Rustvale always smelled like rust, rain, and old blood. The streets sweated under the pale light of flickering magitech signs, their hum barely covering the shouts of market peddlers and the laughter of drunk gangsters leaning in doorways. The pavement was slick with oil, and in the alleys, shadows stuck to the brick like they were afraid to move.
Inside the crumbling shell that passed for Southside Learning Annex, the rain was just a muffled hiss against shattered windows patched with clear tape. Twenty rusted desks sat crooked, their legs biting into warped floorboards. A magitech projector sat on the teacher's desk, its crystal core dim, humming like it was one bad spark from death.
Caz leaned back in his chair, one leg hooked around the seat's edge, his battered jacket collar pulled up to hide the smirk tugging at his mouth. Beside him, Dex hunched low over his dented phone, the cracked screen casting a ghostly blue light across his face.
"Watch this, man he's about to drop him," Dex whispered, thumb flicking over the feed.
On the screen, Jace Vance Rustvale's golden boy in the underground MMA scene was dancing circles around some tattooed brute. Jace's grin was all teeth and menace. Then came the strike — a sharp knee to the gut, the kind that makes a man forget how to breathe. The brute folded, and the crowd roared through the cheap phone speaker.
"Guy's an animal," Dex muttered, awe thick in his voice.
Caz's smirk thinned into something colder. Yeah. Animal's one word for him.
"Mr. Caelus."
The voice cut through the moment like broken glass. Both boys jolted. Standing at the front, arms folded, was Ms. Ranleigh hair pulled into a bun so tight it looked like it hurt, magitech pointer rod in hand. Her eyes narrowed on them with the tired precision of someone used to catching the same troublemakers every week.
"Care to enlighten us on the economic collapse of the Scepterline District?" she asked, voice bone-dry.
Dex sank low. "Uh… too much… economics?"
A ripple of laughter went through the class. Caz just shrugged, unwilling to give her the satisfaction of looking guilty.
Ranleigh didn't press. Instead, she tapped the projector. "We have a new student. Be civil."
The door creaked open.
She stepped in like she owned the place. Nyra Vance.
The first thing Caz noticed was her posture straight-backed, shoulders relaxed, the kind of confidence you didn't fake. Her eyes swept the room in a single pass, assessing, cataloging, dismissing. The second thing he noticed was that she moved like an athlete not the swagger of a street brawler, but the smooth precision of someone drilled to strike and keep striking.
And then the teacher said her name.
Vance.
The word froze in his gut. He knew it like he knew the smell of rain on Rustvale's rooftops. Jace's sister.
Around them, the room buzzed whispers about her family's wealth, their mansion in Northspire, her brother's fights. Nyra didn't seem to hear any of it. She took the empty seat in the row ahead, glancing over her shoulder once. For just a heartbeat, their eyes met.
There was no smile in hers just the faintest flicker of interest before she turned away.
The rest of the period dragged, Ms. Ranleigh droning about trade routes and taxation while the rain outside deepened into a steady drum. When the bell finally released them, Caz slipped out fast, weaving through the thin crowd of students spilling into the wet streets.
Rustvale felt colder after school, the light sinking toward the horizon and the gangs starting to stir. He kept his head down, boots splashing through puddles that caught flashes of neon from broken signs.
By the time he reached the leaning apartment block on West Fennel Street, his shoulders had loosened. The stairwell smelled like mildew and boiled cabbage. On the third floor, door 3B hung from one loose hinge, but it still locked barely.
Inside, Tessa sat cross-legged on the couch, a chipped mug of tea steaming beside her, textbooks stacked like fort walls around her knees. Her hair was tied up, her thin frame wrapped in one of Caz's old hoodies.
"You're late," she said without looking up.
"Got held up," Caz replied, hanging his jacket on the one hook the wall hadn't eaten.
"By trouble?"
He smirked faintly. "By life."
She hummed, turning a page, and he knew better than to push the conversation. Instead, he stepped to the window. Out there, Rustvale's streets glimmered under the rain, the neon reflected in the puddles like a smear of oil. Somewhere out there, Jace Vance was probably celebrating another win. Somewhere in those streets, Nyra Vance had walked in untouched.
And somewhere deep in Caz's gut, something coiled not jealousy, not exactly. Something closer to hunger.
He didn't know yet that before long, Rustvale would remember his name too.