It was quiet, and dusk was giving way to night.
Latch was checking up on the boy who had narrowly survived a possession. He would live, albeit with a few scars and a lifetime of trauma. "He's stable," Latch said at last, lifting the boy gently and slinging him over his shoulder. His voice carried the weight of relief, but not ease. "I'll take him back to his mother."
"When you do," Ivie interjected, her tone clipped but urgent, "check his room. We need to know how he was touched by possession. A relic, perhaps, something that carried the demon's mark."
Yvain, leaning on a wall nearby, asked what they feared to. "And what if it wasn't chance at all? What if someone conjured the demon deliberately?"
Latch glanced back at him, eyes narrowing. "Is that what you believe?"
But Ivie shook her head, finishing what Latch left unsaid. "A conjurer strong enough to summon a named demon wouldn't waste it on a penniless child from the slums. There's nothing to gain from that." She folded her arms, gaze firm. "No, this was accidental. Bret must have stumbled across a cursed object. That would've been enough to draw it to him."
The three of them stood in uneasy silence, the boy's shallow breathing the only sound.
"There's also the matter of the tannery's owner," Latch said, his gaze lingering on the smoldering ruin before them. The building still hissed with faint embers, charred beams jutting upward like broken ribs. "A Mr. Gant. We'll need to track him down."
"We can deal with that after we've rested," Ivie replied, brushing soot from her sleeve. Her voice carried the edge of fatigue. "Take the boy to his mother. Yvain and I will return to the office."
Latch gave a curt nod and shifted the boy's weight on his shoulder before heading down the narrow street. Ivie and Yvain turned in the opposite direction, their boots crunching over cinders and broken glass.
"You were impressive back there," Ivie said after a stretch of silence. The faintest smile tugged at her lips. "That demon wasn't wrong, you're more than just any augur."
Yvain's expression stayed unreadable. He kept walking, offering no reply.
Ivie arched a brow but let the silence hang for a moment before filling it herself. "Don't worry, I won't dig. Latch and I have more than enough secrets of our own." She shot him a sidelong glance. "Do you have a place to sleep tonight?"
"I was going to return to the inn," Yvain said. His tone was matter-of-fact, but fatigue weighed in it.
"If coin's running thin, you could stay in the room above the office," she offered lightly. "Latch uses it most nights. It's plain, but it's safe."
"Shouldn't we ask him first?" Yvain asked.
"Nope," Ivie replied with a grin that was surprisingly disarming in the ash-dark street.
Once they had left the choking alleys of Rat's Nest Lane behind, Ivie hailed a carriage. The driver, an old man with a bent back, gave them a wary glance but waved them in all the same. Inside, the leather seats were cracked, and the lantern swinging above the door cast the interior in a soft, swaying glow.
Yvain leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment, allowing himself the briefest sliver of rest as the wheels clattered over cobblestones. But his thoughts refused to still. Something tugged at the edge of his memory, and at last he broke the silence.
"Are you familiar with Justine Mercier?" he asked, his voice quiet but deliberate. Ivie had been staring absently out the window, watching the city's flickering lamps slide past.
At the sound of the name, she turned toward him with a sly, knowing grin. "Searching for a lover?"
Yvain's expression didn't shift. "No." He left the word hanging, flat and final.
Ivie let out a dramatic groan, leaning her head back against the seat. "You're a bore. You know that?" Then, with a tilt of her chin, she let her gaze wander upward, as if rifling through memory. "Can't say I know the name. But I do remember a Count Derek Mercier. He was with the Embalming Guild, had coffers fat enough to buy half a ward if he wanted. Old, stiff man. I think he left on the pilgrimage a few months back."
"Did he have a daughter?" Yvain asked, eyes narrowing.
"No," Ivie said, with the faintest smirk. "But he did have a widow. She inherited everything once he was gone. Must be nice."
She gave a small laugh and turned back to the window, her reflection in the glass catching the lamplight like a ghost that smiled at its own joke.
Yvain let himself sink back into the carriage seat, eyes slipping closed. For a moment he surrendered to the rhythm of the wheels over stone, the creak of wood, the distant murmur of the city still alive outside.
The ride ended sooner than he would have liked. The carriage drew up before the office, its lanterns casting long, crooked shadows across the worn facade. Ivie flipped a coin to the coachman with her usual casualness and led the way inside.
They climbed to the third floor, a narrow stairwell groaning beneath their steps. The space they found there looked more like a forgotten storehouse than living quarters, timbers still blackened from old smoke, walls patched with uneven planks. But someone had carved rooms out of it, crude partitions giving shape to beds and shelves.
"How is it?" Ivie asked, stepping into the middle of the room and spreading her arms like a showman revealing a grand stage.
Yvain took it in with a measured glance. He had slept in palaces and in gutters, in gilded chambers and in mud. This was somewhere in between. "It's good enough," he said at last.
Ivie rolled her eyes with an exaggerated sigh. "Grateful as ever." She turned toward the door. "I'll leave you to it then. Try not to brood yourself to death."
The latch clicked softly behind her.
Yvain exhaled, shoulders sinking. He let himself fall onto the narrow bed, its mattress uneven and musty with old straw beneath the linen. He didn't care. His strength was gone, drained hollow by the sorcery he had wielded. Within moments, sleep claimed him like a tide pulling a stone beneath the waves.