The climb to his apartment left Liamâs lungs raw. The stairs were narrow and uneven, worn by years of boots dragging themselves up with nothing worth carrying down. The railing was loose where bolts had pulled from the wall, the iron pitted with rust and slick with damp. He touched it only when the weight in his chest made balance difficult.
The door opened with a stiff push. The hinges protested. Inside, the one-room space was still and dim, the air stale with plaster dust and the faint stink of the river that seeped into everything in this quarter. The shutters rattled faintly with the night breeze. His cot sat against the far wall, the thin blanket rumpled, a dent in the mattress where he had left it that morning.
He set the pouch from Horace on the table. It landed with a flat whisper, too light for what it represented. He did not untie it. He could feel the promise of paper within, bills that meant meals and rent but still carried the smell of Horaceâs hand.
For a moment he stood there, shoulders tense, staring at the pouch as if it might vanish. Horaceâs words lingered, curling in the silence. Choice had never felt so thin.
He turned away.
A crate crouched beneath the cot, its lid fitted but not nailed. He slid it out and lifted it onto the table. Dust floated down. When the lid came off, the smell of dried blood and old leather spilled into the room.
Inside lay what he had taken from the dark. A bundle of rat hides, folded stiff. Teeth strung on twine. A claw wrapped in linen, its tip still sharp. Cores glimmered faintly in the low light, most no larger than peas, pale as river ice. One was larger, glowing a deep orange that dimmed at his touch, only to flare again once he set it on the counter.
He unpacked them with care, laying each piece on the table. They were not trophies. They were coin. Hours of hunger and pain made solid, waiting to be exchanged.
The hides he shook out, folding them flat. The twine of teeth he wound tighter, binding them in cloth to keep them from clattering. The claw he wrapped again, neat and deliberate. The cores he studied last, turning them in his palm. The orange one flickered faintly as though something inside struggled against glass for a moment before he touched it. Then the light dimmed entirely, snuffed out until he would put it down.
Each item brought back flashes: gnashing teeth in the dark, the stink of wet fur, claws raking across stone. The sandmoltâs sleep-slackened body, Peterâs voice sharp with panic, the hot spatter of blood across his arm.
He forced the memories down and packed the goods into a sack, binding the mouth with cord. He tested the weight. Enough to draw the Guildâs attention. Not enough to give them the excuse to sneer.
The pouch from Horace still sat on the table. He slid it aside and set it at the bottom of the crate before sliding it back beneath the cot. His coin would not come from Horaceâs hand. Not tonight.
He checked the room once more before leaving. The cot, the crate, the empty space with its cracked walls. Nothing here would miss him if he failed to return.
He slung the sack over his shoulder and pulled the door shut behind him. The lock stuck, as always. He pressed until the bolt caught. The sound echoed up the stairwell.
The city waited below, gaslamps already being lit in the late afternoon.
â¦
The Guildhall loomed over the square like a block of iron planted in stone. Its facade was lined with arches and steel-framed windows that glowed in the night. The Confederacyâs crest had been carved above the doors, picked out in white enamel that gleamed even through grime and soot.
Mercenaries moved in and out of its doors in a steady trickle, shoulders squared, armor dulled from use. The hall belonged to them, and everyone passing through the square could see it.
Liam climbed the steps with the sack heavy on his shoulder. His boots scraped against stone darkened by rain and ash. The doors rose tall enough for wagons to pass through, their steel bands reflecting the lanternlight. For a moment he paused, listening to the echo of Horaceâs voice in his head. Mercenary life, he had said. Stamped lies. Light purses. Empty promises. Hunger could be trusted. Liam forced the memory aside and stepped forward.
Inside, the air was warm with coal smoke from the great furnace that burned below. Light from chandeliers glared off slate tiles and steel railings. The hall spread wide, ordered in ways the slums never were. Lines of desks filled the floor, each one stacked with ledgers, trays of parchment, and brass stamps. Clerks sat bent to their work, hands moving quick and sure, voices low and clipped as they answered mercenaries crowding at their counters. The smell of ink and oil clung to everything.
Notice boards lined the walls, rows of cheap parchment pinned in neat columns. Though printed by hand press, stamped with wax, and replaced often, the paper always looked tired and thin. The boards carried dozens at a time, their edges crisp from regular replacement. Daventry was the capital, and contracts were copied between branches so no district could plead ignorance.
Every posting listed the rank required for the task, printed in bold at the top. The lowest were Clay, jobs meant for men and women barely more than thugs with papers. Above them came Stone and Steel, then Copper and Silver, where true mercenaries proved their worth.
When a job was claimed, the parchment vanished with it, leaving pale squares behind. Most of what remained were the petty tasks of Clay and Stone rank: clearing vermin from manufactories, escorting penny-ante merchants, standing guard outside warehouses where nothing ever happened. The work was dull, and the pay thinner than the paper it was printed on.
But every so often a posting of higher weight lingered on the board. Silver-ranked escorts. Copper-level hunts. They were the kind men leaned toward with sharp eyes, the opportunities worth fighting for. Among the scraps, those were the jobs that mattered.
Liam walked in slow, the sack tugging at his shoulder. His presence drew glances, then the glances slid away. The Guild was full of men who carried themselves as if they belonged. Liam did not.
He crossed to the central counter, where the receptionist sat behind polished steel. She looked as though she belonged to a world far removed from the one that birthed him. Her hair was pinned smooth, her skin without blemish, her lips tinted with faint rouge. She wore makeup that looked effortless, as if she had rolled out of bed radiant, though Liam knew it must have been shaped with precision. Everything about her posture was refined, graceful.
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Her eyes lifted as he stopped before her. She smiled, quick and professional, her teeth white in the lamplight. âMay I help you, sir?â
Her words were smooth, but a faint tightness pinched at the corners of her mouth, a strain along the jaw that made the smile look rehearsed. Liam took it for polished training, nothing more. Everyone at the Guild wore masks. She was simply better at it than most. He thought the sharpness in her eyes meant diligence, not the quiet urge to recoil. When her smile lingered a heartbeat too long, he mistook it for courtesy, never noticing the shallow breath she drew to steady herself against the unease that followed him everywhere.
He set the sack on the counter. âParts. Cores. From an expedition.â
She untied the cord with neat fingers. They twitched when the back of her hand brushed his, a tremor small and quickly stilled. Liam felt heat crawl up his neck and looked away, convinced the fault was his, some graceless move on his part. He never noticed the way her nostrils flared, as though catching a sour scent, or how her lips pressed thin before she forced them to unclench. To him, it was only clumsiness and awkward proximity. To her, it was the creeping discomfort that always came to those in his presence, disguised beneath the brisk efficiency of her movements. She pulled the hides free and stacked them flat, her pen scratching quick notes across a ledger. She strung the teeth out across a board, counting them one by one, lips moving faintly with the numbers. The claw she unwrapped carefully, frowning at its jagged edge, then weighed it against a scale.
The cores she handled last. She held a pale one to the lamp. Its glow shimmered faintly, a weak light that pulsed once then faded. She set it aside and picked up the orange one. The glow lit her face with fire, her eyes reflecting its burn. She rotated it once, twice, the faint hum in the glass making the air feel charged. Then she set it down, her expression unchanged.
âQuality is acceptable,â she said, recording the assessment. âThe hides are damaged, the teeth standard, the claw serviceable. The pale cores are minor, the orange also minor, but on the stronger side. Altogether, your haul is worthââ she paused, calculatingâ âa fair amount. There will be deductions for handling, storage, and Guild fees.â
Liam gave a short nod. He had expected nothing else, though he still felt awkward from the unexpected contact.
She slid the ledger aside and reached into a drawer. When her hand emerged, she carried a neat bundle of bills, stacked flat, their corners crisp. She counted them with quick precision, but her knuckles whitened on the last note before she pushed the pile across. Liam thought the stiffness came from long hours at her desk. He never noticed how her breath hitched as his fingers brushed close when he took them, or how quickly she withdrew her hand afterward.
âPayment rendered,â she said, before sliding over his receipt, written out in elegant handwriting.
Liam picked up both the bills and the receipt. Together they weighed nothing. Hours of blood and fear, made into paper that felt like scraps. He folded the bundle and tucked it into his pocket without counting.
The receptionistâs smile stayed in place, though her eyelid twitched faintly before she forced it still. Liam mistook the look for fatigue, the strain of working late under gaslamps. He could not see the way her shoulders drew back, the subtle recoil she disguised as composure.
âWill there be anything else?â she asked, tone clipped but still polite.
Liam shook his head.
âVery well. The job board is open, if you wish to register for new work.â
Her eyes lingered on him a fraction longer than they needed to. Relief softened her shoulders when he turned his back to her, towards the boards where missions waited.
The boards towered high, crowded with parchment. Some notices hung limp, their corners curling. Others were fresh, their wax seals bright. Contracts for vermin clearances. Escorts to manufactories. Guard duty for warehouses. A few were already stamped CLAIMED. Most paid poorly.
Liam scanned the lines one after another. His eyes passed over jobs he could not take, jobs that demanded classes or skills he did not have. His gaze settled on a single posting still unmarked.
Escort and bodyguard required. Alchemist requests protection while gathering herbs beyond the city walls. Departure: dawn tomorrow. Compensation moderate, with bonus if services extended.
The print was sharp from the hand press, the letters clean and even. At the bottom, a seal of fresh blue wax gleamed, the Confederacyâs crest pressed into it, official and unbroken.
He studied it longer than he should have. The countryside meant beasts, perhaps worse. But it also meant distance. At least half a day away from Horaceâs eyes. The reward was enough to matter.
He pulled the posting from the board and returned to the counter.
The receptionist glanced at the sheet, then at him. Her smile returned, polished and brittle, held with the same effort as a mask. She wrote his name into the registry, the quill scratching fast, the strokes sharp, almost tearing into the page. Liam thought her speed was efficiency, impressed by her precision. He did not notice the tightness in her jaw, the faint pull in her throat as though swallowing back distaste.
She stamped the parchment with the Guildâs seal, the wax snapping sharp and heavy. She pushed the contract back across the counter. âYou will report here at first light,â she instructed in a clipped voice. Liam took it for thoroughness, the exacting discipline of a clerk who wanted no room for error. He never saw the faint tremor at the edge of her lip, or the relief in her eyes when he stepped back from the counter.
Her poise was perfect. The faint stiffness in her shoulders betrayed the strain of forcing herself to hold it.
Liam tucked the posting into his pocket.
âWill that be all?â she asked, her voice steady.
He inclined his head.
The smile stayed in place until he turned away.
He left the hall with the contract folded against his side. The bundle of bills pressed flat in his pocket. They felt weightless, ready to vanish with the next gust of wind.
The night air pressed cold against him as his mind turned back towards the bills. Monster parts and cores had felt solid in his hands. These slips were as empty as breath.
He walked the narrow streets with his coat drawn close. Lamps guttered in iron cages, their flames stuttering in the damp air. Steam hissed faint from drains, rising in coils that blurred the outlines of men loitering on corners. They eyed him as he passed, weighing whether he was worth the trouble, then turned away. His steps echoed against stone, quickening when he reached the manufactories.
The district was quiet now, but by day it roared with hammer-strikes and the scream of saws. Tonight the forges slept cold. Their chimneys stood like blackened teeth against the sky. Ash coated the ground where coal had spilled, crunching faintly under his boots. The air smelled of iron filings and scorched oil, even after hours of silence.
Isadoraâs workshop crouched at the far end of a row, built low and solid. Its steel door was thickly bolted, paint blistered and flaking from years of heat and steam. A pipe ran crooked along the wall, venting faint wisps that hissed into the night. The tang of solder clung to the threshold.
Liam stopped before it, his breath clouding faintly. His right shoulder throbbed in steady pulses, a reminder he could not ignore. The graft had grown restless, the joints stiffening, the itch digging deeper with each movement. He flexed his claws inside his coat. They answered with a faint rasp, grinding against themselves.
He drew a slow breath. Horaceâs voice echoed in his head. Does it itch? It always will.
Liam set his hand against the cold steel of the door, feeling the vibration of the boiler within. His chest tightened. Isadora had saved him once, dragged him back from the edge when no one else would. Each time he came here he carried both relief and dread. Relief that she would make the graft work again. Dread that her steady eyes might see too much.
They had a dozen names for people like her. Cogsmith. Fleshwright. Steelbinder. Boneforger. Boltwitch. He never used any of them. To him, she was just Isadora.
He knocked. Once. Then twice more. The sound rang hollow, swallowed by the street.
He stood in the stillness, breath caught between anticipation and dread.