Low Marrow stank of old oil, burnt cloves, and wet leather, the smells of ambition, desperation, and winter rot. The slum district clung to the belly of Scriptorium City like a tumor the high-born scholars pretended didn't exist. Beneath the broken footbridge that once led to an abandoned clocktower, a boy named Finn Veleris awoke with a knife already pressed against his ribs.
"Give me your coat," came the voice, young, raspy, cocky in the way that meant they were new to knife-work.
Finn didn't move. His eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the fractured morning light that broke through rusted slats above. He blinked once, then twice, noting the blade—short, dull, chipped near the hilt. One good twist and the thing would break in half.
"You want the coat," he said quietly, "you'll have to take it off me. And I warn you, this coat bites."
The boy with the knife faltered. It was all Finn needed. In one smooth motion, he rolled left, jammed his elbow into the other boy's knee, and twisted. The knife clattered on stone. Finn kicked it away, then rolled onto his feet, coat fluttering like a torn flag.
"Next time," Finn said, brushing dirt from his shoulder, "go for the throat. Fewer words. More murder."
The would-be thief, no older than thirteen, scrambled back into the shadows without a word.
Finn watched him vanish, then knelt to retrieve the blade. Chipped obsidian, wrapped in fishgut string. Probably nicked from a trash fire pile. He flipped it once, twice, then tossed it into a nearby drain. He was already late.
Finn moved like a rumor through the streets of Low Marrow. He was seventeen but moved like he'd been running from something since before he could walk. His boots—worn to the shape of his stride—made no sound on wet cobblestone. His coat, black and stitched with patches from three different districts, flared at the edges like the cloak of some forgotten noble. Around him, market stalls barked with low-voiced vendors selling fried starch and fortune eggs. Voices murmured. Candles flickered in gutter-ledge shrines to gods who no longer answered.
He paused near a tangle of alleyways known as The Narrows. Here, the game tables waited, chalk circles drawn onto crates, cards carved from old scroll-trimmings, dice with faces sanded smooth to erase the bad numbers.
He chose a table beneath a broken gaslamp. A few locals milled about—dockhands, pickpockets, a woman who sold fake fertility charms. Finn smiled, drew out a coin, and flipped it.
"Fancy a little fate?" he asked.
An old man in a red sash looked up, teeth yellow as prayer scrolls.
"That your trick coin, boy?"
"No trick," Finn lied. "Only the weight of destiny."
The coin was real enough. Mostly. Just a touch of sand packed inside the lion's head, carefully melted and sealed so it would tilt slightly, subtly, toward whichever side Finn needed.
They played three rounds. The old man lost three times. Coins changed hands. Voices rose. By the sixth round, the watchers leaned in close, the air thick with sour breath and suspicion.
On the seventh toss, Finn let the coin clatter onto the crate's surface.
It landed wrong.
The coin spun, rocked, and settled on the cracked branch—symbol of loss.
Gasps.
Finn grinned. "Hard luck."
The old man's face darkened. "You rigged it."
"Prove it."
The man surged forward. Others followed. Finn bolted.
He ran through Low Marrow like it owed him something. He vaulted fish carts, ducked prayer ropes strung across alleys, and laughed as curses chased him. Three blocks west, he veered left, then up, onto a drainage pipe, then a broken ledge, then the moss-slick rungs of a half-collapsed ladder. Rain began to spit from the ash-colored sky. Finn pulled himself onto the corpse of a balcony two stories up, panting.
From here, he could see the bell-tower. It rose above the district like a dead god's finger, black stone, lichen-wrapped, with iron bells that hadn't rung in years. Once, it had marked the hour when scrolls were read aloud to the chosen. Now, it was hollow. Forgotten.
But not to Finn.
He crossed the roof gap in a leap, slipped once, caught himself, and climbed through a shattered archway into the base of the bell tower. Inside, darkness breathed.
He lit a stub of candle, just enough to see the old rope. It dangled from the center, swaying slightly despite the still air. Finn reached up and gripped it. Not to ring. Not today. He used it to climb.
Step by step, he hauled himself upward, muscles aching, the world shrinking below. He passed graffiti carved into stone, prayers etched in old thieves' code, the occasional blood smear faded to rust. At the top, he emerged into the bell chamber. A single beam of light lanced through the broken tower slit, casting gold over the dust.
He sat. From here, the city looked like a map carved from smoke and teeth. Towers of the Scriptorium rose like needles. The white dome of the Temple of Names glistened in the distance. And there—tucked behind a copper-roofed cloister—was his mark.
The Archive of Broken Threads.
Where they kept the scrolls of the condemned. Where his name waited.
He pulled a folded slip of paper from his coat.
His name. The one they erased.
FINN VELERIS — AGE: UNDECLARED — STATUS: EXCISED
He smiled. A slow, wicked smile.
"Tomorrow," he whispered to the bells. "I steal myself."
He stayed until the light shifted, and the wind returned. A chorus of bells rang from the richer districts as midday approached. Finn descended the rope slower than he'd climbed, careful not to disturb the brittle edges of the steps. He knew better than to rush gravity.
Once back on the rooftop, he took the long way down, moving from handhold to handhold like a boy born of broken architecture. He landed silently in the alley and melted back into the crowd. The last place he visited before dusk was the only place he trusted: a half-sunken workshop called Guttershank's.
The old man who ran it, known only as Gutter, was one of the few who could forge documents, clockwork traps, or advice with equal precision. Finn entered without knocking. The scent of ink and hot metal clung to the walls like a second skin.
Gutter looked up from a splintered workbench. His beard was stained blue with crushed dyes. One eye was brass.
"You're early," he rasped.
"I'm impulsive," Finn replied.
"Impulsive gets you thrown in the river."
"Tonight I'm just scouting. I need the blueprints."
Gutter pulled a thin roll of parchment from a side drawer, flattened it with one hand, and held it down with a pair of copper weights.
"The Archive of Broken Threads. Why?"
"Because they have something of mine," Finn said.
"No one gets in through the front."
"I'm not no one."
"That's what the last five corpses said."
Finn traced the lines with his finger. The ventilation shafts, the sealed corridors, the scriptorium chamber.
"I just need twenty breaths inside. Long enough to lift a single scroll."
Gutter looked at him, long and slow. "Whose scroll?"
"My own."
A silence settled between them. The old forger didn't laugh. Didn't question. That was why Finn came to him.
Gutter slid the parchment across the table. "Then you'll need more than blueprints. You'll need luck."
"I have a coin for that."
The forger shook his head. "Not that kind."
Finn tucked the parchment into his coat and turned to leave.
"Veleris," Gutter called.
Finn paused.
"There's a line between stealing a thing and becoming it. Be sure you know which side of that line you're on."
"I'm not stealing a scroll," Finn said. "I'm stealing who I'm supposed to be."
Then he vanished back into the city's mouth, and the bells did not ring.