I leaned against the cool stone archway of the belfry, chest heaving in slow, uneven drags, the taste of metal still sharp at the back of my tongue.
The city spread out below me in a dizzying sweep of rooftops and twisting streets, sunlight flashing off canal water and the glint of metal from some far-off skirmish. My ears were still ringing from the strike — not a metaphorical ringing, not the romantic kind you hear in poetry, but a literal, high-pitched whine that made me want to shove my fingers into my skull and shake the sound out.
The bell swung lazily now, like a contented predator licking its teeth after a meal, and I realized — with a deep, bone-sinking relief — that my gamble had paid off. The stitched man was gone.
I laughed. I couldn't help it. Not the polite, charming laugh I use at parties, not the smug little chuckle I give when I've outplayed someone in a negotiation. No — this was unhinged. It came in ragged bursts, shaking loose the tension that had been coiled up in me since the moment he'd appeared.
I braced my palms against my knees and let it spill out, the sound echoing through the belfry until I almost started laughing harder at the idea of someone down in the street hearing me and thinking, Oh good, there's a lunatic in the tower. Just what this city needs.
But somewhere between my third and fourth wheezing gasp for air, something caught in the corner of my vision.
Not movement from the street — movement from the sky.
I straightened slowly, the giddy edges of my grin fading as I tracked it. A small, dark shape was descending, parachute flaring open above it like a pale blossom. It bobbed and swayed as it came down, sunlight catching on the metal edges. A supply drop. Of course. Why settle for chaos when you can throw gifts into it like breadcrumbs to starving dogs?
I followed its path with my eyes, tracing the arc until it became clear where it was headed — an open square, maybe three streets over, bordered by low stone buildings and what looked like the cracked remains of a churchyard wall. My pulse quickened. Not because of the drop itself, but because I could see three shapes cutting through the streets toward it.
One of them was Salem.
It was only a glimpse — a flicker of his coat vanishing around a corner, the unmistakable rhythm of his stride — but it was enough to set something in me thrumming. Salem didn't run for nothing. If he was moving that fast toward the drop, there was a reason. And if there was a reason, I needed to be there.
I took a step toward the stairs, ready to throw myself down them, when the sound reached me — a low, strained grunt, deep enough that it vibrated in the stone under my boots. My head snapped toward the source.
It came from behind me.
I moved to the side of the tower and leaned just far enough to peer out through one of the arches, bracing my hand against the cold stone.
And there he was.
The stitched man hung from the side of the tower by one thick, scarred hand, his other arm reaching for a foothold. His body swayed slightly with the wind, and for one absurd second I thought he might just let go and be done with it. But no — those dark, dead eyes locked on me, and I knew. He wasn't letting go of anything except my spine, once he'd torn it out of my back.
"Son of a bitch," I muttered, already moving.
There was no time to consider the elegance of my exit — I was flying down the spiral stairs, my shoulder scraping the wall on every turn, my boots slamming hard enough to make the wood groan under me. I didn't bother looking up to see if he was following. If he could cling to the side of a tower like some nightmare barnacle, he could definitely catch me on the stairs.
The door at the base slammed open under my shoulder, and I burst into the narrow street beyond, lungs burning with the sudden change in air. The sunlight was too bright after the dim of the tower, bouncing off every pale surface until the whole city seemed to glow. I took the first corner without thinking, letting instinct steer me deeper into the winding streets.
Behind me, I could hear the thud-thud-thud of pursuit — distant for now, but steady. I cut through an alley, vaulted a stack of barrels, and nearly plowed into a laundry line that had the audacity to hang directly across my path. The linens snapped against my face as I pushed through, muttering curses about the city's sense of urban planning.
And then I noticed them.
The air balloons.
A new cluster of them had shifted their drifting path to follow me, their bright skins moved in lazy tandem. I could just barely make out the dark shapes of people leaning over the sides — nobles, sponsors, merchants, all eager to get a look at the poor bastard currently sprinting for his life below.
Was that good or bad? I couldn't decide. On one hand, visibility meant potential sponsorship — someone might like my style enough to throw a little money or equipment my way. On the other hand, it also meant that anyone else in the city could now follow the very obvious floating markers that screamed Cecil is here, come kill him.
I glanced down at the ring on my finger, the one they'd given us at registration. The faint black number on its surface had changed again.
Three hundred twenty-one.
It took a beat for my brain to translate that into meaning, and when it did, my mouth went dry. That wasn't just a number. That was the number of contestants left. Which meant that, in the time it had taken me to run from the belfry to here, over forty people had already been eliminated.
I gritted my teeth and pushed harder.
The streets spilled me into the churchyard I'd seen from the tower — the cracked stone walls surrounding a tangle of weeds, the remnants of graves tilting like drunkards in the long grass. At its center was a patch of open ground where the supply drop was descending.
And there was Salem.
He was already engaged, moving with that same impossible economy of motion I'd seen a hundred times before. His opponent — a wiry woman with cropped silver hair and a knife in each hand — was pressing hard, her strikes blurring into one another like falling rain. A third figure — tall, broad-shouldered, with a jagged scar running down his face — was circling them, waiting for an opening.
I didn't think.
"Salem!" I called, my voice cutting across the yard.
His head snapped toward me, and for a fraction of a second I saw something rare — genuine relief. Then the scarred man lunged at his back, and the moment was gone.
I was already moving, my boots pounding across the grass. The supply crate hit the ground with a dull thud just as I reached them, and instinct shoved me into the fight before I had time to weigh the consequences.
The scarred man swung a heavy mace, the air whistling as it passed inches from my head. I ducked under it, came up inside his guard, and drove my fist into his ribs. He grunted — more annoyed than pained — and shoved me back with a forearm like a battering ram.
The silver-haired woman shifted toward me, her knives flashing in the sunlight. Salem intercepted her, his hand snapping up to catch her wrist before she could drive the blade home. He twisted, forcing her to drop it, then used the momentum to fling her sideways into the scarred man.
For a heartbeat, they both stumbled. And then, as if some unspoken agreement passed between them, they turned — together — toward us.
"Well," I said, sliding into a looser stance. "That's unfortunate."
"Focus," Salem said, his eyes never leaving them.
The fight exploded into motion.
They came at us from opposite sides, the scarred man's mace swinging in brutal arcs while the woman darted in and out, her knives aiming for gaps in our defenses. I kept my energy low and tight, focusing it into short bursts — a quick enhancement to my legs to sidestep a strike, a pulse through my arms to turn a block into a shove. Salem was a whirlwind beside me, his blows landing with surgical precision, forcing them to adjust, retreat, adjust again.
We worked without speaking, turning movement into conversation. When I dropped low, Salem struck high. When he pushed one of them toward me, I was already stepping in with a follow-up. It wasn't perfect — they were good, better than most I'd fought — but slowly, we started to press them back.
The crate sat forgotten between us, a mute witness to the chaos. I caught glimpses of it between strikes, the promise of whatever was inside tugging at the edges of my focus. Supplies could make the difference between lasting another hour and becoming another number on someone else's ring.
It ended when Salem feinted left, drawing the scarred man's guard just long enough for me to step in and drive my knee into his gut. He doubled over, and Salem's palm caught his chin, snapping his head back with a sickening crack. The woman froze for half a heartbeat too long, and I slammed the heel of my hand into her temple. She dropped like a puppet with its strings cut.
The sudden quiet was jarring. My breaths came in sharp, shallow bursts, my pulse pounding in my ears. Salem straightened, rolling his shoulders back, and glanced at me.
"I thought you were going to die," he said, and there was no bite in it — just a flat admission.
"Oh, please," I said, forcing a grin I didn't quite feel. "You think a stitched together man, three blocks of running, and a two-on-two brawl is enough to take me down? I'm offended."
He didn't answer, but the corner of his mouth twitched.
We stood there a moment longer, letting the adrenaline taper off, before finally turning to the crate. Salem crouched, his fingers working at the latch until it popped open.
Inside was a small pack of food and water — not much, but enough to matter — and a short sword.
I saw the way his eyes lit at the sight of it, the way his hands closed around the hilt with a quiet satisfaction. The blade was rusted, the edge dulled, but it was steel, and steel was life in here.
He dug further, pulling out a coil of rope. Without looking at me, he held it out. "Here, consider it a consolation prize."
I took it with a mock bow. "For me? You shouldn't have."
"We need to find Rodrick and Dunny," he said, his tone shifting back to business.
I nodded, slipping the rope into my pack. "Agreed. Before they—"
Suddenly, something fluttered down from above, catching the sunlight as it fell. A folded envelope.
I snatched it out of the air and tore it open.
The words inside were simple, printed in a hand that cared more about clarity than elegance:
Bounty: 5,000 crowns. Target: Callie Valenti.
I stared at it, my mouth going dry, and felt the distant, cold certainty that things had just become much, much worse.