The morning fog clung to the streets like damp wool. Elias pulled his coat tighter as he stepped out from the boardinghouse, his eyes drawn instinctively toward the harbor. Even through the mist, he could see the Bureau's iron barricades rising across the docks, their uniformed guards posted at intervals. The planks where the shard had landed were gone, ripped up overnight.
Around him, dockhands and fishmongers muttered as they worked, but when asked, none seemed to recall the glowing glass at all. They spoke only of a drunken worker's accident, as though their memories had been scrubbed clean.
Elias clenched his jaw. He had seen it. He had heard it. And the word still pulsed inside his skull.
Kaelith.
He turned his steps instead toward the Gazette office. The newspaper building squatted on Market Row, its windows fogged with ink vapors. Inside, the press thundered faintly, shaking the floorboards.
The editor, a rotund man with spectacles perched precariously on his nose, glanced up as Elias entered. "If you've come about the accident piece, we've said all there is. Docks are dangerous, especially with drink."
"I'm not here about the accident," Elias said carefully. He unfolded the paper, tapping the classifieds. "I wanted to ask about this notice. 'Seeking glasscutters. Apply by lamplight when the green crescent wanes.' Who placed it?"
The editor's expression stiffened. "We don't disclose clients."
Elias leaned closer. "Was it paid in coin? Or barter?"
A pause. Then, reluctantly, the man pulled open a drawer and withdrew a single coin. Its silver surface was stamped with a crest Elias had never seen before—a broken crescent surrounded by shifting lines that seemed almost to bend the eye.
Elias reached out, but the man snapped the drawer shut. "That's all I'll say. Best you leave it."
Outside, the fog seemed thicker. Elias walked with quickened pace, the Gazette's thunder fading behind him.
Halfway down an alley, he felt it: eyes on his back. He turned sharply. The street was empty, save for a ragged figure in a dark cloak, face hidden in shadow.
The stranger approached without sound, pressed a folded slip of paper into Elias's hand, and whispered, almost reverently:
"Green crescent wanes."
Before Elias could speak, the man melted into the mist, gone as though he'd never been.
Elias unfolded the note with trembling fingers. The handwriting was jagged, unstable, but clear:
"Midnight. Clocktower. Come alone."
The ink shimmered faintly, as though alive.
He walked on, mind racing, until the streets widened and the tavern signs flickered ahead. One in particular drew his eye: The Lamplighter's Rest, a haunt for workers who kept the city's endless gas lamps burning.
Inside, the air was thick with pipe smoke and the smell of stale beer. Men hunched over tables, whispering. Elias ordered a weak ale and lingered in the corner.
From the next table came a hissed exchange:
"…another shard. Seized by the Bureau."
"…they all go to the Archive. No one comes back."
Elias's pulse quickened. He kept his head down until the men left, then drained his glass and returned to the foggy street.
Only then did he unfold the note again. The words had changed.
"At midnight, ascend the abandoned clocktower. Bring nothing but yourself. Listen to the moons."
As his eyes widened, the ink bled across the paper, twisting, dissolving. Within seconds, the page was blank.
And faintly—so faintly it might have been his imagination—came the whisper again, curling at the edge of his hearing.
Kaelith.