The bell above the door didn't just chime this time; it felt like it let out a disappointed sigh as I staggered into the shop.

  Oren didn't even have to look up from his cutting table to know I was a disaster. The smell of copper and alley-water probably reached him before my squeaky boots did.

  "I told you not to bleed on the damask," he said, his voice flat and sharper than his shears. He finally looked up, his face contorting into something that looked like a prune having a stroke. "You look like you tried to hug a landslide. What happened? Did the Lady’s son decide to use your face for target practice?"

  "Stupid kids," I muttered, wiping a fresh drop of blood from my chin. I kept my head down. I couldn't tell him I’d just dismantled a steam-emitting powerhouse with a brick wall. In this city, "laborers" don't win against ability users. If I sounded too capable, I sounded like a pro. And pros had histories. "They saw the Silver. Thought I was an easy mark."

  "Five boys against one delivery boy?" Oren stood up, walking toward me with a limp that usually meant he was about to get truly nasty. "You should have run, you idiot. You're a messenger, not a gladiator."

  "Run where, Oren?" I snapped, the frustration finally bubbling over. "To my two-copper closet with the damp sheets? To the street? Look at me. I’m wearing clothes that smell like a plague ward and I’m hauling velvet for a man who thinks 'charity' is a four-letter word. I don't have the luxury of running. I’m just trying to get by without ending up in a gutter or a cage."

  I wasn't entirely lying. The desperation was real, even if the reason for it—being a fugitive from a Mafia Don and an authoritarian Queen—was a secret I’d take to the grave.

  Oren froze. He stared at me for a long time, his eyes searching my face for the lie. I gave him my best "kicked-dog" expression, which was surprisingly easy to do when your nose is throbbing in three different directions.

  Finally, he let out a long, wheezing sigh that sounded like a deflating bellows.

  "Fine," he grumbled, rubbing his temples. "Stop your whining. It’s bad for the fabric's morale. There’s a storage room in the back, past the dyes. It’s small, it’s dusty, and it smells like vinegar, but it has a cot and a door that locks."

  I blinked. "You're letting me stay here?"

  "Don't make me regret it," he barked, pointing a crooked finger at my chest. "I’m not doing it for you. There’s been... activity. Shifty types hanging around the alley at night. If you’re sleeping there, you’re guarding the stock. If I find one thread missing in the morning, I’m taking it out of your hide."

  He paused, his gaze softening by exactly one percent. "But next time? You do the job. You hand the box. You come straight back. No detours, no heroics, and no more bleeding on my floor. Understand?"

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  "Understood, Oren," I said, feeling a strange weight lift off my chest.

  "Good. Now go wash that face before you stain the velvet. You’re scaring the mannequins."

  I retreated into the back, my boots giving one final, victorious squeak

  I scrubbed at the floorboards until my knuckles were raw, listening to the fading echo of Oren’s laughter as it drifted down the hallway. The old man really thought he’d pulled one over on me, chuckling about how easily I’d guilt-tripped him into giving me this room rent-free. He was a bastard, plain and simple—the kind of man who’d fit right in back in the Undercity. But I knew the truth. Oren hadn't given me this room out of a sudden bout of charity; he’d given it to me because he was terrified. He wanted a guard dog he didn't have to pay, someone to stand between him and whatever crawled through the back alley at night. As the sun dipped below the horizon, the atmosphere of the room shifted from dusty to suffocating. The lamplight began to fade, the wick sputtering in a pool of dying oil, and the shadows in the corners seemed to stretch longer than physics should allow. It’s scary here at night, a different kind of cold that sinks into your marrow. I crawled into bed, telling myself I just needed sleep, watching the last glow of the lamp die out until the room was swallowed by a thick, oppressive blackness.

  I managed to drift off for a few hours, but I woke up exactly at midnight to a sound that made my skin crawl. It was the rhythmic creak of floorboards, but there was a hitch in the sound—a in the movement. Someone was walking past the foot of my bed, but every time I tried to track the movement, they seemed to teleport a foot forward, a jagged, unnatural gait that defied the eyes. I lay frozen, my heart a hammer against my ribs, watching a shadow darker than the night itself move toward the door. Then, a massive bang detonated in the back street near the alley Oren had been so tight-lipped about. I scrambled up, shoved a chair against the wall, and climbed it to peer through the high, narrow window. The street was dotted with patches of fire, not a conflagration, but small, hungry pockets of flame licking at the stones. I turned to bolt for the exit and saw my door standing wide open; whatever had been in the room with me was already out there.

  I ran into the street, the air tasting of ozone and old soot, and skidded to a halt in front of the exact figure I’d seen back in the Undercity. It was a shifting mass of black smoke, a void in the shape of a man with two piercing, malevolent red eyes that burned through the haze. Without a word or a warning, it lunged at me, its smoky claws reaching for my throat. Before it could make contact, my "guardian angel" took over. I call it my second ability, the Sky Wrath, and it’s the only reason I’m still breathing. A violent, blinding explosion of white lightning erupted from my body, a pillar of sky-fire that slammed into the shadow and sent it tumbling back across the cobblestones. It’s a damn shame I can’t control the trigger, because the raw power of it is the only thing that makes me feel safe, yet I’m just a passenger to the blast. The shadow hissed, gathering its darkness to strike again, but then the scattered fires on the street began to move. The flames didn't die out; they flowed together, merging and rising into the shape of a tall man in a long, heavy coat. My breath hitched in my throat as I recognized the uniform. They were known by many names—the Atracuria, the Registry of After Statements, the Department of What Remains Unsaid—but in the Undercity, we just called them the Afterword. The smoky shadow didn't even wait for the man to speak; as soon as it saw the silhouette of the Afterword standing in the embers, it dissolved into the darkness of the alley and vanished. I stood there shivering in the sudden silence, caught between a monster that wanted my soul and a man whose job it was to record my final words.