…Finn pulled up the room's single wooden stool, sitting so he was at eye level with Soren. He didn't offer platitudes or dismiss the bitterness as "the pain talking." He didn't tell Soren to forgive, or to let it go, or to be the bigger man. Boys who'd grown up on clean streets said things like that. Finn had grown up where "let it go" meant "die quietly."
He just listened, hands resting on his knees, shoulders drawn in like he was bracing for a blow that never came.
Soren's throat worked once. The words he'd let slip hung in the air between them like a blade. Everyone wants something, Finn.
Finn's gaze dropped to the stone in Soren's palm, then lifted again, steadying. "Then you should want something too," he said.
Soren gave a dry, humorless exhale. "I do."
"No," Finn said, quietly stubborn. "Not revenge."
Soren's eyes narrowed. The fire behind them didn't flare, it settled, banked down into a dangerous, controlled heat. "Careful."
Finn swallowed. His bravery wasn't the loud kind. It was the kind that shook and kept going anyway. "You said no one sees you. I do."
Soren stared at him, as if he'd spoken in some foreign tongue. The boy's face was too young for the lines of worry etched into it, but the eyes were honest. Honest eyes were rare in the Ladder. Honest eyes did not last.
"You see a fighter," Soren said.
"I see a man who keeps standing up," Finn replied. "Even when he shouldn't be able to."
Soren's fingers tightened around the river stone until the smooth surface bit back. "Standing up doesn't mean anything in here," he rasped. "They'll stand you up just to knock you down in front of paying eyes."
Finn nodded once, small. "I know."
That answer hit harder than anything else. Not because it was profound, but because it was true, and because Finn said it like he'd learned the lesson the same way Soren had, by watching someone bleed.
Finn's voice dropped, as if the white walls might listen. "House Marr didn't bring me in because I'm special. They brought me in because I'm cheap and I can carry water and I can run messages fast enough not to get kicked." His lips pressed together. "My father was a lock-man on the Riverchain. He kept the gate works running. The wrong merchant got mad. The right official didn't care. He… he didn't get to die in a bed."
Soren didn't speak. He didn't offer comfort. Comfort was a luxury item in a world built on rationing.
Finn went on anyway. "When I saw you in the Shambles… when you didn't fall, when you couldn't fall and you still kept moving, I thought… maybe there's a way to be strong without becoming like them." His eyes flicked toward the door. "Without becoming cruel."
Soren's jaw flexed. "Cruelty isn't a choice out there," he said. "It's weather."
Finn didn't flinch. "Then be weather too," he said. "Be the kind that saves people."
Soren almost laughed. Almost. It died before it reached his mouth.
"You think I'm a hero," he said.
Finn shook his head. "No. Heroes die early. I think you're stubborn. And I think stubborn men can still… make something right."
There it was. The thing Finn wanted. Not coin, not glory. A shape to his world that wasn't just hunger and fear. A reason.
Soren looked down at the river stone again. The polished side caught the light and threw it back, a dim reflection of his own face. He looked older than he was. He looked tired. He looked like a man who'd learned how to swallow pain and keep walking.
"You shouldn't attach yourself to me," Soren said at last. His tone was flat, not unkind. A fact. "It'll get you hurt."
Finn lifted his chin. "I'm already hurt."
That, somehow, made Soren's chest tighten. Not sentiment. Something else. Recognition. A memory of being young and realizing the world wasn't built for you, it was built on you.
Soren's gaze hardened. "If you're going to be in this world," he said, "then learn something. Loyalty is a knife. It can protect you, or it can cut your throat. Don't hand it to someone who hasn't earned it."
Finn's eyes widened, then softened. "Have you earned it?"
Soren's silence was answer enough.
Finn shifted on the stool. He seemed smaller in that moment. "I… I'm sorry," he said, the words tumbling out. "About your family. I heard the whispers. The indenture."
Soren's breath went shallow. The room seemed to tighten around the subject like a collar. "Don't," he warned.
Finn nodded quickly. "Okay. I won't. I just… I wanted you to know I'm not here because House Marr told me to be. They didn't even know I came." He glanced toward the rumpled livery, the dirty hem. "If they find out, I'll get whipped for stealing time."
Soren's eyes sharpened. "Go, then."
Finn didn't move. His hands clenched, unclenched. "No."
Soren studied him for a long moment. Then he shifted the river stone to his fingertips and pressed it, carefully, back into Finn's palm.
"Keep it," Soren said.
Finn blinked, startled. "But it's for you."
"You'll need it more than I will," Soren replied. "If you want to survive this place and still recognize yourself."
Finn's throat bobbed. He swallowed hard and closed his fingers around the stone like it was a vow. "Yes, sir."
Soren's eyes narrowed at the title. "Don't call me that."
Finn flushed. "Soren, then."
Soren gave a single nod. A small concession. A thread tied, not by contract, but by choice.
For a moment, the ward was quiet again. Not the cold silence of iron and authority, but a thin, human quiet, fragile as glass.
It didn't last.
Footsteps approached in the corridor outside, measured and precise. Not a medic's shuffle. Not a servant's hurry. These steps had purpose. They stopped at the door.
There was no knock. The latch clicked, and the door swung inward.
A woman stood in the doorway in white novice uniform, her collar marked with the Synod's silver sigil. She held herself like a blade held at rest: still, ready, dangerous. Her gaze moved once, taking in Soren's bandages, his traction rig, Finn's presence. It lingered on Soren's face.
"Inquisitor Novice Isolde," she said, voice smooth. "I am here on behalf of the Synod to confirm your condition, Soren Vale."
Finn stiffened, half-rising from the stool.
Soren didn't move. He didn't have to. Stillness was his first weapon. "Confirm it," he said.
Isolde's eyes didn't flicker. "You are alive," she observed. "That is… inconvenient, for some."
Finn bristled. "That's not—"
Soren cut him off with a glance. "What do you want?"
Isolde's gaze softened by a fraction, though her posture did not. "Nothing you haven't already given," she said. "The Ladder has taken its due from you."
A lie, polite as lace.
Soren watched her the way he watched fighters across a ring. "Then leave."
Isolde's lips curved slightly. Not a smile. A calculation. "Soon," she said. "Rest, Vale. The world does not pause for injury."
Her eyes met his, and for the briefest heartbeat Soren felt something press against the edges of his thoughts, like a hand testing a locked door. Not breaking in. Measuring the strength of the hinges.
Then she stepped back into the corridor and the door shut with a soft, decisive click.
Finn let out a breath he'd been holding. "She was feeling you," he whispered.
Soren stared at the closed door. "Let her," he said. His voice was calm, but the calm was a knife edge. "Everyone wants something."
Finn's fingers tightened around the river stone. "And what do you want, Soren?"
Soren looked at the traction ropes, at the plaster on his arm, at the neat white walls meant to make suffering look clean. He saw Nyra's back in his mind, the way she had left him to die with the same expression she might use to close a ledger.
"I want my family out of the ledger," he said, each word placed carefully. "I want my name to mean something they can't sell."
Outside, somewhere deep in the city, a bell began to chime. Low. Official. The kind of sound that gathered crowds and changed lives.
Finn went pale. "That's the Commission…"
Soren's eyes went colder. "Then they're ready to spend me again."
The chime rolled on, steady as a heartbeat, and the fragile peace of the ward cracked down the middle.