The Hollowbeast on the ridge didn't chase.
It watched.
That was worse.
Mireya kept walking like she hadn't seen it. Chin down. Pace steady. Silence tight to her skin so the market noise stayed dull and distant.
Stellan matched her stride, but his shoulders had gone rigid. He'd seen it too, through his own Pulse-sight, borrowed back and forth like a shared injury.
"Don't look," Mireya murmured.
Stellan's jaw flexed. "I'm not."
The bond flared.
Not a lie. Just tension.
They slipped off the market lane and into a narrow cut between a tannery and a shuttered bakery. The air stank of old urine and wet hides. Better than perfume.
Mireya didn't stop until they were out of sightlines and the ridge was behind rooftops.
Only then did she let her Silence loosen a fraction.
Sound rushed in, distant carts, gulls at the river, a man shouting about fish.
Stellan exhaled once, slow. His ribs pulled. Mireya felt it and ignored it.
"Masked," Stellan said, low.
Mireya nodded once. "Court mask."
"Why would a Hollowbeast—"
"Because someone put it there," Mireya cut in. "Or wants us to think they did."
Stellan's mouth tightened. "Either way, it's not random."
"No," Mireya said. "It's a trail."
She didn't explain further. She didn't need to. Stellan had the same look in his eyes he'd had in Orrin's lab—the look of a hunter seeing pattern.
They moved along back streets until the buildings thinned into a working district: warehouses, rope makers, dye shops. The kind of place where people disappeared without anyone writing poetry about it.
Mireya kept her scarf high and her mask low. Stellan kept his hood up and his hands visible.
That mattered here. People trusted visible hands.
They followed rumors the way Mireya always did, by listening to what people said when they thought no one important was listening.
A woman at a water pump whispered, "Did you hear about Joren? Gone three days, came back polite as a priest."
A man hauling crates muttered, "My cousin's back too. Won't drink. Won't laugh. Just stands at doors like a post."
Another voice, bitter, said, "Better than dead."
Mireya didn't like that.
She and Stellan crossed a small square where a public notice board stood. Paper notices fluttered like nervous birds.
Missing. Missing. Missing.
Then a new notice, clean and official:
CITY AUXILIARY, NEW GUARD POSTS FILLED. STABILITY RESTORED.
Stellan stopped in front of it.
Mireya didn't. She circled behind him, scanning the square.
There they were.
Three guards posted at a warehouse gate.
Same uniforms. Same spears. Same stance.
Too similar.
They stood with the kind of patience you didn't learn unless someone trained you… or rewrote you.
Stellan's Pulse-sight flickered up. Mireya felt it through the bond like a tightening behind her eyes.
"Don't stare," she murmured.
Stellan's gaze stayed forward, but his focus changed. "I'm not staring. I'm reading."
"What do you see," Mireya asked.
Stellan swallowed. "Hollowness."
Mireya's mouth went tight. "Explain."
Stellan's voice stayed blunt. "They beat warm. But… thin. Like the beat doesn't reach the edges."
Mireya looked at the guards again, careful, side-eye, like she was just a passerby.
One of them blinked slowly.
Another adjusted his grip on the spear. The movement was too smooth, like he'd practiced it in front of a mirror.
A woman approached the gate, carrying a basket. She smiled at the guards.
"Morning," she said.
All three guards answered at the same time.
"Stability is our duty."
Word-for-word. Same cadence. Same breath spacing.
Mireya felt cold settle behind her ribs.
The woman paused, smile faltering. She nodded anyway and walked on quickly, like she'd learned not to question what made her skin crawl.
Mireya leaned toward Stellan. "Did you hear that."
Stellan's jaw tightened. "Yeah."
Mireya's ears stayed open. She let the square's sounds filter through, cartwheels, rope creak, distant river gulls.
Then she focused on the guards again.
A man came up, angry, pointing at the notice board. "My brother's missing. You're saying posts are filled? Filled with who?"
The guards didn't react to the anger.
One turned his head slowly toward the man. Not offended. Not threatened.
Just… empty.
And he spoke, calm and flat.
"Stability is our duty."
The same phrase.
Mireya's throat went dry.
Not because the words were scary.
Because the repetition was.
A rehearsed line didn't belong in a human mouth unless someone had made it belong there.
Stellan shifted his weight. Mireya caught the movement and kept her Silence tight, careful not to flare.
"What do we do," Stellan asked.
Mireya's eyes flicked across the square.
Too many witnesses. Too many angles.
Not here.
"Follow," she said.
Stellan frowned. "Follow who."
Mireya's gaze landed on the guard at the far left—the youngest. His uniform fit wrong, sleeves slightly too long. His face was plain enough to forget, which made him useful.
He blinked again, slow.
Then his eyes darted, just once, toward a side alley.
A micro-tell.
Not emptiness.
Fear, buried under the edit.
Mireya nodded toward him. "That one. He still has corners."
Stellan didn't argue. He rarely did when she was this certain.
They drifted away from the square like they'd lost interest. Mireya kept to the shadows. Stellan stayed half a step behind, watching reflections in windows.
After two blocks, the guards rotated.
The young one peeled off the post and walked toward the alley with the same smooth stride, same neutral face.
Mireya and Stellan followed at a distance.
The alley was narrow, damp, full of stacked crates and old netting.
The guard stopped at a door marked with a simple chalk symbol—two lines crossed by a third.
Not a merchant mark.
A ward mark.
He knocked.
Three taps.
A pause.
Two taps.
Mireya's stomach tightened. It wasn't Ministry cipher, but it was close enough to be intentional.
The door opened.
A woman inside took one look at the guard and smiled too wide.
"Welcome back," she said sweetly. "You must be thirsty."
She held out a cup.
The guard took it without hesitation.
Mireya felt Stellan stiffen beside her.
"What," she whispered.
Stellan's voice came low. "That cup—"
Mireya didn't wait. She moved.
Fast, silent, a shadow slipping into the doorway gap before it could close.
Stellan followed, heavier but committed.
The room inside was small, table, two chairs, shelves lined with jars. It smelled like herbs and sugar.
Honey.
The woman's smile faltered when she saw them.
"Who—" she started.
Mireya grabbed the cup out of the guard's hand and threw it against the wall.
Glass shattered.
Honey splashed, thick and golden.
The scent hit hard.
Sweet, warm, tempting.
For half a heartbeat, Mireya's mouth watered.
Then Stellan tasted it through the bond.
Honey on her tongue.
His eyes sharpened.
"No," he breathed.
Because under the honey was another taste, faint, bitter, medicinal.
A sedative.
The kind used to make someone compliant without making them collapse.
Meant for her.
Stellan's jaw clenched as the realization landed. "It's laced."
Mireya's stomach dropped.
The guard blinked once, slow, like he didn't understand why his drink had been taken away.
The woman backed toward the shelves, smile gone now. "You shouldn't be here."
Mireya lifted her knife. "Try to stop me."
Stellan's eyes stayed on the honey dripping down the wall, and his voice came out tight.
"They weren't just edited," he said. "They're bait."
And Mireya could still taste sweetness in her mouth, even though she hadn't swallowed a drop.