The rain had stopped, but Hollow Deep still dripped. Water slid from rooftop gutters in thin streams, pattering onto the uneven streets below. The morning light didn't cut through the fog so much as settle inside it, turning the city into a gray dream where the edges of buildings blurred into the mist.
Zayway walked with his hood up, hands tucked into his pockets, following no path in particular. In Hollow Deep, paths had a way of finding you — one turn led to another, and before you realized it, you'd crossed into a part of the city you'd never seen before. Mare had once told him it was because Hollow Deep was layered.
"First streets built on the stone," she'd said. "Second streets on the bones."
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Today, the streets smelled of damp ash and something faintly metallic.
He passed a vendor leaning on a cart stacked with jars of oil. The man swirled one jar slowly, the liquid inside shifting from black to silver as if alive.
"Gleam oil," the man called. "Turns a dull blade into a cut worth respect."
Zayway kept moving. Gleam-forged weapons were common enough in Hollow Deep, but only in the hands of people who knew how to wield them. In the wrong grip, they were a danger to their owner more than their enemy.
⸻
Further on, the market here was stranger than Mare's corner — stalls packed with shadowed boxes, closed crates, and tables draped in cloth so you couldn't see what was underneath. Deals were made in whispers, hands moving coins and goods quickly before eyes could wander.
One table displayed coils of etched wire that shimmered faintly blue. Another was stacked with small clay pots sealed with red wax.
He lingered near a stand selling dried plants, their shapes unfamiliar — some curled like claws, others straight and stiff like brittle spears. The vendor, a short man with more wrinkles than hair, caught him looking.
"You've got the eyes for a remedy-maker," the man said.
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Zayway frowned. "A what?"
"Someone who knows what to pick, when to mix it, and how to keep it from killing the one you give it to." The man tapped a bundle of pale leaves. "Fresh, this'll stop your blood from running. Dry it, and it'll stop your heart instead."
Zayway didn't answer. He moved on before the man could try to sell him anything, but the words stuck in his head.
⸻
The deeper into this section of Hollow Deep he walked, the stranger the weapons became.
He passed a smith working under a low awning, hammering a blade that glowed faintly with green light. A pair of twins no older than himself sat nearby, stringing thin needles onto lengths of cord, their hands moving with eerie precision.
Weapons weren't just steel here. In Hollow Deep, the line between tool and talisman blurred — the right oil, the right carving, the right material could turn something simple into something deadly.
And then there were the Affinities.
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Most people had none — they fought with their hands, their weapons, or whatever tricks they could buy. But some were born with a link to an element, a sensation, or something stranger. Fire, wind, shadow, memory — even bone. An Affinity could be obvious, like a spark leaping from your palm, or invisible until you used it.
The market whispered with it — vendors murmuring about a watercaster who could boil the air around your lungs, a runner who could turn the stone beneath your feet to sand.
In Hollow Deep, power wasn't just about strength. It was about what you could make someone else afraid of.
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By midday, Zayway wandered back toward more familiar streets. Mare's corner was busier than usual, a few unfamiliar faces in the crowd. He spotted Kett, the sandy-haired runner Mare used sometimes, weaving between stalls. Behind him, a tall girl with braided hair — Lorr — leaned against a wall, her gaze scanning the street.
Neither looked surprised to see him, though Kett gave a quick wave.
"Word is the Iron Veil's been sniffing around again," Kett said when Zayway got close. "Careful where you walk."
Lorr didn't speak, but her eyes lingered on him just a little too long, like she was measuring his worth.
⸻
He didn't get a chance to respond. Mare's voice cut through the noise.
"You've been walking too far again," she said, not looking up from her stall.
"Just looking," Zayway replied.
"Looking gets you noticed. Noticing gets you marked."
He frowned. "Marked for what?"
Before she could answer, her gaze flicked past him — sharp, focused. "Eyes on you again."
⸻
Zayway turned just enough to see them: two figures in black armbands at the far end of the lane.
The Iron Veil Hunters.
They didn't move toward him, but their stillness was enough. The street seemed quieter suddenly, the market noise pulling back like the tide.
He thought again about the silver mist curling from the cobblestones, about Mare's words: The street remembers.
And for the first time, he wondered if the city's memory was a thing you could run from.
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