the alley beyond like fingers. Somewhere in that mist, Jerome Valeska was out there—free, smiling, watching. “And I don’t think he’s planning to forget us either.”

Next Chapter: A Symphony of Schemes