The city did not smell like forest.
Not of wet leaves, not of cold river, not of the smoke from a lonely hearth. It smelled of people. Of metal and oil, of horses and leather, of beer, herbs, and fire-stone. And beneath it lay something cities always carry: the scent of uncounted decisions made somewhere between greed, hope, and hunger.
Aruto stopped before the gate. The wall was higher than any tree he had climbed as a child. Gray, rough stone that had endured not just blows but sieges. A banner rippled over the arch: a ring of leaves with two crossed spears inside—the emblem he had seen weathered in the ruins, here alive and clean, green as new foliage, bronze as old money.
"Move," Sachi murmured, tugging his sleeve. "The guards are already counting your breaths."
Two gate guards stood in a recess, spears slanted, leather breastplates gleaming with sweat. On the left one's shoulder sat a stitched eye emblem ringed with fine sigil-marks—Seiryuu, Aruto remembered; the Seal-Eyes. A clan that loved binding, ban and truth… and despised powers like his. Something in his chest tugged at the chains—a barely audible tick.
Not back. Only forward.
Yori went first, noiseless as ever, a shadow carrying a body. Sachi walked close behind Aruto, and the way her fingers pinched his cloak's hem said: If they stop you, I'll drag you through.
The guards let them pass. No "Who are you?", no "Papers?". Only looks so thorough it felt as if they'd split the skin into lines and read the spaces between. Heat rose under Aruto's cheeks. He didn't want to lie. But names were chains, and today he wore the false one gladly.
Beyond the gate, the city broke over them.
A lane packed with merchants shouting Cheaper! in five tongues. Carts that snapped as if their wheels were alive. Children playing heroes with wooden swords while real blades hung at the hips of those who laughed. Smiths' hammers chopped rhythms, bakers flung flour dust into the sky as if it were snowing. Music swelled from a side street—flute, lute, a beat that didn't quite match the steps.
Aruto halted as if grabbed between the shoulders. So many people. So many stories. So many blades. His eyes went wide, then narrowed. He saw symbols—clan signs on cloaks, quest boards, crests over door lintels. And in the middle of it all stood the dark timber walls of a building with more windows than his village had houses: the Adventurers' Guild.
"There," Sachi said, softer, more reverent than she'd admit.
Yori said nothing. But his hand rested on his knife, which meant: Inside here are not just people. Inside here are decisions.
The Guild smelled like an oven baking stories: beer, smoke, mockery, leather straps, rain-cold coats, damp maps, blood that wasn't warm anymore, and hope with a copper taste.
The hall was as big as a barn, but with beams you liked to look at. Light fell in squares through glass windows someone scrubbed every morning. Tables stood like islands, maps and dice like driftwood on them, tankards as lighthouses. People everywhere, not talking to talk but to deal.
Aruto stopped again. He didn't count blades—and that was his mistake; there were too many. Instead he started counting glances, and those were sharper.
"Don't stare," Sachi whispered. "You look like fresh bread."
Too late. A table near the counter had seen him. Gray sashes at the biceps, broad grins with too many teeth: Grey Binders. One raised his mug. "New names!" he called. "They're expensive. And pretty."
Aruto felt the word expensive scrape along his ribs. Sachi squeezed his hand harder. Yori cut a look: not here, not today.
They pushed to the counter. The Guildmaster stood there like an oak in winter—pale gray hair tightly braided, a scar over her lip, eyes like ice that doesn't break. Beside her lay a sword that wasn't polished, only serious.
"Name," she said without looking up.
"Sachi, healer," Sachi answered, quicker than her pulse.
"Yori." No origin. Just edge.
Then the woman looked up. And looked through Aruto. Not rude. Professional. "You."
He swallowed. His heart said Say it, his head said Don't. His chains cracked once, just for him. "Ramazawa," he said. The lie fit because it was old.
The woman wrote, slid three wooden tokens across, round, the emblem burned into them. "Copper. Rules there." She nodded at a tightly written board. "Read them. Or die because you don't."
She said it as matter-of-factly as The beer is cold.
Aruto turned the token. Wood, black emblem; his thumb lay on the ring of leaves as if he needed to feel whether it lived. Deep inside, something went tick. Not dangerous. Awake.
"First job?" Sachi asked.
"You're breathing," said the Guildmaster. "You learn first. Map there. Boards there. Glory later."
Yori nodded, the way a man nods to You're not allowed to be stupid. "We'll read the rules."
"Do yourselves a favor," the Guildmaster added as she turned away. "Save names for those who earn them." Her gaze cut to the Grey Binders. "And pay your tabs."
The board was full.
Not of big words, but small ones that change paths.
Rule 1: Jobs are marked when taken. Double-claims lead to suspension.
Rule 2: Copper doesn't enter Cursed Zones without Silver along.
Rule 3: Fights inside: forbidden. Behind the house: tolerated. Behind the house after sundown: your own fault.
Rule 4: Clan conflicts stay Outside. Wear badges openly. Pride is not a shield.
Rule 5: Church affairs are not commented on. Keep papers ready.
Rule 6: Healers have priority. Anyone hindering a healer breaks himself first.
Rule 7: Suspected curse → quarantine. Seiryuu regulations apply.
Sachi leaned her forehead briefly against the planks. "Healer priority," she murmured, more to herself than the wall. "Finally a proper rule."
"Seiryuu," Aruto said softly. "Seal-Eyes everywhere."
Yori barely nodded. "They read lies. Or pretend to. Often enough."
A hand slapped the board right by Aruto's face. A mug far too close. "Rules?" a voice asked, soft, crooked, friendly on purpose. "You can ask us, too."
Grey Binders. Five. Silk bands at their arms. Lazy stances that only come with many scars. A woman in front who smiled like a knife at supper.
"We know the maps," she said. "We know the people. We know the prices. And we know the ones who don't come back."
Aruto looked at her smile and at his fist. He would've swapped them gladly.
"We'll ask the board," Yori said. His look to Aruto spoke: Don't let it be here.
The woman's shoulder twitched, barely. "Copper," she said mildly. "Small tip: stick to rats, parcels, and wells. Let others hunt."
"We're three," Sachi said pleasantly. "And nobody asked for your advice."
The knife-smile blinked. Briefly. The woman tapped her mug against the copper token in Aruto's hand as if to say: A round on you if you live. Then she slid back with a cat's certainty that the bird will stay where it is.
"Informants," Yori grumbled. "Or bait. Or both."
"Both," Sachi said. "Obviously both."
The job boards divided the hall into four walls: errands, vermin hunts, guard duty, scouting. Beside them a fifth, higher, with bars: special cases. Papers that didn't simply hang hung here—under glass, sealed, stamped with signs Aruto couldn't read but the chains in him could feel.
"Not here. Not yet." Yori murmured.
Aruto read the little slips. Handwriting of many hands. Seeking wagon guard to Cairnmark. Rats in warehouse, bonus if without poison. Well poisoned? Healer verification. Sometimes a clan sign at the margin: a fox, a claw, a spiral eye. Pride under paper.
"This one," Sachi said, pointing at a healer job: herbs for the East Quarter, collection zone: Mist Slope. Caution: tread-holes—ground collapse. "Training run for Copper. No blood. Just feet."
Yori fanned three more: well repair (fit stolen iron wheel), caravan familiarization (walk along, learn protocol), night round (gate guard escorts Copper—eyes instead of arms).
Aruto read—and kept one ear on the room. Behind them someone threw cards. At the entrance a helmet clinked. A youngster laughed so loud someone would soon explain what volume costs. Over all of it, the unending susurrus of a place where courage is tradable.
"I thought you wanted to fight," Sachi said, half mockery.
Aruto touched a finger to the well repair. "I want to learn. And survive."
"Good," Yori said. "Then we learn how to ask."
The Guildmaster looked at them with eyes that could smile later but not now. "Well? Mist Slope? Gate?"
"Well," Aruto said. His tone was rustic. He didn't like that. He would practice.
"Copper training. One more joins you this evening. Four of you. Go to the North Gate. Meet Watch Officer Ral. Well-master Juna issues wheels." She pulled a wooden chip from under the counter—a second token, with a wave line burned into it. "This says you're in."
"Any problems?" Sachi asked.
"Yes," the Guildmaster said so calmly Aruto almost smiled. "Always. Allegedly not today. Certainly tomorrow. Questions?"
"Are there…" Aruto hesitated. He didn't want to sound foolish. "…rules that aren't on the wall?"
The Guildmaster leaned forward a fraction. Her gaze weighed. "Yes."
He waited.
"First unwritten: Clans are pride. Pride doesn't pay bills.
Second: The Church never forgets.
Third: A healer is expensive. Treat them like a bill, not a blessing.
Fourth: If someone tries to buy your name, sell them another.
Fifth: If you must break two rules at once, break the one that kills fewer people."
Yori dipped his head slightly. Sachi narrowed her eyes—agreement with reluctance. Aruto filed it all into his ribs beside the chains.
"Then—" he began.
"—North Gate," she cut in. "And if Grey Binders tail you, don't lead them back. Behind the house there's a yard. Remember Rule 3?"
"—Tolerated," Sachi said thinly.
"—Your own fault," Yori added dryly.
"Exactly."
Outside, the city was still there. Brighter, harder. Aruto noticed glances sticking to him—to the false name, the bandage, the face that hadn't learned yet to show nothing.
"North Gate," Yori said.
They passed through alleys where smiths lifted sparks, street sellers slept in crates, and children dragged tin soldiers along threads of water. Aruto saw badges—a fox, a claw, a spiral eye—and wondered how many stories a person could carry before becoming too heavy.
"There," Sachi said, pointing.
Beyond a stone bridge rose a round tower with arrow slits that watched. Before the gate stood a mustached guard baring his teeth, not in joy but to cut the air.
"Ral?" Yori asked.
"You're the well crew," the man said. Confirmation, not greeting. "Later a kid from the South Quarter joins. Limp. Calls himself Den. Well-master Juna's down there." He pointed with a thumb that looked like a knot.
"Thanks," Sachi said.
"Healer?" Ral asked suddenly, sharp.
Sachi nodded. "Yes."
"Good." He scratched his beard. "If someone gets stuck in the shaft, leave him stuck if the alternative is two."
Sachi blinked. Aruto saw Yori twitch, inwardly. "Understood," Sachi said dryly.
Well-master Juna was small, quick, and sharp as early frost. Gray hands, gray braid, blue eyes that solved things. Behind her lay wheels, chain hoists, hooks, chocks, ropes, tongs. Order that worked.
"Guild?" she asked. "Copper? Wheels? Good. Don't drop them. Don't cry if you do. This one gets the iron wheel." She pointed at Aruto. "You look like you'll hate it, so you'll learn it faster."
Aruto lifted the wheel. Heavy enough to demand respect, not enough to feed pride. "Where to?"
"Mist Slope," Juna said. "East Quarter, three wells. One's given up its spirit. Two have children who throw stones. Tell them I said they can throw a stone into my yard if they want to lose their teeth." She didn't smile. A joke with no concessions.
"Anything else?" Yori asked.
"Yes. Grey Binders are in the area. They call it toll, I call it stealing. If they ask which well you're fixing, say 'the wrong one.'"
Sachi grinned. "Good rule."
"Better rule," Juna tapped Aruto's wheel. "Never take your eyes off this. People steal everything. Even what nobody needs."
Aruto nodded. His gaze slipped up—past Juna's shoulder to the wall. An old board hung there, nailed fast. Branded in wood: the leaf ring, the spears—and to the left a small stylized fox. Another mark, weaker, faded. Not Seiryuu. Not Grey Binders. He didn't know it. His chains hummed so faintly he wasn't sure it happened.
He didn't ask.
They carried wheels and ropes through narrowing lanes. The East Quarter wasn't a pit of poverty, but it wasn't a stage. Windows had curtains that wanted to hold. Doors had locks that did what they'd been taught. Children played marbles; old men looked up when Aruto passed and looked away again.
"Here," Sachi said, forefinger like a compass. A well of granite, ring worn smooth. Scribbles on the rim—names, hearts, a small eye (Seiryuu), crossed out with two lines. Three dots below, hidden. Someone had laughed while carving it.
"Aruto," Yori said, "wheel."
Aruto knelt, laid his fingers on stone, on grooves, on the sinews of the well that carried water. Iron to iron, rope to wood. Work that rings before it helps.
Children edged closer. A girl with braided hair planted her feet wide. "Are you from the Guild?"
"Copper. Not shiny yet."
The girl nodded solemnly. "My mama says the Guild is like a dog. You feed it so it bites the right direction."
Yori snorted. "Your mama knows a lot."
"More than you," the girl said so seriously Sachi had to smile.
Aruto loosened the old wheel, set the new one, checked teeth, grip, free run. Craft was honest. Pain was honest. Both suited him.
A scream. Not a child's. A scream that interrupts work. Beyond the corner—tumult, voices winding higher, scornful, demanding.
"Grey Binders," Yori said. Not a question. A diagnosis.
"We're working," Sachi said curtly.
"And living," Yori said.
Aruto kept listening—not with his ears, but with the part of him that checked every chain. Nothing tore. Nothing clicked. Just voices, tolls, threats—the usual game.
He turned the wheel. The water rose. Cold, clear, honest. The girl clapped. "See," she told the air with a smile, "Mama said Copper sometimes does good."
"Sometimes," Sachi said.
"Sometimes is enough," Yori replied.
At the second well stood a woman with flour on her hands and a knife at her belt, innocent as a song, honest as work. "Juna sent you?" she asked.
"Yes," Sachi said. "Wheel two. No problem."
The woman nodded. "Thank you. And if Grey Binders ask who you are—tell them your name is Nobody. They can't bargain with Nobody."
Aruto smiled. He liked that. Nobody wore light.
They worked on, quick, routine—as much as Copper can be. The tumult faded. Voices moved on, two streets, a gate, another day.
At the third well an old man sat on a stool, didn't greet them, stared at his hands. Between them lay a blade blank, polished clean, no hilt. He wasn't polishing. He was polishing time.
"Work?" Yori asked, neutral.
The man nodded at the well's rim. Aruto knelt. Silence. The quarter held its breath like it was waiting on a card about to lose.
"You're new," the man said at last. No question.
"Yes," Sachi said.
"Stay alive. The city is expensive."
Aruto tightened the last wheel. His back ached. His heart was calm. The chains were quiet. That was rare.
On the way back to the North Gate the city was the same and different. The same, because it roared. Different, because Aruto knew where the water ran. Knowing makes places lighter.
Watch Officer Ral counted wheels, saw no mistakes, grunted approval. "More tomorrow," he said. "And if someone tells you the city has no teeth, ask whose blood's on the door."
"Yours," Sachi said sweetly.
"Sometimes," Ral allowed.
Back in the Guild, the noise had deepened. Tankards were lighter; voices heavier. At a side table two boys with practice staves were beating on each other. Behind the house something clattered; Tolerated was working hard. Aruto felt the vibration of a place that was map and brawl at once.
He set his copper token on the counter. The Guildmaster didn't lift it. She only looked. "You alive?"
"For now," Yori said.
"Earlier tomorrow. Herbs at Mist Slope. Slippery. No blood—if you're smart."
Aruto nodded.
"And," she added more quietly, only for him, "Ramazawa? It's not a bad name. Mind who tries to buy it."
Something tugged in his chest. "I'm not selling it," he said.
"Good. Then it only costs you."
He took the token and left. Sachi hooked her arm through his, Yori slid to his left, a wordless guardian. The Grey Binders were silent. Sometimes silence is more expensive.
At the door Aruto stopped. He turned the token between thumb and forefinger. Copper was soft. Wood softer. Names softest.
He breathed four counts, held, six out. The chains didn't move. That wasn't a victory. But it was quiet.
"Well?" Sachi asked.
"We don't belong yet," Aruto said. "But we fit."
"You fit anywhere someone says no," Yori muttered.
"Then we start here," Aruto said.
It wasn't a vow. It was a direction. And that, you could walk.
Mist and Names
The Guildyard cooled after the noon roar. The chalk ring held footprints like fossil leaves; voices dropped from bragging to business; the cook's pan hissed itself quiet. Somewhere behind the stables, a bell rang twice—not alarm, not ceremony, just time doing its job.
They ate the kind of late meal that tastes better because it's earned: thick bread, a ladle of broth with honest carrots, a pinch of salt Sachi pretended she hadn't stolen from the counter's communal bowl. Den turned his bowl with the neatness of someone who'd learned long ago to make small things last.
"We got seen," he said around a grin that wanted to be mischief and discipline at once. "Binder smiles. Boreal eyes. Seiryuu slates. That's a lot of seeing for four knees and a rope."
"Then," Yori said, "we make sure they see what we want."
Sachi nudged Aruto's token with a fingertip. "And what is that?"
Aruto rolled the copper between thumb and forefinger. Copper was warm from his skin, softer than it should be, like names. "That we learn before we bleed," he said. "And that we pay what we owe."
Sachi's mouth softened. "Keep saying things like that, and the city might start trusting you with its ankles."
Den sat forward, elbows careful not to trespass on anyone else's plank of table. "There's a registering hour for entry trials after third bell. They mark down names, sponsors, clan badges if you want them marked, and preferred weapons if you've got any. Then they try to undo all of that in the yard to teach you what preferences are worth."
Yori's gaze asked the quiet question: Do we register?
"Not today," Sachi answered for Aruto before he could say something noble and foolish. "He fought already. We won't let the Guild make a habit of him in one afternoon."
Aruto didn't argue. He could still feel the Binder recruit's balance in his forearms, the clean click when an underhook finds its home. Under that, quieter, was the other click—the one from his ribs that meant chains had noticed and chosen not to act. He didn't want to ask for that choice twice in a day.
They cleared their bowls and returned them to the scullery hatch—Guild rule posted above it in neat hand: Return your plate or return to your mother. Den tapped the placard with affection. "Best rule they've got."
A runner in a green sash ducked into the hall, hair damp with haste. "Courier list—need two Copper to shadow route!" he called, waving a slat with slots for tokens. "Just walk and watch, no blades out, learn the streets from a man who's been mugged often enough to teach it."
Yori's eyes flicked to Aruto, then to Sachi. "Good learning, low blood."
Sachi was already untying her healer pin. "And I want to know the short streets to the long house when someone decides to bleed in the wrong place."
They slotted their copper tokens into the board. The runner counted silently and nodded. "You, you, and…" His gaze landed on Den, who raised both brows with theatrical innocence. "You're the fourth if you can keep up, limp and all."
Den's grin showed exactly three teeth too many for a child and exactly the right number for a city. "I can keep up with careless men," he said. "Careful ones are harder."
"Good," the runner said. "Name's Perrin. If you call me 'runner' in the street, I pretend I don't hear. If you call me late, I pretend you're dead."
They learned the city sideways.
Perrin didn't preach; he pointed. "If the smells change faster than the cobbles, you crossed a tax line. If the doors all have two locks but the windows have none, the thieves' guild has a treaty there. If you see sand on the step at noon, someone is grinding blades inside; don't get hired there cheap."
He led them through the Threadmarket, where dyers hung skeins of blue like weather, through Buckle Row, where harness shops told the lives of horses in metal, and across Bellbridge, where temple chimes tested notes against river wind. Three times he stopped and made them do the same: close your eyes, listen, name the piece of the city you heard.
"Coppers win fights by feet and ears," he said. "Eyes lie when men perform. Ears hear who they are."
Aruto did as told. With eyes closed, the city wasn't columns and signs; it was layers: a ladle scraping a pot, two boys arguing over a marble only one of them had, a woman beating dust out of a rug with slow, unrepentant violence. And under that, the long whisper of trade, promises and prices braided together. He could hear the weight of it, like a chain across a door.
"Good," Perrin said quietly, not to flatter, just to file away. "Some people only ever hear themselves. They get promoted to ghosts early."
They crossed into Parish Street just as a Seiryuu procession emerged from a side gate: wardens in gray-blue with sigil bars held vertical, a pale-cloaked legate walking in their lee, and a narrow cart draped in linen that didn't move like a cart. The air changed. People took hats off without being asked. Noise stepped back to let Doctrine walk.
"Eyes down," Perrin murmured. "Hands visible. Let them be louder than you."
The legate's face might have been carved, the kind of calm that suggests teeth under velvet. As the procession passed, a tickle of attention brushed Aruto's ribs—not from his chains, but at them. One warden's gaze hesitated, as if he'd heard a word he couldn't translate and promised himself he would later. He didn't stop them. That mattered more than any expression.
When the last sigil bar had gone, the street exhaled. Sachi breathed again as if she'd been counting. Den folded himself into a lean against a lamppost and let his knee rest.
"They take quarantines out that way," Perrin said, not unkindly. "Sometimes men. Sometimes books. Sometimes names."
"Rule 5," Yori murmured. Church affairs are not commented on. Keep papers ready.
"And unwritten rule two," Sachi added. The Church never forgets.
Perrin heard and nodded. "You memorized the wall. Good. Now memorize this wall." He thumped his knuckles lightly on the bricks at shoulder height. "Every street has an unwritten. Learn it or rent your bones to someone else's errand."
The courier route ended at a wayhouse where a woman with a ledger and no patience stamped Perrin's slate, took a sealed pouch, and handed him a different one that looked exactly the same except for the weight.
"Trust your fingers," Perrin told Den, who had watched the exchange with the feral interest of someone who understood how often sameness was a trick. "Eyes see wax and twine. Fingers tell you coins."
On the walk back, they cut along Soap Lane, where bathhouses announced themselves with steam and lithe laughter that might have been practice or honest joy. A Grey Binder leaned in a doorway and watched the street the way men watch mice: not hungry, just unwilling to share the pantry.
"Do they ever work?" Den asked, chin tipping at the sash.
Yori's mouth twitched. "All the time. On someone else."
They returned to the Guild with the sun slanting lower, coloring the dust in the yard like the idea of gold. Perrin signed them off with the brisk pride of a sergeant whose recruits hadn't died on a stroll.
"You did fine," he said. "You even listened sometimes. Come back when your feet know one more street. I like my shadows accurate."
He left in a half-run, because runners never truly walk. Den balanced on his good leg again, tests his foot, winced a little, and hid it a lot.
"Rest," Sachi said, not as a scold, as a prescription.
"Rest is expensive," Den said.
"I'm the one paying," Sachi replied and gave him a look that made arguing sound like a medical condition.
They had just rounded the hall to the main counter when the Guild board clattered—a clerk sliding up a heavy plank on iron runners. New slate, fresh chalk, Trial Registry—Third Bell. Names had already started to crawl down the left column in a dozen hands: Harl Kade (Stoneback); Miri of the Fox (private); Jor Bren (no clan); a pair with Boreal beads sketched beside their letters; a trio of Grey Binders recruits written with the smug neatness of men who always write in front of someone.
"Stoneback," Den said, tapping Kade's name with an invisible finger. "Clan of shoulders and stubborn walls. They fight like corners. He's the boy you tilted this morning, I think. The lip."
Aruto remembered the glare that had needed a face. Kade. He put the name in a quiet part of his head where he kept footwork he liked and trouble that wasn't finished.
"Register?" the clerk asked without looking up, chalk poised. She had the air of someone who had spent a lifetime outsourcing patience.
"Not today," Sachi said. "Tomorrow is longer than today. We'd like to use it."
"Suit yourselves," the clerk said, and a bead of chalk dust fell like a snowflake and died.
"Watching still teaches," Yori murmured. "We'll be here."
They spent the next hour exactly so. Watching. The ring turned into a small system—friction, heat, illumination. The marshal made calls with a whistle and a finger. The Seiryuu examiner recorded nothing and everything with the exactness of a man writing fate in thin letters. The Boreal factor smiled thrice (Aruto counted) and purchased once. The Grey Binders sponsored one more bout and wore one more public smile.
Aruto said little. He let feet and breath and mistakes talk to him instead. Twice he found himself mirroring a step without moving, a body drifting a thumb's width as if learning by echo. Yori's eyes took note and didn't praise; praise too early is a chain that rusts where it rubs.
When the trials finally ended on a horn's flat reply, the yard bled its people back into the hall. Kade of the Stoneback left with a split lip improved by pride and one win that had been messy and reassuring, like most good wins. Miri of the Fox vanished the way foxes do—one blink she was there, next blink there were only bootprints and something like the idea of laughter.
The Guildmaster didn't ask if they'd registered when they returned to the counter; she could see the chalk dust in their eyes and the decision in the way their shoulders held. Instead she slid a thin sheet across—City Routes: North & East, Copper Brief. The header bore three small rules hand-written at the top as if someone had added them over the years and no one had dared erase them:
— Ask twice, assume once.
— Count doors when you turn.
— If the street feels wrong, it is.
Sachi traced the first with a thumbnail. "We should tattoo that on Den's other leg."
Den, who had reappeared with a heel of bread he refused to explain, saluted with it. "Tattoo shop on Soap Lane owes me a favor," he said cheerfully. "I once fetched their apprentice out of a cistern he fell into while trying to draw dolphins on a barrel."
Aruto blinked. "Why dolphins?"
"Because saints, apparently." Den shrugged. "Some men draw faith. Some men draw fish. I only fall into holes when paid."
The hall's light gilded the edges of everything now. The city outside was turning toward lamplight; shadows had opinions. Supper arrived with the confidence of habit. They ate again, smaller, and kept their backs to wood and their eyes to moving doors.
A minor commotion rippled through the room as a Seiryuu warden entered—the same one who had stamped their voucher on the Mist Slope. Their clothes had dried from fog; their expression had not changed at all.
The warden spoke briefly with the Guildmaster, who listened without letting her eyes do anything as extravagant as a blink. Then the warden approached their table, ledger under arm, sigil wand tucked like a polite threat.
"Ramazawa," they said, not loud enough to be a scene, not soft enough to be a secret. "A question for the ledger."
Sachi's shoulders went small. Yori's went wide. Den went still in that way children go still when they have learned being smaller makes you harder to step on.
Aruto set his bowl down carefully. Not back. Only forward. "Ask."
"On the slope," the warden said, "we noted a sink you reported. Third terrace." They glanced at the ledger as if confirming they were quoting the page, not their head. "Our geomancer says it wasn't a sink. It was a mouth."
Sachi's spoon clinked against her bowl. "Meaning?"
"Meaning," the warden said, "the earth there isn't tired. It was eaten." Their eyes stayed on Aruto with no malice and exactly the right amount of concern. "Did you hear anything…wrong. Not the sigh. Not the drum. Something that sounded like teeth learning how to be ground."
Aruto thought of mist spooling like thread, of rope humming between anchors, of Den's quiet commentary, of the grey pair watching from the parallel path. He had not heard teeth. He had heard the hole wanting company.
"No," he said, and it wasn't a lie. "Only earth deciding it didn't want to be in one piece."
The warden let that answer stand. "Then this is merely courtesy. If you go back to the Slope, do not go alone. The Boreal want frostwort, and the Binders want opportunities. We would like you alive more than we would like a report."
Sachi exhaled a breath she'd been guarding. "We prefer alive too."
The warden's mouth almost smiled. "Good. It saves me writing. Be dull at dusk." They inclined their head and withdrew with the tidy finality of a period.
"Be dull at dusk," Den repeated, savoring it. "Add that to the unwritten."
"Add the mouth to my nightmares," Sachi muttered, though she tried to make it a joke. It didn't quite obey. "Eaten earth. That's new."
"New doesn't mean interesting," Yori said softly. "It means unpriced."
They finished their bowls. Noise thinned. Men left in pairs and threes toward quarters with names like Sparrows and Ox Row and Waterback. Someone tuned a fiddle badly and then better. The air decided to smell like beer again.
"Where are you sleeping?" Aruto asked Den.
Den pointed with his chin in four directions at once, which was either art or practice. "I rotate roofs. Nobody misses a boy who leaves no crumbs."
Sachi reached into the pouch the Boreal had funded and drew out three thin coins. "Tonight you're missing." She placed them on the table and put a small sprig of sour-thyme on top as if it were a seal. "Bed with a pillow. Bath if you can trick the water into being generous."
Den looked at the coins as if they spoke a language he trusted less than streets. "I can't owe you," he said.
"You will," Sachi said. "You'll pay us back by not falling into a hole we can't afford to climb."
Den's grin flashed and vanished. "Deal." He made the coins vanish with a trick that probably belonged to the Fox, gave them a two-finger salute, and limped—less than before—toward the lodging board.
Aruto felt the day settle into his bones like clean weight. The chains were quiet—not sleeping, not hungry, just listening. That would have to be enough. He brushed a hand over the copper token, then tucked it away.
"Tomorrow," Yori said, more to the table than to them. "Register. Watch once more. Choose the right fights."
"Learn, then live," Aruto said.
"Live, then learn," Sachi corrected automatically, but her mouth curved. "And add: be dull at dusk."
"I can try," Aruto said.
They left the hall together into air that had turned the corners into ink. Lanterns made small decisions on behalf of the dark. The city pressed on with the gentle pressure of a thing that didn't care who you were, so long as you paid.
At the threshold, Sachi touched Aruto's sleeve. "You did well to hold your name."
He thought of the Binder captain saying We'll remember the name, and of the Guildmaster's warning: Mind who tries to buy it. "Names are soft," he said. "If I let someone chew on mine, they'd swallow more than letters."
Yori glanced at him sideways. "Then keep your teeth sharp."
They crossed the yard where Rule 3 had breathed all afternoon and would again tomorrow. Inside the stable loft, their bedding was straw that didn't pretend to be a mattress and a blanket that smelled like the memory of sheep. Sachi stowed her satchel under her head like a second pillow. Yori lay with his knife somewhere polite and reachable. Aruto lay on his back and stared at rafters cataloged by spider.
He breathed four, held, six. No click answered him.
Not victory.
Truce.
He would take it.
Outside, the city finished deciding who got to sleep and who didn't. A last fiddle note wandered around the eaves and sat down. Somewhere over on Parish Street, temple bells counted a number he didn't know yet how to name.
Tomorrow would make it a rule.