The attack came before dawn, when the city was still deciding whether it wanted to wake.
Ash knew something was wrong the moment the ledger went cold.
Rook had a particular weight when it was idle, a patient heaviness like a book waiting to be read. Now that weight sharpened, pulling tight against Ash's ribs as if the leather itself were bracing. His eyes snapped open. The garret was dark except for a thin blade of moonlight cutting across the floorboards.
Lys was already moving.
She rolled off her pallet without a sound, knives sliding into her hands as naturally as breath. Her eyes flicked to Ash, then to the door. No words. No questions. That alone told him everything.
Someone was climbing the stairs.
Not a drunk. Not a neighbor. The steps were too careful. Too evenly spaced.
Rook spoke inside Ash's head, quieter than usual. Focused.
"They are not here to talk."
The door shuddered inward as a metal pick slid into the lock. Ash felt the familiar itch of decision crawl up his spine. Fight in a narrow room. No space. No witnesses. One wrong move and the ledger would take more than he could afford.
The lock clicked.
Ash moved.
He grabbed the strip of leather they had practiced with and whispered the intent into his hands, not words but shape and purpose. Shadow gathered fast, eager now, threading through the leather like ink soaking cloth. He anchored it hard, tighter than practice, and flung it low.
The door burst open at the same moment.
A man in dark mail lunged through, blade already rising. The leather snapped around his ankle and the shadow bit down. Not cutting. Binding. The man's foot struck the floor without sound and then slid, wrong, as if the ground had forgotten friction.
He went down hard.
The impact should have cracked bone. Instead it landed muffled, like a body falling into deep snow.
Two more figures poured in behind him.
Lys met the first with a knife to the wrist, twisting, redirecting the blade into the doorframe. Wood splintered. She kicked the second attacker in the knee and danced back, laughing once, sharp and delighted.
Ash felt Rook tug.
"Opportunity. Moderate nocte available."
"I know," Ash thought back, teeth clenched.
The second attacker recovered faster than expected and swung wide, aiming for Lys's throat. Ash stepped into the space between them without thinking. He raised his hand and pulled shadow from the corner of the ceiling, threading it into the air itself.
Silence slammed down like a fist.
The attacker shouted. No sound came out.
His eyes widened in panic. Ash saw the moment fear overtook training and used it. He drove his shoulder into the man's chest and sent him staggering backward into the wall. The silence broke as the man gasped, choking on his own breath.
Pain flared behind Ash's eyes.
Rook took payment.
This time it was not a scent or a laugh. It was a moment. Ash felt something slip loose, a brief image of standing on a roof at sunset, warm stone under bare feet, the certainty that tomorrow would come. The certainty vanished, leaving only the roof without the feeling.
Ash staggered.
The third attacker took that chance.
Steel flashed.
Lys screamed his name.
Ash twisted too late. The blade cut across his side, hot and shallow but real. Blood soaked his shirt. The pain grounded him, sharp enough to anchor his thoughts.
Rook surged.
"Do not bleed out," it said calmly. "Bind. Now."
Ash slammed his palm against his own ribs and forced the shadow inward, not into flesh but around it, stitching pressure and darkness together. The bleeding slowed. The pain dulled to a manageable roar.
The room smelled of iron and fear.
The first attacker tried to rise. Lys planted a boot on his chest and pressed a knife under his jaw. Her grin was gone now. What remained was something colder.
"Who sent you," she said.
The man laughed and immediately regretted it when Ash stepped closer and let shadow coil visibly around his fingers.
"Answer," Ash said quietly.
The man swallowed. "The Bloodwrights," he rasped. "Someone tipped them off. Said a ledger was here. Said it was fresh."
Ash felt the city shift around that name. Bloodwrights did not ask. They harvested.
A noise from the stairwell cut the moment short. More footsteps. Heavier. Armed.
Lys did not hesitate. She drove the knife down, not killing, just enough to end the threat. The man screamed. Ash turned away before Rook could take more than he could spare.
"We move," Lys said. "Now."
They fled through the back window as boots thundered on the stairs. Ash dropped into the alley hard, wound screaming, shadow barely holding. Lys landed beside him and they ran, not caring who saw, not caring about noise.
Behind them the garret door exploded inward.
They did not stop until the river swallowed the sound of pursuit.
They crouched beneath the bridge, breath ragged, blood dark on Ash's hands. The ledger was hot now, thrumming with used power.
Rook spoke, quieter than before.
"That was not a test. That was a claim."
Ash leaned his head back against cold stone, shaking. He could still fight. He could still think. But something important had been chipped away and he could feel it even if he could not name it.
"They will come again," Lys said, eyes bright and fierce. "And next time we will be ready."
Ash closed his eyes.
He had wanted power to survive.
Now the world had noticed.
And it was hungry.
The river hid them, but it did not forgive.
Ash pressed his back to the stone beneath the bridge, every breath tugging at the cut along his ribs. The shadow he had bound there was thinning, unraveling thread by thread as fatigue crept in. It was not meant to last. Rook had warned him. Bindings held under intent, not comfort.
Lys tore a strip from her sleeve and cinched it tight around his torso with practiced hands. Her jaw was set, eyes sharp, already counting exits and angles. "Stay with me," she said. "Do not drift. Books hate it when you bleed out."
"I am not drifting," Ash said, though the world tilted slightly as he spoke. "Just… reorganizing."
Rook made a sound like dry parchment sliding.
"The Bloodwrights do not test. They harvest. The fact that they came in force means word has already spread."
"Spread how," Lys snapped. "We have been careful."
"Careful is visible to those who know what to look for," Rook replied. "You used binding in public. You were observed."
Ash closed his eyes for half a breath. The juggler. The market. He had felt watched and dismissed it as nerves. Power did not go unnoticed. It rang out like coin on stone.
Boots splashed nearby.
Lys froze.
Three silhouettes appeared on the riverbank, dark against the lantern glow. Bloodwrights. Their gear was heavier than the first group, blades etched with faint sigils that drank the light. One of them knelt, fingers brushing the ground.
"He is bleeding," the man said calmly. "Fresh. He went this way."
Ash felt Rook stir, eager and precise.
"Large nocte available," it said. "Multiple targets. High return."
"No," Ash thought, panic cutting through the haze. "Not like this."
"You will die otherwise," Rook replied. "Dying wastes everything."
The Bloodwrights stepped closer. One drew a short blade and dragged it across his palm, letting blood drip onto the stones. The sigils on his weapon brightened, sniffing.
"Ledger," the man murmured. "I can taste it."
Lys looked at Ash, eyes asking a question she did not want answered. He swallowed, feeling the ledger's hunger coil tighter.
"On my mark," she whispered. "We break left."
They never got the chance.
The water beneath the bridge darkened, shadows thickening unnaturally. Ash felt it surge through him before he could stop it. The ledger took the reins.
Shadow erupted upward, not a careful thread but a flood. It swallowed sound, bent light, and lashed out with sudden, violent precision. One Bloodwright was yanked off his feet, slammed into the river wall hard enough to crack stone. Another screamed as the shadow wrapped his arm and twisted, bones popping like snapped twigs.
Ash screamed too.
The nocte ripped through him, raw and brutal. Rook did not take a small thing this time. It took something heavy. Something foundational.
Ash felt the world lose its sense of direction.
Left and right blurred. Distance became meaningless. The idea of home, of any place being safer than another, slipped free and vanished. He knew what streets were. He knew how to walk them. But the feeling of belonging anywhere was gone.
The shadow receded as quickly as it had come.
One Bloodwright lay motionless. Another crawled, sobbing. The third fled, dropping his blade and his courage in the mud.
Silence returned, broken only by the river.
Ash collapsed to his knees.
Lys caught him before he hit the stone, arms shaking with effort. "Idiot," she breathed. "Brilliant, terrifying idiot."
Rook was very quiet now.
After a long moment it spoke.
"That was excessive. Effective. And costly."
Ash tried to stand and nearly fell again. "What did you take," he whispered.
Rook answered without cruelty. "Your sense of place. You will remember streets and maps. But the feeling that one place is yours has been removed."
Lys stared at him. "What does that mean."
"It means," Ash said slowly, feeling the truth settle like ash, "that nowhere will ever feel like home again."
They stayed under the bridge until the river washed the blood away and the city forgot the violence. When Ash could walk again they moved, aimless now, because aim had lost its anchor. The streets all felt equally distant.
At the edge of the city they stopped. Dawn crept in pale and uncertain.
"We cannot go back," Lys said.
"No," Ash agreed. He felt no pull toward the garret, no grief at leaving it behind. That frightened him more than the wound. "We go forward."
Rook shifted in his pack, heavier than ever.
"You have crossed a threshold," it said. "You are no longer invisible. Power has marked you."
Ash looked at the horizon, at fields he had never walked and places he would never belong. He was alive. He was stronger. And something irreplaceable had been traded away in the dark.
Behind them the city continued as if nothing had happened.
Ahead lay roads that did not care who he used to be.
Ash stepped onto one of them without looking back.