The crawlspace smelled like old iron and river rot.
Shen Jin held the Broken Ring Key in both hands, letting the black-gold shard catch what little light leaked through the cracks. The ring-etching along its edge didn't reflect the way metal should. It drank light, kept it, then let it go in slow pulses—as if the thing had a heartbeat that didn't belong to anyone in the room.
Gu Xingzhou watched him without speaking. He'd learned, long ago, that when Shen Jin went quiet, it meant he was measuring the world for hidden seams.
"You said you didn't plan to steal it," Gu finally said.
"I didn't," Shen Jin replied. "But they planned to hand it to me."
Gu's mouth twitched. "That's worse."
Shen Jin slipped the Key back into his sleeve. The scar in his palm tingled where the etching had started to creep inward. It wasn't pain, exactly. More like the aftertaste of a truth your body didn't want to accept.
"They had the warrant ready," Shen Jin continued. "That means the Court wasn't reacting—they were performing. The Guild was sponsoring. And the hall was… cooperating."
Gu leaned his head back against the damp brick. "Three powers. One relic. That kind of attention doesn't happen for a reason you can afford."
Shen Jin nodded, then tapped the leather pouch Gu had given him. "Where'd you get these?"
"Sold a favor," Gu said. "And collected one."
Shen Jin poured the Ring Marks into his palm. Silver discs—most with the faint golden edge that meant "true mint." But two of them caught his eye. The ring-sheen was too even. Too perfect.
He slid a fingernail across one disc. The surface resisted, then gave with a soft, wrong scrape—like lacquer.
Shen Jin's gaze sharpened. "Counterfeit."
Gu's eyebrows rose. "Already?"
"Not already," Shen Jin said. "Always. The question is: who's flooding the market—and why."
He held the counterfeit disc up to the crack of light. In the thin glow, the inner etching pattern shimmered and then stuttered. The real thing had depth. A living geometry. This one was a painting of geometry—pretty until you tried to use it.
"Guild work?" Gu asked.
"Could be," Shen Jin said. "Or someone trying to frame the Guild."
He closed his fist, and the discs chimed softly. "Either way, it tells us something: tonight wasn't only about the Key. It was about control."
Above them, the city roared. The sound filtered through stone like distant thunder—search parties, shutters slamming, boots on bridges. The Court was sweeping the district.
Gu crouched, peeled back a second grate, and revealed a narrow tunnel that slanted upward. "This way. Old service line. It comes up three blocks from the river."
Shen Jin followed, crawling on elbows and forearms. The tunnel was tight enough that breath felt borrowed. Every scrape of cloth sounded like a confession. When they finally emerged into a half-collapsed maintenance room, Shen Jin took one look at the cracked mural on the wall—a ring of stars, broken in one place—and felt the Key burn hotter in his sleeve.
"History repeats," he murmured.
Gu didn't ask what he meant. Instead, he pushed open a rusted door and gestured into a narrow alley where fog rolled in sheets.
They moved with the kind of speed that didn't look like panic. Not running—relocating. Shen Jin kept his head down, counting intersections by smell and sound: fish brine, lamp oil, wet rope. They stayed away from main streets, stayed away from light.
At the corner of an abandoned shrine, Gu paused. "Where now?"
Shen Jin's mind replayed the auction like a shard of glass turning in his mouth.
He saw the front row again: the Court's black-armored men, the Guild bidder with his easy smile, the Saltbay League's representative with sea-salt on his collar. Three powers who didn't share tables unless a fourth hand forced them.
"The Court wants to make an example," Shen Jin said. "They need the Key back, yes—but more than that, they need the story to stick. Court justice. Court order. Court control."
"And the Guild?" Gu asked.
"They want the Key because it breaks monopolies," Shen Jin said. "If it opens the Road, then trade bypasses their seals. They can't have that."
Gu's eyes narrowed. "The third?"
"Saltbay League," Shen Jin said. "They're not as strong in the capital, but they have ships and routes. If the Road can be entered from the inland, they lose leverage. If the Road can be entered from the coast, they gain it."
Gu exhaled. "So everyone wants the Key. Different reasons. Same result."
Shen Jin's gaze drifted to the fog, where lamplight moved like ghosts. "And then there's the Feather-Oath Legion."
Gu's expression hardened. "They're not about money."
"No," Shen Jin agreed. "They're about instructions."
He could still hear the woman's voiceless word in his memory—Key—like a command delivered without lungs.
"If they're oathbound," Gu said, "then someone owns the oath."
Shen Jin's pulse steadied into something cold. "Which means someone outside Court and Guild can move pieces on the board without paying in coin."
Gu tapped the warrant again. "So what's your next move, Fixer?"
Shen Jin's answer came fast, already shaped by the trap they'd escaped.
"Step one: get eyes," he said. "Someone who sees pursuit before it bites. Someone who knows rooftops, docks, and bribes."
Gu's lips curled. "A scout."
"Her name is Luo Xian," Shen Jin said. "If she's still alive, she's in the Gutter Market."
Gu nodded once. "Step two?"
"Step two: get wards," Shen Jin said. "Because if we're really heading to the Nine-Ring Road, then the Road will have rules. And rules punish the unprepared."
Gu's gaze flicked to the Key in Shen Jin's sleeve. "Step three?"
Shen Jin paused.
He thought of the counterfeit Ring Marks, the staged blackout, the host smiling in the dark, the warrant ink still wet. He thought of his father's one-line warning and the way the Key had bitten him like it recognized blood.
"Step three," Shen Jin said, "is to stop running on their map."
He moved first, slipping into the fog.
They crossed two bridges and one narrow canal, then cut through an alley lined with shuttered teahouses. A black Court banner hung from a balcony—freshly painted. Under it, three men in plain coats questioned passersby, their hands never far from the short spears hidden under cloth.
Gu put a hand on Shen Jin's shoulder, pulling him into a side passage at the last second.
Shen Jin caught a glimpse of a sketch on the wall as they passed—a crude charcoal likeness of himself, drawn by someone who'd never liked him.
Under it, the reward:
FIVE THOUSAND RING MARKS — CAPTURE ALIVE.
Gu snorted. "They want you breathing."
"The Guild wants me breathing," Shen Jin corrected. "The Court wants me public."
"And the Feather-Oath Legion?" Gu asked.
Shen Jin didn't answer. He didn't need to. In his sleeve, the Key burned like it knew the question.
They reached the Gutter Market near midnight. It wasn't a single place, but a moving organism: tarps and lanterns erected between drains, stalls perched on rooftops, merchants selling everything from dried eels to forged seals. The fog here was thicker—full of spices, sweat, and lies.
Gu faded into the crowd like he belonged there. Shen Jin did the opposite: he walked as if he had nothing to hide, because the market respected confidence more than innocence.
A vendor shoved a tray of disc-shaped charms at him. "Luck rings! Protect you from Court dogs!"
Shen Jin didn't slow. His eyes scanned for the sign he remembered: a cracked mirror hung upside down above a doorway.
There.
He slipped into the doorway, down a narrow stair, and into a room lit by one flickering lamp. The air smelled of ink and citrus peel.
A woman sat at a low table, cleaning a long-barreled hand-crossbow with the calm patience of someone who expected trouble as part of the weather. Her hair was tied back, her eyes sharp, her left ear pierced with a single silver ring.
Luo Xian looked up, and her smile was not friendly.
"Fixer," she said. "You're hard to miss when your face is on every wall."
Shen Jin held up both hands, palms open. "Then you know why I'm here."
"I know why you're everywhere," Luo Xian said. "I don't know why you walked into my den."
Gu stepped from the shadows behind Shen Jin, making sure the room knew he existed. "Because we need a scout."
Luo Xian's gaze flicked between them, then settled on Shen Jin's sleeve. For a heartbeat, Shen Jin thought she'd seen the Key through cloth.
"You're getting hunted by the Court," she said. "And you want me to stand next to you."
"I want you to stand in front of me," Shen Jin said. "So I don't die before we reach the Road."
Luo Xian's smile sharpened. "The Road."
The word carried superstition. Hunger. Fear.
She leaned back in her chair. "That costs more than five thousand Ring Marks."
Shen Jin set the pouch on the table and let the discs clink. "Name it."
Luo Xian's eyes didn't move to the money. "My brother's in a Court cage," she said. "Not because he stole. Because he saw something he shouldn't. You want my eyes? Then you open his."
Gu's jaw tightened. "That's a prison break."
"It's an exchange," Luo Xian corrected. "You get me. I get him."
Shen Jin nodded.
"Fine," he said. "Tomorrow night."
Luo Xian's smile vanished. "No. Tonight. Because your window is closing."
As if to prove her point, a bell rang outside—three sharp strikes. The market's warning signal.
Luo Xian rose in one smooth motion and extinguished the lamp with her thumb. "Court sweep," she whispered. "And you led them here."
Gu's hand went to his knife. "We didn't—"
Shen Jin held up a finger. His skin prickled, not from fear, but from pattern recognition.
In the auction hall, the lights had died before the enforcers arrived.
Here, the warning bell rang before the boots.
He didn't like that.
Outside, voices surged. A shout. The clatter of armor.
Luo Xian's voice turned to ice. "Fixer. If we live, you owe me twice."
Shen Jin felt the Broken Ring Key burn hotter against his arm, as if it approved of the bargain.
"Then let's live," he said.
(End of Chapter 3)