Kael didn’t go home.

  Home was a concept he’d traded away years ago for a badge and a bottle of cheap whiskey, a necessary sacrifice to maintain the "Good Man" persona he wore like a stiff, ill-fitting suit. Instead, he walked until the neon-slicked arteries of central Noctra bled out into the gray, vascular sprawl of the industrial waterfront. Here, the music from the Singing Dolphin—and the lingering, electric scent of Titania’s perfume—faded into a rhythmic, metallic memory.

  The docks breathed differently at night. The air was a thick, caloric soup of salt, diesel, and the faint, ozone-sweet tang of bio-energetic waste leaking from the cargo haulers. To Kael’s Vellith senses, the environment was a map of pressure and vibrations. His amber eyes, with their slit pupils, adjusted to the low-light spectrum, turning the deep crimson of the Solana midnight into a high-contrast graveyard of silver and ink. Metal groaned under the weight of the tides. Water slapped against barnacle-encrusted pylons with the sound of a wet tongue against a tooth. Somewhere deep in the maze of shipping containers, a heavy chain rattled—a slow, deliberate sound, like a predator testing the strength of its leash.

  Titania’s voice still clung to him, a cold residue he couldn't scrub off.

  You came back.

  He shoved the thought into a dark corner of his mind and leaned against a warehouse wall. The stone was carved from the basalt of the Ironfang Mountains, and it pressed through the fabric of his leather trench coat like a slab of ice. For a fleeting second, his hands betrayed him. They shook—a fine, high-frequency tremor. He stared at them, his eyes narrowing. He was supposed to be the "Good Man" now, the PI who took the cases nobody wanted.

  He forced his fingers still, gripping the edge of his coat until the leather groaned. After a few minutes he pulled out a cigarette and a lighter engraved with a name from his old life, before he decided to be the “Good Man”. He closed his eyes and began the cold, analytical cataloging of the case—long slow drag of his cigarette helping ease his mind.

  Four days of nothing.

  A Pixie child taken without a sound—no displaced air, no broken magic.

  A house too clean, smelling of lemon polish and a lack of struggle.

  A nanny too calm, her heart rate a steady, rehearsed thrum.

  He thought more on the nanny as he stared off into the distance, nicotine and the sound of water lapping helping keep him centered. He had interviewed her only to have more questions. Sat across from her, watching the way she didn't fidget, the way her Mara, void-like eyes remained perfectly calm—unnaturally hard to read considering they're a race of empathic dream eaters known for being assassins.

  Was it theatrical necessity, or just a seemingly emotionless Mara?

  Kael pushed off the wall and moved again, his custom-fitted boots making no more sound than a shadow passing over velvet.

  She looked familiar, but most Mara look the same. Deep, pitch black eyes. Midnight blue hair. Pale, nearly translucent skin. But her claws were clipped back, and that made her suspicious. And familiar.

  By the time he reached the district of Grimward, the sky was beginning to pale. It wasn't the soft pink of an Earthly dawn, but a bruised, sickly violet that signaled the arrival of the black sun. The orb began its ascent, dragging itself over the jagged horizon of the skyline like it resented the very effort of existing. It cast a muted silver sheen over the grime, making the puddles in the gutters look like spilled mercury.

  Sleuth Hound Inc. looked the same as always—a narrow, apologetic frontage squeezed between a disreputable alchemist’s shop and a boarded-up broth-house. The sign above the door, a flickering holographic hound, buzzed with a dying frequency.

  Bzz-t. Bzz-t.

  It was a rhythmic annoyance that reminded him of a heartbeat—something he hadn't felt in his own chest for a long time.

  Inside, the office was a tomb of dusty case files and staged failures. It smelled of old paper, stale coffee, and the sharp, metallic tang of the bio-energetic heater. It hummed in the corner, feeding off the ambient demonic auras of the street, but it produced more noise than warmth.

  Kael shed his heavy coat, hanging it on the peg by the door. More instinctual than purposely, he scratched his chest, beneath his shirt. The act was once akin to a warning, signaling he would soon need his deep black tactical vest. He dropped into his chair, letting the springs creak in a familiar, exhausted protest. The silence here was thicker than the city's. It was the silence of a man stuck in a problem that could potentially lead to a child's death, if she were even still alive.

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  He spread the evidence—mostly notes—across the scarred wooden surface of his desk.

  Photos of Cyras and Elyndra Taly. They looked so small in the frames—Pixies of high standing who thought they could challenge every cartel in Noctra. They were "the clients." The people he was supposed to be helping. In reality, they were just a grieving family. Suspicious, but still grieving.

  He stared at the nanny’s information. She was the key. Had to be.

  Key to what? The kidnapping? An accomplice? An assassin sent to infiltrate the Taly Estate?

  “Could she really do it?” Kael asked the silence as he fished for another cigarette in his desk.

  Finally finding and lighting one, “Maybe she was sent in just to gather information. But that would make taking the kid pointless.” Kael said as he exhaled slowly, his whiskers twitching as a plume of smoke mirrored the fog creeping against the outside of the window across from his desk.

  Kael leaned back and rubbed at his face. His claws, natural traits of the Vellith, just barely caught against his skin. He hadn't extended them in a long time. He kept himself contained. Civilized. But the remnants of his old life were screaming to be let out. He wasn't ready or willing to let that happen, though. He wasn't ready for anything that threatened his “Good Man” life. He was a creature of the hunt, and the hunt for Shayla was the most intricate hunt he'd ever taken.

  An estate full of people, and no one notices a child go missing until it's too late.

  A knock sounded at the door, pulling him back to his reality.

  Kael froze. Every muscle in his 6’3” frame coiled. No one knocked on a PI's door in Grimward at this hour unless they were desperate.

  The knock came again. Firmer. Three distinct raps.

  Kael stood, crossing the office with fluid grace. He reached for the custom stiletto dagger hidden under the desk, then thought better of it. He opened the door just enough to see a sliver of the hallway.

  A courier stood there. A Sprite, barely a teenager. Their wings were tucked tight, scales shimmering blue beneath the hallway’s flickering lights. They held a slim data-slate with both hands.

  “Delivery for Varros,” the Sprite spoke, voice thin with fear.

  Kael’s gaze swept the hallway. Empty. “From who?”

  “Paid in advance at the Tidal Exchange. No return tag.”

  Kael took the slate. The metal was cold. The Sprite didn't wait for a tip; he vanished back into the shadows of the stairwell, his wings buzzing in a frantic retreat.

  Kael locked the door and re-engaged the bio-metric seal. The slate activated at his touch, projecting a grainy video clip into the air above his desk.

  It was dock footage. Night-shift cameras near Tidehaven. A figure moved through the frame, escorting a shape wrapped in blankets. No struggle. No resistance. The child—Shayla—rested her head against the figure’s shoulder with a heartbreaking, instinctive trust.

  The figure was blurred. Intentionally so. But the posture was unmistakable. It was the careful, protective gait of someone who wasn't just a kidnapper, but a guardian.

  The clip ended.

  Text appeared: YOU’RE LOOKING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.

  Kael’s jaw tightened. He knew exactly what this was. This wasn't a clue for the "Good Man." This was a message. Someone was watching the watcher. They were pointing him toward something.

  A trap?

  The truth?

  A body?

  He replayed the footage. Shayla looked so peaceful. It made his stomach churn.

  How could someone just pull her from her life like that? And who is that? I feel like I know that walk.

  From the old days…

  Kael sat back, leaning back into his chair, tilting it as his tail flicked back and forth while he thought.

  And whoever is watching purposely sent a Sprite…

  Pixies and Sprites may be similar but that's precisely why they don't get along. So how much would it take to hire a Sprite Courier to deliver Pixie Information that is of little use, in the whole scheme of things? Maybe the courier took the kid? No, too far-fetched. Still, there's too many questions. Maybe I should have a drink and let my thoughts settle a bit… No! We're not that man anymore!

  Kael slammed his balled fists into the solid wooden desk, allowing a single moment of rage to slip before readjusting his “Good Man” mask.

  “Relax, Varros! It's not that serious!” Kael lied to himself, taking deep relaxing breaths as his irritation quickly built to a crescendo of rage.

  Long silent minutes went by as Kael slowly calmed himself with deep breaths. His Vellith predatory instinct extremely difficult to reign in, yet a mask of false serenity slowly crossed his features. Especially when he looked over at the only upturned picture on his desk. He stopped just before the chestnut oak frame grazed the pads of his fingers. He snatched his hand away and quickly grabbed another cigarette from the pack he'd found in the bottom drawer of his desk.

  “Fuck, we're not that stumped are we? I already shook the hornets nest once, let's not go and open that can of worms on top of it all.” Kael said, giving a soft laugh as he exhaled a thick plume of smoke and he turned his gaze to the window.

  Outside, the city of Noctra had fully awakened at some point. The mag-rails began to vibrate through the floorboards. The voices of the street rose in a dissonant chorus. The daily performance of normalcy was sliding into place, masking the rot beneath.

  Kael shut the projection down. He sat back, his amber eyes fixed on the empty air.

  He was being redirected. Not by the law, but by someone who knew. Someone who wanted to see if the "Good Man" would play the game.

  “Fine,” he murmured.

  He gathered his leather coat and reached for his fedora. The weight was a comfort, a familiar anchor in a world of shifting allegiances. He wasn't ready for everything but regardless of what happened, it would be a good lead.

  Kael locked the office and stepped into the morning chill. Somewhere in Noctra, a child waited, much like Schrodinger's Cat. And someone was very confident Kael would never find her, his own.

  He smiled, a sharp, Vellith expression that never reached his eyes. He was going to find her. He was going to find her. . . Even if he had to return to his past self to do it.