The third horn's groan faded into the night. Lucia got up from her cot. She changed out of the monitor's tunic and into a tight, dark dress made of matte fabric that drank the moonlight. She buckled her sword to her thigh. She clipped her handler's badge to the dress, a risk, but necessary. Breaking cover now would be worse than carrying the tag.
She left the dorm and moved into the shadows, the stolen map a stiff rectangle against her back. She scouted methodically, checking the sectors Gaunt had marked. The scale of the Granary hit her slowly. It was a small, filthy city. Pens, yards, workshops, barracks—a maze of misery.
She had checked almost every marked zone when her finger traced a line on the map that felt wrong. In one corner, near the outermost wall, the parchment was slightly roughed. Someone had tried to erase something there, but hadn't done a clean job.
It was too dark to see. She slipped to a spot where a phosphor-lamp's sickly glow spilled from a guarded watchtower, keeping to the edge of its pool. She held the map up.
Faint, ghostly lines were visible under the erased section. A thin path sketched in faded ink, leading to a part of the wall, with a small 'X' and the word decommissioned written in a tight, old script.
She memorized the route. She folded the map and moved.
The path led her away from the slave pens, past silent warehouses, into a section where the gravel underfoot gave way to weeds and cracked paving stones. The air smelled of damp and rot, not sweat and fear. Abandoned.
A prickling feeling crawled up her neck. She was being followed. Not closely, not aggressively, but a presence lingered at the edge of her awareness. She stopped twice, turning sharply, her hand on her sword. Nothing. Only the wind and the distant drip of water.
Hope one of the handlers didn't spot me.
She pushed forward, the bad feeling a cold stone in her gut.
She reached the spot marked on the map. It was the Granary's outer fortification, a massive, sheer wall of fitted stone, thirty feet high. And at its base, half-hidden by a fallen timber and a clutch of thorny weeds, was a crevice. A narrow, vertical crack in the fotress size wall, just wide enough for a person to squeeze through sideways. It didn't lead out. It led in, into the darkness on the other side of the wall.
Lucia squeezed through the crevice in the rock. Inside, she found a small, hidden hut. A high fence blocked the far side, but there was a gap underneath. She could have jumped it, but chose to crawl to avoid being seen.
On the other side, an entire city lay before her.
She was confused. She looked back at the fence, then at the scene ahead. First, rows of identical houses. Beyond them, a bustling crowd of people.
Do they know a whole slave complex is right beside them? she wondered. Or was this still part of the Granary? That seemed more likely. These people were probably…
"The workers," a voice finished from behind her.
She turned. Elias stood there.
"What are you doing here?" she asked.
"I followed you," Joshey said. "When I heard the third horn, I knew which way you'd go. I waited and followed."
She hadn't sensed him. He must have learned to mask his presence.
She had planned to go back and tell him about this place. There was no point now.
"What do you mean, 'workers'?" she asked. "The handlers stay in the barracks."
"I mean the big players," he said, gazing at the crowded streets. "The merchants, the accountants, the logistics foremen. The ones who make the system run without getting their hands dirty. That's what this looks like, anyway."
"Could Michael be here?" Lucia asked, her eyes scanning the orderly streets.
"I don't know for sure," Joshey said. "This place is unnecessarily roundabout. A real search would take time we don't have."
"We need to be cost-effective," he continued. "Our positions are at stake."
Lucia looked at him. "Are you worried about the job, or the job?" she asked, emphasizing the difference between their mission and their cover.
"We'll find Michael and leave," she stated. "If we can't leave, we'll destroy the place and fuck off."
Joshey's expression didn't change. "We need risk management. First, Viggo's bodyguard. Second, even if we could 'destroy' this place, what about the people here? Where do they go? Some were born here. Their parents are gone. The workers, too. And—"
"Blah, blah, blah, blah," Lucia cut him off, her tone flat. "You like sweating the small stuff. Whatever. I'd prefer just doing it my way, though. Pfft."
"Time isn't on our side," Joshey replied coldly. "Let's move."
As they walked, Lucia's step hitched. A sharp, deep cramp seized her lower abdomen, worse than before. For a fleeting, grim second, she wondered if it was something far worse than she'd assumed.
Joshey saw her falter. "Lucia. Will you be—"
"I'm fine," she bit out, straightening.
Then, a voice—clear, familiar, and entirely internal—spoke in his mind.
I can try to see if I can influence her blood flow with what I now know.
ELIAS!
Joshey shouted the name aloud, his voice cutting through the low murmur of the worker's district.
Heads turned. People stopped. They stared at the man in a handler's uniform who had just yelled a name at nothing.
Lucia stared at him, shock overriding her pain.
Joshey snapped his mouth shut, heat rising to his face. He gave the nearest onlooker a stiff, awkward nod and started walking again, pulling Lucia gently along.
"What happened?" she hissed once they were moving.
"Nothing. A… thought," he mumbled, then shouted internally. Where the fuck were you? I thought I lost you!
Two things, Elias's voice replied, calm and focused. I nearly faded. And in that quiet, I began learning how to indirectly influence Aqua-type mana.
You almost died? How?
Focus on reality first. I will explain later.
Joshey reluctantly let it go. Fine. What do I do?
Expand your mana field. But keep it small. Very small. Let me guide it.
Joshey glanced at Lucia, who was walking stiffly beside him. "It will be fine now," he said quietly.
She shot him a questioning look, but he was already concentrating.
He formed a mana field, but not the shimmering defensive bubble Sylvaine had taught him. This was a subtle, pinpoint deployment—a field no larger than his palm, hovering just over his own hand. The mana output was miniscule, far below even the lowest combat threshold. No heat, no light, no elemental conversion. Just pure, tuned energy.
Elias guided the frequency. The mana particles were subtly altered, not to block or heal, but to interfere.
It worked like noise-cancellation for nerve signals. The sharp, stabbing pain impulses traveling from Lucia's abdomen to her brain lost their violent amplitude. They were dampened, softened.
Lucia's breath caught. The grinding, distracting agony didn't vanish—it receded. It became a distant, manageable ache. The tension in her shoulders unwound by a fraction. She looked at Joshey, her grey eyes wide with silent, profound question.
He met her gaze and gave a single, slight nod.
They kept walking. No one in the street noticed a thing.
Lucia felt the pain recede from a sharp stab to a dull, distant throb. She looked at Joshey. "What did you do?"
It was only then she noticed his hand was resting lightly on her lower back, near her abdomen. She stiffened instantly, a reflexive aversion to touch flashing in her eyes.
Joshey withdrew his hand. "The least you could do is say thank you," he said quietly, "not complain about being helped."
"I hate being helped because—" she started, her voice tight.
"Take it however you like," he cut her off, his tone firm but not unkind. "I just couldn't stand to see you in pain."
She held his gaze for a moment, the defiance in her eyes softening. She looked down. "I apologize. Thank you."
He gave a short nod. They took a few more steps before Joshey suddenly froze. His eyes locked on a figure emerging from a shadowed alley across the crowded street.
Viggo.
The auctioneer's light blue hair and silk waistcoat were unmistakable. He was flanked by two plain-clothed attendants, not his usual bodyguard.
"Down. Now," Joshey hissed, grabbing Lucia's arm and pulling her into the narrow gap between two worker tenements. They pressed against the grimy wall, hidden from the main thoroughfare.
"Who was that?" Lucia whispered, pressed against the wall.
"Viggo," Joshey murmured back.
Then, Elias's voice cut through his thoughts, sharp and clear. One of the two men with him. Look at the one on the left. His profile matches the description Kaelen gave us of Michael.
Michael? Joshey thought back, incredulous. I thought he was on bad terms with Viggo.
The reaction Viggo had when I said Michael hired me… he wasn't the slightest bit confused.
The information Kaelen gave you is either incomplete, or it was fabricated. Elias remarked
Joshey's mind raced. Doesn't matter now. He owes me payment for this. This is literally not my business. I'm not doing this for free.
Let them go. We need to see where they're heading.
Joshey nudged Lucia. "Up. Let's follow."
She moved to step out, then hesitated. "Wait. If we get too close—"
"Calm down," he said, his voice low. He closed his eyes for a second, focusing. He expanded his mana field, but not as a bubble. Instead, he tuned it, matching its density and frequency precisely to the ambient mana swirling naturally in the air of the district.
It created zero contrast. To any mage or mana-sensor, he would read as part of the background noise, similar to a stone or a puddle
This is how I followed you, he thought, not saying it aloud. You have no mana field. You're a natural void.
"Stay close to me," he said. "Don't look directly at them. Move when the crowd moves."
They slipped back into the flow of people. Following those 3 in the background.
They followed Viggo and Michael to a plain, fortified building with two guards at the door. The two men went inside, and the door shut.
"Well," Lucia muttered. "Seems our escort ends here."
Joshey didn't move. Elias. That sensory-dampening barrier from the forest. Can you recreate it?
Elias's voice was calm and analytical in his mind. I studied its structure. I can approximate it. But the area of effect would be small. A few meters, not kilometers.
Joshey's eyes flicked to the guards. A few meters is all we need.
It will be taxing. You will have to hold the Seventh Sense for both of you while I manage the barrier. You'll have seconds.
A fierce, quiet confidence surged in Joshey. It's good to have you back, buddy.
He turned to Lucia. "Stay close. Do not move until I say."
Before she could question him, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her tight against his side. She stiffened but didn't pull away.
"Now," he whispered.
He focused. Two tasks at once.
First, he expanded his Seventh Sense—the hyper-perception granted by their merger—and pushed it outward to envelop Lucia. The world sharpened for her too; she could suddenly see the guards' eyelashes, hear the shift of their weight on the gravel, track the slow drift of a moth near a lantern. The sensory overload was instant and dizzying.
Simultaneously, Elias worked through him. A thin, transparent film of distorted mana shimmered into existence around them, a bubble three meters wide. It didn't hide them. It made them invisible to their perception. Both men stood there, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, smelling nothing. Their minds, unable to process the total lack of sensory input where there should be some, simply dismissed it. It created a brief, blank spot in their perception.
By the time their senses cleared, Joshey and Lucia were already flattened against the wall next to the door, invisible in the deep shadow. The guards shifted their feet, unaware that anyone had ever passed.
"Go," Joshey gritted out, his head already throbbing.
They moved straight toward the guarded door. The guards' gazes swept over them, through them, and moved on, finding nothing of note to latch onto.
They reached the wall beside the door, slipping into the deep shadow there. Joshey let the barrier drop and released the shared Seventh Sense. The world snapped back to normal. Lucia swayed slightly, blinking. Joshey leaned against the cold stone, breathing hard, a sharp pain building behind his eyes.
But they were in. Unseen.