They never made it back to Hessa.
Brennan moved first.
Not in the market, not in the open where Valdris' unspoken rules kept things balanced. He chose a narrow passage between the boarding section and the eastern stalls—wide enough for two people, too tight for anything that required space.
Aarif saw it a second too late.
Not Brennan.
The two figures ahead.
Positioned.
Waiting.
He'd been watching Ryn—half a step ahead—and that fraction of distraction was all Brennan needed.
"The passage," Kael said.
Too late.
Turning back meant stepping into the trap behind. Staying meant walking into the one ahead.
Brennan stepped in behind them.
"I won't drag this out," he said, voice calm, almost bored. "One demonstration. Thirty seconds. Then you walk away."
"No," Aarif said.
"Your hand's worse," Brennan replied. "You're hiding it well. Not well enough."
He wasn't wrong.
The damage had spread—past the wrist, into the forearm. Not sharp pain anymore. Something deeper. Locked. Accumulated.
"Ryn," Aarif said quietly.
"I see them," Ryn replied.
No panic. Just awareness.
"Here's the trade," Brennan continued. "Show me the crown. Full. Thirty seconds. I give you something Hessa doesn't have."
A pause.
"Who sent the extraction team to Duskmare."
That landed.
"Not the Order," Brennan added. "A person. Inside the Order. Someone who's been tracking this for eleven years."
Silence tightened the passage.
"Eleven years," Kael said.
Different tone.
Aarif didn't react.
"Thirty seconds," Brennan said. "And you get a name."
Aarif looked at his shadow.
At the crown.
At everything he'd been holding steady for days.
Then—
He made the wrong decision.
The crown rose.
Not fully. Not the blaze from Vaskar's Edge.
But enough.
Visible. Undeniable.
Brennan's expression shifted.
Not satisfaction.
Recognition.
Something real.
Twenty seconds.
Twenty-five.
Then Brennan moved.
Not at Aarif.
At Ryn.
Fast. Clean. Precise.
His shadow struck at an angle Ryn couldn't defend against—an orientation mismatch, exploiting the backward alignment.
Ryn dropped to one knee.
Not forced.
Disoriented.
Aarif reacted.
His shadow snapped forward—
—and his arm gave out.
Pain hit like collapse, not impact. Everything that had been building surged at once. His vision blurred at the edges as his extension met Brennan's and pushed—
—and took something with it.
Brennan released Ryn immediately.
Hands raised.
Not surrender.
Conclusion.
"There," he said. "That's what I needed."
Ryn stood, steady again—but not calm.
Filed away.
Cold.
"You said thirty seconds," Aarif said.
"For the crown," Brennan replied. "Not the response."
He studied Aarif's arm.
The weakness.
The cost.
"The name," Brennan said. "Veran. Northern Retrieval Division. He's been tracking this lineage for eleven years."
A pause.
"That's what you traded."
Then he walked.
The passage emptied.
Silence remained.
Ryn looked at Aarif's arm.
"How bad."
Not a question.
"I don't know," Aarif said.
Which meant bad.
"You let it rise."
"Yes."
"For the eleven years."
"Yes."
A beat.
"Was it worth it?"
Aarif didn't answer immediately.
"Kael," he said instead. "Veran."
"I know the name," Kael said.
Nothing more.
"You know him."
"I know of him."
That was worse.
"Eleven years," Kael added quietly. "That's not reaction. That's planning."
"Before me," Aarif said.
"Yes."
Silence again.
"That's not possible," Ryn said.
"No," Kael said.
Not uncertainty.
Something else.
Something wrong.
"Kael," Aarif said. "Why me?"
A long pause.
"Not intentionally," Kael said. "But… I think there's something I don't understand."
"That's not reassuring."
"No," Kael said. "It isn't."
They went to Hessa anyway.
She looked at Aarif's arm once.
Understood everything.
Said nothing.
"Brennan moved," she said.
"Yes."
"What did he give you?"
"A name. Veran."
Hessa's expression sharpened.
"Of course."
"You know him," Ryn said.
"I know what happens around him," she replied. "And it's never clean."
"What does he want?" Aarif asked.
"That's what I would've traded you for."
A pause.
She looked at his arm again.
Evaluating.
Revising.
"Not today," she said. "You don't have enough to bargain with anymore."
Blunt.
Accurate.
"Come back," she added. "After the east."
"And if we don't?"
"Then someone else will," she said. "And I'll ask them instead."
No sentiment.
Just truth.
They left Valdris two hours later.
Caryn walked them to the edge.
Not kindness.
Optics.
At the boundary, she stopped.
"The collector will follow," she said to Ryn.
"Why?"
"Because east is where answers are."
A beat.
"He's been chasing them for twenty years."
"And us?" Aarif asked.
"You were always going east," she said. "I just made sure you weren't blind when you got there."
She turned.
Left.
No goodbye.
The road stretched ahead.
East.
Ryn's shadow pointed forward.
Steady.
Certain.
Aarif's arm throbbed from wrist to elbow.
His crown stayed dim.
Kael stayed quiet.
"Why me?" Aarif asked again.
"I don't know yet," Kael said.
Not comfort.
A problem.
Another one.
Aarif walked anyway.
Toward the answer.