Rain whispers across the rooftops.
James grips the drainpipe, his boots slick with water slides down in silence. He lands on the ornate balcony without a sound, the city lights glimmering faintly below.
From beneath his tattered cloak, he pulls out a worn runecast etched, it hums in the rain.
he draws a small blade and slides it across his palm. Blood spills and falls in rhythm with the gentle rain.
He quickly smears the droplets across the runecast, then backs toward the railing. With a single motion, he vaults over and hangs on, the cold air biting at his hands. He steadies his breath, slows his heartbeat, and counts to five.
The explosion comes alive. Stained glass and splintered wood burst outward in a violent bloom, a dance of chaos in the rain.
James hauls himself up and dives through the wrecked doorway.
The holiday home lies shredded from the inside, furniture reduced to wreckage. He rummages through the debris with reckless precision until his fingers brush a miniature gem. Pocketing it, he sprints back out and scales the drainpipe. His knuckles turn white as he hauls himself upward, muscles burning. With one last push, he flings himself onto the drenched rooftop.
No time to pause. He runs, leaps, and rolls. Rooftop after rooftop, he lands flawlessly movement smooth, fluid, almost musical. In that rhythm, he finds focus. The escape plan he and Holt pieced together last night is working perfectly.
Using the newly errected scaffolding for tomorrow's rain festival, James drops to the ground. He cuts through Old Jacob's grass patch and tosses his cloak aside. Scaling the old man's wall, he missteps on the slick concrete gravity wins. He crashes hard into the ground.
The ground embraces him without kindness. Pain blooms in his ribs. He lies there for a breath too long, watching raindrops splatter across his vision Focusing on the fire in his side, he pushes harder, faster, through the rain, turning the corner he sees holt looking composed and charismatic as always, James slides his blade across the slick cobblestone toward him, then bolts away like lighting towards Vincent's bakery
Inside, the warmth hits him. He breathes, showers, and finishes the cold leftovers from yesterday. Downstairs, he places the gem inside a reinforced box. How Vincent ever tells them apart, he'll never know, each box looks identical and supposedly shifts its contents every hour. The thought makes him laugh. One enchanted box alone costs more than what the government spends on the entire rain festival.
By the time James climbs back to the bakery floor, Vincent is already at work, kneading dough.
"You're lucky I don't make you pay for the water," Vincent says, his eyes more playful than usual. "Anyway, good work. No one saw you. The guards apparently got drunk and started slacking, something about not getting paid overtime for the festival."
Vincent stopped what he was doing and pushed James his cut. "Now, since you used up all my hot water, the least you can do is take my shithead nephew out for breakfast."