The rain came just as the market was thinning.
Not the soft kind that cools the skin, but a steady, silver fall that made the cobblestones slick and the air smell like wet iron. Isaiah had ducked under the striped canopy of a tea stall, shaking the water from his hair and clutching the parcel of spices to his chest.
The vendor - a woman with a smile that didn't quite reach her eyes - poured him a cup of rooibos without asking.
"You look like you need warmth," she said, sliding it across the counter.
Isaiah managed a thanks, his gaze drifting over the shifting shapes of the crowd. That's when he saw him again.
The man in the suit.
The cane.
The weight in the air.
He was closer this time, only three stalls away, examining a tray of small silver cufflinks as if each one carried a story worth hearing. No one jostled him. Even the rain seemed to bend around his shoulders, as though it didn't dare stain the fabric of his suit.
Isaiah tried to look away. He failed.
The man glanced up. Their eyes met again - and this time Isaiah felt it like a sudden drop in the ground beneath him.
It wasn't magic. Not in the sense he'd been told as a child. This was something older, something that pressed directly into the soft parts of the mind. A Doma's presence.
And it carried pain.
Not sharp, not screaming.
A deep, endless ache that seemed to whisper: I know you. I know what breaks you.
Isaiah's chest tightened. His fingers trembled around the teacup. He had to remind himself to breathe.
The man began to walk toward him. Each click of the cane sounded louder than it should, like a metronome slowing the world around them.
When he reached the stall, he tipped his head politely to the vendor, then turned to Isaiah. "You draw lions," the old man said, his voice as smooth as well-worn stone.
It wasn't a question.
Isaiah blinked, unsure how to respond.
"I-sometimes," he managed. "How did you-""
They wait in you," the man interrupted gently. "Coiled. Quiet. That's rarer than you think.
"He set one gloved hand on the counter, leaning ever so slightly on the cane. "When you're ready," he said, "you'll come find me. Or I'll come find you. Either way, the wait will end."
Before Isaiah could ask what that meant, the old man turned and disappeared into the rain, the sound of his cane fading with him.
Isaiah didn't move for a long time.
Not because he was afraid - but because something in him had shifted, and he couldn't yet tell if it was the ground or his own footing.