Umbra had a name now, but names don't eat.
The shop sold nothing. Dust didn't pay rent. Jonas worked hauling brick dust. Mara drilled students at the dojo for coin. I had a mask, a candle, and a word—but no coin, no power, no teeth.
If Umbra was to breathe, it needed blood.
Not mine. Not theirs. Someone else's.
---
Red Fang ran the lower blocks like a butcher runs knives. They taxed every stall, every crate, every breath. Pay, or bleed. It wasn't new. But lately, they'd grown greedy.
"Taking twice the cut," Mara muttered as she leaned against the backroom wall, arms folded. "Even from the children's ward."
Jonas' jaw tightened. "Children?"
"Hospital relic's being rationed now," she said. "You want a wound closed, you wait. Unless you pay Fang first."
The candle flickered. Shadows stretched across the ledger, empty but waiting.
"This is where we start," I said.
Jonas frowned. "A gang?"
"Not just a gang. A message. We take back their coin. We return it to the people they bled. Quietly. No banners, no boasting. They'll feel the hand but never see the shadow."
Mara's eyes glinted. "You already have a plan."
"Of course," I said.
The Lexicon hummed in my chest, pages turning.
---
The next night, Jonas and I shadowed Red Fang collectors.
Three men, jackets red, swagger loud. They moved from stall to stall, scooping coin into a sack. Shopkeepers paid with tight jaws and lowered eyes. No one refused.
I nodded at Jonas. He stepped into their path, broad and steady.
"Problem?" one asked, hand on his knife.
Jonas didn't answer. He simply stood, shoulders wide, blocking the alley.
The men laughed. "Move, wall."
They swung first. Jonas absorbed the blows like stone. His fist answered once. A man dropped.
The second lunged. Jonas caught his wrist, twisted, and something snapped. He crumpled, groaning.
The third froze. Jonas' eyes stayed calm, steady. The man dropped the sack and ran.
Jonas didn't chase. He just lifted the sack and handed it to me.
I checked it. Enough coin to fill three ledgers.
"Good," I said.
---
We moved fast. Mara slipped into the shadows of the hospital ward. She placed the sack in the hands of the nurse with tired eyes. "From nowhere," she whispered. "Don't ask."
The woman's hands trembled. She didn't ask.
Children in the ward would eat tomorrow. Wounds would close.
Red Fang would wake missing coin and pride.
Umbra would wake stronger.
---
That night, in the shop's backroom, we sat around the candle.
Jonas spoke first. "They'll come looking."
"They'll look in daylight," Mara said. "Not in shadow."
I smiled faintly. "Let them. The more they look, the less they'll see."
The Lexicon pulsed warm, as if agreeing.
The ledger wasn't empty anymore. The first line had been written.
Umbra had drawn blood.