# Chapter 10: Shadows in the Alley
The roast chicken was dry.
It sat on the ceramic plate in the center of the Vane dining table, a sad, browned bird that had clearly lived a hard life before being overcooked by Martha.
Arthur Vane carved it with the enthusiasm of a man who believed he was feasting on pheasant.
"A successful outing, I'd say!" Arthur declared, sawing through a particularly stubborn joint. "Did you see the Count's procession? The velvet on those horses alone cost more than our barn."
He placed a slice of meat on Sylas's plate. It looked like wood shavings.
"Eat up, son. You need the muscle."
Sylas stared at the chicken.
**[ OBJECT: ROAST CHICKEN ]**
**[ MOISTURE CONTENT: 12% ]**
**[ CHOKING HAZARD: MODERATE ]**
He picked up his fork. His hand felt heavy. Not from fatigue, but from the weight of the calculation running in the back of his mind.
**[ TARGET: UNIDENTIFIED ELF HYBRID ]**
**[ CURRENT TEMPERATURE: 4°C ]**
**[ SURVIVAL WINDOW: < 6 HOURS ]**
The sun had set two hours ago. The temperature outside was dropping. The manor walls were thick stone, keeping the heat of the hearth inside, creating a bubble of yellow light and warmth.
It was a lie.
Across the table, Elara wasn't eating.
She pushed a boiled potato around her plate. She had scrubbed her face raw to get the mud off, but there was a shadow under her eyes that water couldn't wash away.
"Elara?" Lilliana asked softly. She touched her daughter's hand. "Are you feeling ill?"
Elara stopped pushing the potato. She looked at her mother. She looked at the fire crackling in the hearth.
"It's cold outside," Elara said. Her voice was flat.
"It is autumn, my dear," Arthur chuckled, pouring himself a glass of watered-down wine. "It's supposed to be cold."
"She didn't have a coat," Elara whispered.
The fork in Arthur's hand paused. "Who?"
"The girl. In the mud." Elara looked up. Her eyes were dry, but they burned with a terrifying intensity. "The dog had a house. She didn't."
Arthur sighed. The lines on his face deepened. He put down his knife.
"Elara," he said, his voice losing its forced cheer. "The world is... complicated. There are people who fall through the cracks. We can't save them all. We have to look after our own."
"Why?"
"Because we are small," Arthur said. He gestured to the room, the peeling paint, the drafty windows. "We are barely holding on ourselves. If you try to carry the world, you will break your back."
Elara didn't answer. She stabbed the potato. She didn't eat it.
Sylas took a bite of the dry chicken. He chewed methodically.
Arthur was right, statistically speaking. Altruism without resources was just suicide with extra steps. To save the weak, you needed power. To get power, you needed to be ruthless.
But Arthur was missing a variable.
The girl in the alley wasn't a charity case. She was an asset. She was a weapon that had been discarded because the owner didn't know how to turn off the safety.
Sylas swallowed the chicken.
*Six hours.*
He needed calories. He needed sugar.
"May I have more bread?" Sylas asked.
Arthur beamed. "An appetite! Finally. Martha, the loaf!"
Sylas ate. He ate three slices of bread, thick with butter. He ate the dry chicken. He ate the boiled carrots. He wasn't enjoying it. He was fueling the engine.
**[ CALORIC INTAKE: SUFFICIENT FOR SUSTAINED MANA OUTPUT (LEVEL 1). ]**
"I'm tired," Sylas announced, wiping his mouth.
"Off to bed then," Lilliana said, smiling weakly. "Dream of sweet things, my love."
Sylas slid off the chair. He walked to Elara.
He squeezed her hand. Just once. Hard.
She looked at him. He didn't smile. He didn't look like a five-year-old brother. He looked like a co-conspirator.
He turned and walked out of the room.
***
The house settled into the groaning silence of the night.
Sylas was in his room. He wasn't in bed.
He was standing in the center of the room, wearing three layers of wool tunics. He looked like a stuffed bear. His movement was restricted, his turning radius compromised, but thermal retention was the priority.
He pulled his boots on. They were stiff. He jammed a small kitchen knife—stolen three days ago—into his belt.
**[ EQUIPMENT CHECK ]**
**[ ARMOR: WOOL LAYERS (DEFENSE +1) ]**
**[ WEAPON: DULL PARING KNIFE (DAMAGE 1-2) ]**
**[ INVENTORY: 2 APPLES, 1 BAG OF DRIED PEAS, COIL OF ROPE. ]**
He went to the window.
It was on the second floor. A trellis of ivy grew against the stone wall.
**[ STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY OF VINES: VARIABLE. ]**
**[ RISK OF FALL: 34%. ]**
Acceptable.
He pushed the window open. The cold air bit his face instantly, smelling of frost and wet earth.
He swung a leg over the sill.
"You're going to fall."
Sylas froze.
He didn't look back. He finished swinging his leg over, finding a foothold on the thickest vine. Then he turned his head.
Elara was standing in his doorway.
She was dressed. Riding breeches, a heavy coat that used to belong to Sylas (before he was born), and sturdy boots. She held a lantern, unlit.
"I calculated the weight distribution," Sylas whispered. "I won't fall."
Elara walked to the window. She looked at him, clinging to the vines like a strange, woolly insect.
"You can't walk to Oakhaven," she said. "It's six miles. You have short legs."
"I have endurance."
"You nap three times a day."
"That's energy conservation."
Elara reached out and grabbed the back of his collar. She hauled him back into the room. He landed on the floor with a soft *thud*.
"We're not walking," she said.
"We?"
"I swore, Potato." She looked down at him. In the moonlight, her face was hard planes and sharp angles. "I said I'd be the shield. You can't go into the dark alone."
Sylas stood up, brushing dust off his wool layers.
**[ ANALYZING PARTNER VIABILITY ]**
**[ SUBJECT: ELARA VANE ]**
**[ STRENGTH: HIGH (FOR AGE). ]**
**[ LOYALTY: ABSOLUTE. ]**
**[ DISCRETION: QUESTIONABLE. ]**
"If we get caught," Sylas said, "Papa will lock us in the tower."
"We don't have a tower."
" The attic then. With the spiders."
"I'm not scared of spiders," Elara said. "I'm scared of leaving her there."
She moved to the door. "Follow me. Be quiet on the third step."
***
The stable was warm and smelled of horse manure and old hay.
Bess, the ancient mare that pulled the plow, was asleep standing up. She looked like a furry barrel on stilts.
"She's too slow," Sylas whispered.
"She's quiet," Elara countered. She grabbed a bridle from the wall. She was too short to put it on properly, so she climbed onto the feed trough.
Bess opened one eye, sighed a breath that smelled of fermented oats, and accepted the bit. She didn't care. At her age, being kidnapped by children was just a variation of routine.
They didn't use a saddle. It was too heavy to lift.
Elara boosted Sylas up. He scrambled onto the horse's broad back, gripping the mane. Elara vaulted up behind him.
"Hold on," she whispered.
They walked the horse out of the stable, keeping to the grass to muffle the hoofbeats. The moon was a sliver of bone in the sky, offering just enough light to see the road.
Once they cleared the estate gates, Elara kicked Bess's ribs.
"Hyah!"
Bess broke into a trot. It was a bone-jarring, teeth-rattling gait that threatened to dislodge Sylas's kidneys.
*Thump-thump, thump-thump.*
The wind rushed past.
Sylas narrowed his eyes against the cold.
**[ ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 48 MINUTES. ]**
**[ CORE TEMPERATURE: DROPPING. ]**
He leaned back against Elara. She was warm. She wrapped one arm around his waist, holding the reins with the other.
"I saw her eyes," Elara shouted over the wind. "When you gave her the candy."
"She was hungry," Sylas said.
"No. It wasn't hunger. She looked... surprised. Like she forgot people could be nice."
Sylas didn't correct her. He didn't tell her that the look wasn't surprise, but calculation. The girl had been assessing the caloric value of the gift versus the risk of taking it.
He focused on his mana.
He began to cycle it. Not to cast a spell, but to generate friction. He pushed the mana through his blood vessels, agitating the cells.
A subtle heat began to radiate from his skin.
"You're like a hot water bottle," Elara mumbled, burying her nose in his hair.
"Magic," Sylas said simply.
The road stretched out, a ribbon of pale mud in the darkness.
***
Oakhaven at night was a different beast than Oakhaven by day.
The festival was over. The stalls were shuttered skeletons. The colorful flags were gray rags flapping in the wind.
The silence was heavy, broken only by the distant barking of a dog and the sound of drunken singing from the tavern near the square.
Elara guided Bess behind the blacksmith's shop. They tied the horse to a fence post.
"Stay," Elara told the horse.
Bess blinked. She wasn't planning on going anywhere.
"The alley is this way," Sylas whispered.
He took the lead. The System overlaid the town with a wireframe grid.
**[ ALERT: MOVING PATROL DETECTED. NORTH STREET. ]**
**[ SUGGESTED ROUTE: BEHIND THE TANNERY. ]**
Sylas tugged Elara's sleeve and ducked into a narrow gap between two buildings.
"It stinks here," Elara wrinkled her nose.
"Tanning fluid," Sylas noted. "Urine and lime."
They crept through the shadows. Sylas moved with an unnatural grace for a child, placing his feet where the ground was solid. Elara was clumsier, but she was learning. She watched where he stepped and mimicked him.
They reached the mouth of the alley.
It was pitch black. The buildings blocked out the moon.
Sylas paused. He closed his eyes.
**[ ACOUSTIC SCAN: INITIATED. ]**
He heard the drip of water. The scuttle of a rat. The heavy, wheezing breath of the mastiff.
And a shallow, shivering rattle.
She was still alive.
"Careful," Sylas breathed. "The dog."
He stepped into the dark.
He pulled the bag of dried peas from his pocket. He didn't throw them. He poured a small pile onto the ground near the wall.
Then he took out the dried meat—saved from his own lunch three days ago.
He tossed the meat toward the dog.
The chain rattled. A low growl rumbled from the shadows. Then, the wet sound of sniffing, followed by the frantic tearing of meat.
Sylas moved forward.
The girl was exactly where they had left her.
She was curled into a ball so tight she looked like a pile of rags. Her skin was blue-white in the gloom. Frost had formed on her hair.
Sylas knelt in the mud.
"Hey," he whispered.
The pile of rags twitched.
One eye opened. It was dull, glazed over with hypothermia.
"I said I'd come back."
He reached for the collar.
Iron. Cold-forged. Rusty.
**[ LOCK MECHANISM: 3-PIN TUMBLER. RUSTED FUSED. ]**
**[ PHYSICAL PICKING: IMPOSSIBLE WITH CURRENT TOOLS. ]**
"It's locked," Elara whispered, crouching beside him. She looked at the girl with horror. "Sylas, she's freezing. She's going to die."
"She won't die."
Sylas placed his hand on the iron collar.
He didn't have a key. He didn't have the strength to break it.
But iron had a structure. It was a lattice of atoms. And rust... rust was just oxidation. It was brittle.
He closed his eyes.
**[ MANA OUTPUT: MAXIMIZE. ]**
**[ TARGET: FERROUS OXIDE BONDS. ]**
**[ SPELL CONCEPT: SONIC RESONANCE (MICRO-SCALE). ]**
He pushed his mana into the metal. He didn't try to melt it. He vibrated it.
He found the natural frequency of the rusted hinge.
*Hummmmm.*
The collar began to whine. A high-pitched sound, like a mosquito, barely audible.
Sylas's nose began to bleed. A warm trickle ran down his lip.
"Potato?" Elara sounded scared.
"Wait," Sylas gritted out.
The vibration increased. The iron grew warm under his hand. The rust, brittle and flaky, began to turn to dust.
*Crack.*
The hinge shattered.
The collar fell open with a metallic clank.
The elf girl gasped—a sharp intake of air as the weight fell from her neck. She scrambled backward, hitting the wall.
The dog, finished with the meat, lifted its head and barked.
It was a loud, booming sound that echoed off the stone walls.
"Run," Sylas said.
He grabbed the elf girl's arm. It was stick-thin. "Can you walk?"
She stared at him, dazed.
"Walk!" Sylas ordered.
She tried to stand. Her legs buckled.
Elara moved. She didn't ask. She scooped the girl up.
Elara was nine, and strong from swinging a sword that was too heavy for her. But the elf girl was light—hollow bones and starvation. Elara hoisted her onto her back, piggyback style.
"I got her!" Elara hissed.
"Hey! Who's there?!"
A voice from the courtyard. A light flared—a lantern being unshuttered.
The back door of the building slammed open.
Sylas saw the silhouette of a man. It was Scar-face. He was holding a club.
"Rats in the trash?" Scar-face roared. He whistled. "Killer! Get 'em!"
The mastiff lunged.
The chain snapped tight—but the girl wasn't attached to it anymore. The dog wasn't held back by her weight. The chain had slack.
The beast charged.
**[ THREAT: FATAL. ]**
**[ DISTANCE: 10 METERS. CLOSING FAST. ]**
"Go!" Sylas shoved Elara toward the alley exit.
"Not without you!"
"GO!"
Sylas turned to face the dog.
He had no mana left. He had a dull paring knife and a bag of dried peas.
He didn't raise the knife.
He waited.
The dog was a locomotive of muscle and teeth. saliva flew from its jowls.
*Five meters.*
*Three meters.*
Sylas dropped the bag of peas.
He kicked it.
The peas scattered across the slick cobblestones like marbles on ice.
**[ PHYSICS ENGINE: FRICTION COEFFICIENT REDUCTION. ]**
The dog's claws scrambled for purchase. Stone was hard. Peas were round.
The beast's front legs slid out. Its momentum carried it forward, but its center of gravity was gone.
Its chin hit the stone with a sickening *crack*.
The dog slid past Sylas, yelping, a sprawling mass of confused fur.
Sylas spun around and sprinted.
"There! Catch them!" Scar-face was running now, heavy boots pounding the mud.
Sylas caught up to Elara. She was struggling under the weight of the girl, panting hard.
"Faster," Sylas urged.
"I... can't..."
They reached the street. The blacksmith shop was fifty yards away.
Sylas looked back. Scar-face was gaining. He was fast for a big man.
**[ CALCULATION: INTERCEPTION IN 12 SECONDS. ]**
They wouldn't reach the horse.
Sylas stopped.
He reached into his pocket. He pulled out the coil of rope.
"Keep running to Bess," he told Elara.
"Sylas!"
"Do it!"
Elara sobbed a breath, hitched the elf girl higher, and ran.
Sylas tied one end of the rope to a hitching post on the left side of the street.
He ran to the right side.
There was a rain barrel.
He didn't have time to tie a knot.
He wrapped the rope around the barrel's base and held on.
He braced his feet against the cobblestones. He was five years old. He weighed forty pounds.
Scar-face came barreling out of the alley. He saw the girl on Elara's back. He didn't see the thin gray rope in the darkness. He didn't see the small boy hiding behind the barrel.
Sylas waited until the man was three strides away.
He pulled.
The rope went taut. It hovered six inches off the ground.
Scar-face's boot caught the rope.
Physics was a cruel mistress.
The man didn't just trip. At full sprint, his upper body continued moving at 15 miles per hour while his feet stopped instantly.
He went airborne.
He flew parallel to the ground for a horrific second.
Then he landed.
He didn't land in the mud. He landed on the cobblestones. Face first.
The sound was wet and crunchy. Like a melon dropped from a roof.
Scar-face slid for three meters and stopped. He didn't move.
Sylas dropped the rope.
He turned and ran.
He reached the horse. Elara had already thrown the girl onto Bess's back. She was trying to climb up.
Sylas grabbed Elara's foot and shoved her upward. She scrambled onto the horse.
Sylas grabbed the stirrup leather.
"Pull me up!"
Elara grabbed his tunic and hauled him up behind her.
"Hyah!"
Bess bolted.
They thundered down the street, past the sleeping tavern, past the gate.
A shout went up behind them. A lantern swung wildly.
But they were already in the dark.
***
They rode for a mile without speaking.
The wind bit at their faces. The adrenaline began to fade, replaced by the deep, aching cold of the night.
Sylas leaned his forehead against Elara's back. He was shaking. Not from fear, but from mana exhaustion. His nose was still bleeding.
"Is she alive?" Sylas asked.
Elara reached forward, touching the girl slumped over the horse's neck.
"She's warm," Elara said. "Or... warmer. She's breathing."
Sylas closed his eyes.
**[ MISSION STATUS: SUCCESS. ]**
**[ ASSET ACQUIRED. ]**
**[ CURRENT MANA: 0/100. ]**
**[ SYSTEM SLEEP MODE: IMMINENT. ]**
"We have to hide her," Sylas mumbled. "Can't take her to the house."
"The old barn," Elara said. Her voice was steady now. The fear was gone. "The one by the creek. The roof is good. There's hay."
"Good," Sylas said. "We need blankets. Food."
"I'll steal them," Elara said.
Sylas smiled against the wool of her coat.
"You're a bad noble, Elara."
"I'm the shield," she said fiercely.
She guided the horse off the main road, onto the deer trail that led to the back of the estate.
The moon came out from behind a cloud. It illuminated the three of them—a tired horse, a fierce girl, a half-dead elf, and a sleeping boy who was dreaming of a kingdom built in the dark.
The first brick had been laid.
Sylas let the darkness take him.
**[ SYSTEM HIBERNATION: ACTIVE. ]**