The ripple still shimmered across the canal when my mouth opened to tell Salem, but he beat me to the silence. I half expected him to turn to the water and unleash an attack right upon its surface. Instead, his attention was turned elsewhere, ahead of us.
His hand snapped up, sharp as a guillotine's fall, palm spread as though his very fingers could freeze me mid-breath. My voice died in my throat before it could even make the mistake of forming syllables.
That was Salem for you—always one step faster at sensing death looming in the mist. If his body were an instrument, then dread was its bowstring, drawn taut across his nerves at all times. I swear sometimes he doesn't even breathe unless danger allows it.
I followed his gaze, forcing my lungs to still, and there it was: a shape moving within the fog ahead. At first only a shadow, vague and indistinct, like a smear of ink on parchment washed by rain, but each step carried it closer, pulling flesh and weight from the haze.
My stomach churned, my fingers trembled near my dagger, and I felt that old, suffocating sensation again—the one where time grows slow and the world collapses to the size of your own thundering pulse. Whoever it was, whatever it was, the air around it felt wrong, like it was carrying the silence of a graveyard into our lungs.
The knight, to my side, straightened. For once, he wasn't laughing. The tassel of his ridiculous helmet swayed lightly as he shifted Nara's limp body on his shoulder, his bare feet firm against the cobblestone.
And there was Salem, unflinching as ever, his blade already low in his hand, glinting faintly with wet crimson from the tavern massacre he'd just walked out of.
Three utterly mismatched men—if you could call the knight a man at all—stood in perfect, dreadful alignment, all eyes pinned on that advancing figure. For a heartbeat I thought, well, at least we'll die looking organized.
Then the fog loosened enough to reveal him.
The stitched man.
In that instant I felt my stomach turn to stone. My hand flew to my dagger and drew it with a rasp that echoed louder than I'd meant. My every nerve screamed at me to strike first, to plunge it through his grotesque flesh and keep stabbing until my arm grew numb.
Yet something stopped me. Not mercy. Not fear. Just… wrongness. Something in the way he moved.
I squinted through the shifting gray light. His bulk wasn't the same as before. He was smaller now, his posture hunched, his steps uneven. His body, once grotesquely swollen with cords of sewn muscle, had thinned. His flesh sagged in places, as though whatever obscene force had inflated him had started to leak away.
And his gait—gods, his gait. Staggering, pained, almost confused. It was the stride of a man who had walked through hell only to find himself in the wrong neighborhood afterward.
"Something's off," I muttered, though my voice was so tight I doubt either Salem or the knight heard me.
My knuckles whitened on my dagger's hilt as the stitched brute drew closer. He didn't raise his weapon. He didn't roar. He didn't even look at us. He just walked...straight past us.
I froze as his shoulder brushed mine. The air seemed to suck the heat away from my skin, leaving a numb trail where he passed. I turned my head instinctively, watching him move on, every instinct begging me not to expose my back, every nerve convinced he would whirl on me and smash my skull into paste. But he didn't. He just kept walking, his eyes glassy, his expression lost somewhere far away.
That's when I saw it.
Two red marks, carved like punctuation into the back of his neck. Bite marks.
My breath hitched sharp enough to hurt. A shiver ran down my spine, dragging goosebumps in its wake. I felt the memory sort itself almost instantly. Nara. She had those same marks. I had seen them on her flesh, had felt the dread coil in my gut at the sight.
And now, they were on him—on this stitched monster who had once been the stuff of nightmares.
Whoever was biting, marking, claiming—whatever it was—it could wound something like him. Could sap his strength, carve him hollow. And if they could do that to him, then gods help the rest of us.
I didn't even realize I'd been holding my breath until the stitched man vanished back into the haze, his massive frame swallowed like smoke in wind. I swayed, my knees almost buckling with the release of tension. My heart thundered in my chest like a war drum, but for once, not even my sarcasm could crawl up through the mess of it all.
Salem's eyes lingered on the fog. The knight tilted his helmet, tassel swaying, then finally—mercifully—broke the silence. "Well," he said cheerfully, though even his voice carried a shadow this time, "that was dramatic."
"I'm gonna to be sick," I muttered.
Salem's gaze flicked once to me, then to the knight, then forward again. He said nothing. He didn't need to. The message was clear enough: we move, or we die.
And then, like fate had been listening for its cue, the knight lifted his head. "There!" he bellowed, pointing through the mist with all the subtlety of a parade announcer. "The boathouse! I can see it!"
I squinted. Sure enough, through the swirling gray, a dark structure loomed. Timber frame, sagging roof, faint glimmer of water lapping at its foundations. A silhouette drawn in haze.
Salem and I locked eyes. Just once, then we nodded.
Without another word, we headed straight into the fog.
The boathouse loomed larger with each step. My heart hammered harder the closer we drew, a pounding rhythm that rattled against my ribs like fists demanding entry. The air grew thick then, cloying, as though the fog itself wanted to choke us back. My palms were slick on my dagger's hilt. Every crunch of gravel beneath our boots sounded like a scream.
We didn't speak. Even the knight stayed silent now, though his ridiculous nudity still made a mockery of the solemnity. For once, I was grateful for his silence.
We reached the door.
Salem's hand pressed to the wood. My heart thumped wildly. Then, with one synchronized breath, we burst through.
The boathouse opened before us in a dark rush of stale air. And there he was.
A figure in tattered clothes, crouched, clutching his side. His breath came ragged, strained, like each inhale dragged knives across his ribs. Blood pooled beneath his hand, dark and thick, spreading across the floorboards. He spun at the crash of the door, hood whipping back—and my world nearly collapsed.
Rodrick.
I staggered forward, my throat closing up. My vision blurred. "Rodrick," I whispered, the word falling out of me like a prayer. My knees almost gave as I threw myself toward him, arms wrapping tight before reason could stop me. His body was hot, trembling, blood slicking my sleeves.
He leaned back just enough to meet my eyes, lips quirking with that old, insufferable smirk. "You're late," he croaked.
And despite everything—the blood, the terror, the stench of iron and rot—I laughed. Gods help me, I laughed, the sound breaking against a sob as I held him tighter.
Then he coughed, violently, a spray of blood spattering across my shoulder. My stomach dropped.
"Enhancements," he rasped, his eyes half-lidded but still gleaming. "Only thing keeping me on my feet. I shouldn't even be breathing right now."
Salem was at his side in an instant, steady hands pressing to his wound, voice low and urgent. I stumbled back a pace, heart splitting between relief and dread.
And then—because the universe despises me—the lid of a nearby fish barrel rattled. I nearly leapt out of my skin as it clattered aside and a small, shaking head popped up. Dunny.
"Is—" he stammered, eyes wide, voice trembling, "is that man gone?"
My chest still heaving, I nodded quickly. "He's gone. Calm down, Dunny. You're safe."
Safe. The word sounded laughable here, with blood pooling on the floor and fog pressing against the windows, but what else could I say to the boy?
Salem, however, wasted no time on comfort. His voice cut in sharp, precise. "Dunny. Do you know what happened to him? The stitched man."
Dunny shook his head so hard I thought it might spin loose. "N-No. I don't know. I just—I just hid."
Rodrick, however, lifted his head weakly, his face pale but his voice steady. "I saw him," he muttered. "Emerging from a nearby bakery. On my way back from scouting." His lips twisted. "Didn't dare look closer."
A bakery. Of all places. My mind reeled, absurd laughter bubbling in my throat at the image of that stitched monstrosity queuing up for a loaf of rye. I choked it back before it could slip out.
And then, inevitably, the knight spoke.
"Ha! Perhaps he craved a croissant! Who among us has not been felled by hunger?"
Rodrick glanced up at him then. To his gleaming helmet. To his very obvious lack of attire. To Nara dangling half-naked and unconscious over his shoulder. His expression twisted into something so sharp with disgust that I nearly folded over laughing right there.
"What," he croaked, "is this circus?"
I couldn't help it—I barked a laugh, shoulders shaking. "Don't ask."
He didn't. Instead he rolled his eyes, letting the matter die with a disgusted exhale. Which, frankly, was merciful for us all.
Salem, still pressing Rodrick's wound, asked tightly, "What have you been doing here all this time?"
Rodrick inhaled slow, grimacing. "I've been using this place as a safehouse. Watching the water routes. Contestants have been moving supplies—food, weapons, even some relics. I've been tracking them." He coughed again, blood flecking his lips. "Gathering intel."
"What intel?" I pressed, leaning in.
His eyes flicked to me, sharp even through his pain. "There seems to be three factions already forming within the city."
My blood ran cold.
He raised a trembling hand, counting them off. "The first is a mysterious man in white. He was spotted near the east wall rallying a large group of people. They say he has charisma like wildfire." His hand trembled. "The second is a gold-plated man, one bearing the mark of the Southern Sun Cult. He's building influence on the opposite side of the city." His jaw clenched. "Finally is a woman rumored to be moving in shadows though nobody has seen her directly."
My thoughts raced. A woman in shadows—Nara's whispered words came back to me instantly. She'd mentioned a women, somebody dangerous, one she'd been "bound to," whatever that meant. Whoever this women was, she had to be the one handing out these marks.
Alongside this, the Southern Sun Cult… so they'd planted an agent here after all. The thought alone made my skin crawl.
However, the man in white—that was new. My mind scoured every scrap of knowledge I had, every whispered rumor, and came up empty.
Rodrick's eyes dropped, his voice quieter now. "One more thing...someone's moving independently. He's only been caught in vague rumors so far. But they say he's a graduated mage. King-Class."
The words punched the air from my lungs.
King-Class.
My heart lurched, my vision narrowing. Even the naked knight, with all his absurd strength, was only Knight-Class. My mind tried to imagine the scale of it, the sheer devastation someone of that rank could wield—and failed.
I felt sick.
And then, breaking the tension with all the grace of a drunk peacock, the knight bent low, finally setting Nara down against the floorboards.
I arched a brow but then I saw it. Her body was stirring, a faint tremor in her limbs, her ears twitching as her eyes fluttered.
She was waking.