The nearer I drew to the city, the more obvious it became that I had to lose both armour and horse. An armoured rider spattered with blood and ash was not a look that vanished into a crowd. Any person with working eyes could point a patrol my way, and it wasn't like my movements were in any way silent. The gear still meant protection and speed though, and part of me wanted to keep both because I knew trouble was going to come my way. The only thing I was unsure of is how much would be directly targeted at me versus what I would be dragged into because it affected everyone. I'd been caught off guard one too many times and didn't want to repeat past mistakes by leaving myself without a back up plan. Messages may well have already arrived in the city, or soon would be which meant a timer was ticking down. I kept turning the problem over in my head, weighing up my options. I could ditch the kit and melt into alleyways, or keep it and risk being the brightest torch in the dark. I would need the choice later, but I needed anonymity in that moment

The city gate settled into view out of the night, squat and familiar, haloed by the glow of lanterns and the thin smoke of banked braziers. On impulse I chose a third path. If I looked like a guard fleeing to raise the alarm, the gate would open for me and I could worry about stashing what I needed once I was on the right side of the wall, that way I could still retrieve it all if it became necessary. The risk was obvious. The moment I declared the emergency I would kick off the alarms about what had happened, and the city would go on lockdown. I would also be telling the city I existed, and they would have at least once clear sighting of me to work from. I set my jaw and drove the horse on.

"Prison break!" I shouted as the hooves rang loud on cobbles, and I saw the sentries jolt like men yanked from the edge of sleep.

They had the glazed, grey look of a shift almost over rather than one barely begun, which was a blessing for what I had planned.

"A what break?" one said, panic and confusion fighting for his face as I slowed the horse to a trot beside them. I did not stop though. I let the animal keep moving in a slow arc that turned my back toward the open road and then brought me around to the inner path again.

The motion allowed me to make the most of the positioning. If they balked, I had space to bolt but if they believed, then I looked like a man in a hurry to put the news into the right hands. I figured no one on the graveyard shift wants to be responsible for anything that would stretch their working hours out even further.

"A prison break," I said, leaning down and letting urgency sharpen every word. "They're staging an escape. I need to warn the commanders."

One of them opened his mouth to ask something but I cut across him before doubt could finish forming.

"You need to be on the wall and ready for runners. If any get past the outer road they'll come straight here. Do not let anyone through. I'll bring the commander." I saw them trade a look, doubt still pooling behind their eyes, but I was already letting the horse drift away, the bit sawing lightly as I gathered the reins.

"To your positions!" I barked over my shoulder as they turned to consult one another. "Make sure no one gets into the city!"

The panicked one—the same who had spoken first—skittered to the far side of the arch to peer out into the dark for phantom prisoners, and the others pivoted with him. I took the gift. I laid a heel to the horse and felt it surge, head low, hooves striking sparks as we slipped past the pool of lantern light and into shadow beyond the gate. In a dozen heartbeats the wall was behind us and the street narrowed around the rhythm of our passage. I did not look back to see whether the sentries had found a bell-rope or a conscience.

I let out a short laugh once the gate was behind me, adrenaline still buzzing in my veins. Conning guards just felt good. Conning anyone really. After years of inaction, it felt amazing to be running a scam again. It had been a risk but all the best things are.

I directed the horse as I cut across a few quiet streets. The type where shuttered windows were closed and lamps were long extinguished, the clop of hooves sounding far too loud in the sleeping neighborhoods, and let the city open into a view I recognised from a lifetime ago.

The squat stone bridge where the rail crossed Sea Drop Gorge.

The sight of it brought memories to the forefront, both good and bad. The train job. Billy's grin. The promise I'd made to find Erick if I ever saw free sky again. I could feel the rebellion's net being cast across Radan already and wanted no part of being knotted into it, yet Erick lived close enough that a quick word wouldn't cost me much. If nothing else, bringing news might buy a little goodwill without promising anything more. And if I did need more, maybe it would be the tipping point that would buy it.

With a plan I could feel somewhat confident in, I decided it was an ideal place to store my items. There were half a dozen goat paths and smugglers' scrapes down into the Gorge so it would be easy enough to get down. Obviously that came with risks of discovery but so did everywhere on that side of the city.

I dismounted and led the horse along the least broken of the paths, keeping a tight grip on the reins whenever the ledge narrowed. Loose stones skittered into the dark with soft clacks and the drop pricked at my back like eyes. The horse snorted and planted a couple of times but followed, ears flicking, trusting the firm pressure of my hand on the bridle. We reached the river shelf without a fall or a broken ankle, which felt like a small miracle. I tied the reins high and tight to a skinny elm that leaned toward the water, gave the animal a minute to nose the stream, then went to work on the armour. Buckles complained as I stripped plates and padding, each piece heavier now that the need for it had ebbed. I carried the lot a good distance from the horse and tucked it into a cleft between two boulders screened by scrub. If someone stumbled onto the animal, I wanted to maximise my chances of keeping the armour. I pulled branches over the hiding place, counted off paces from the bent cypress with the pale scar down its trunk, made a mental map I could follow in the dark when I needed it back.

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Only when metal and leather were out of sight did I let myself think about my body again. I knelt at the river and splashed my face until the sting drove the last crusted grit from my eyes, then closed them and reached for the familiar channels. Mana slid from the gates with a relief that was almost physical. I sent it through my skull first, rinsing away the muzzy, heavy-lidded fog that had crept in on the ride, then pushed it down my neck and shoulders where the armour had bitten, along the line of ribs that still protested every deep breath, into the thighs I'd abused by pretending I was born in a saddle. The work wasn't free. A big, greedy swallow of my reserves vanished into clearing fatigue and knitting the small tears that hours of hard motion had left behind. By the time I opened my eyes the tremor had left my hands, the worst ache had faded to a memory, and the night air smelled sharper and sweeter. My mind felt clearer than it had in years and I looked forward to reuniting with my friends at long last.

I checked the knot on the reins one more time, laid a palm on the horse's neck in thanks, and took a last look at the rocks that hid the armour. If trouble came fast I'd want both again, and now I knew where to find them. The city waited above, with friends I needed to see and a war I meant to avoid. I climbed back toward the lights, lighter by a suit of steel and the weight I'd been carrying in my chest, and kept to the shadows where a man in rags could be ignored.

Coming up out of the Gorge felt like a full circle moment. I had once again committed a major crime that would put my name in the mouths of guards, once again I would be wanted by nobles, and once again I was angling toward Erick's door. The déjà vu settled over me as I cut through sleeping lanes and silent courtyards, so I let it guide my feet. I took the same turns we'd used years ago, counting the same cracked flagstones and jumping over the same fences. It wasn't identical—the night painted a different picture than the day—but the old route carried me just the same. Last time I'd moved like a hunted thing, shoulders tight, ears ringing with the idea of boots behind me. This time I was almost light, a smile on my face. I trusted my lies, my legs, the darkness, and for a few blocks it felt like a game I already knew how to win.

I arrived at the house with the pond we had stopped at a lifetime ago. The quiet house, the beautiful trees, the dark oval of the pond where we'd scrubbed railway grit from our skin while Morgana wrapped my cuts. I eased down by the water and let my fingers trail, cool ripples turning the moon to coins and breaking it again. The last time I'd sat here I'd weighed the train money in my head and thought about leaving the life of crime behind. To seek something like the home we were trespassing in. Morgana and Dillon never loved the life the way I did. I knew that. We saw it differently and growing up had allowed me to acknowledge the fact. It was a means to an end for them but for me it was often the point. They wanted something different, something better. They had the minds for ledgers and suppliers and staff that showed up on time. To start a company that would let them travel all over the world.

I wondered if they'd used that money the way they'd promised each other they would. I wondered what sort of trouble my shadow would bring through their door if I turned up, and what sort of future would unravel if I didn't.

The Dungeons had taken things from me I'd never get back, and shown me others I wish never existed. I'd learned sounds I will never teach anyone, seen damage it hurts me to describe. Morgana and Dillon grew up next to the same streets I did, which means the same gravity pulls at them. Crime sticks to crime, and sooner or later it drags you into something your words can't get you out of. I wanted, fiercely, to wedge myself between them and that gravity. If there was a way to keep them clean, to pay off the past so it didn't come calling with interest, I would spend whatever was left of me accomplishing it.

The truth that sat beside all of that was harder. There was a mark on me that could not be washed off. I'm an escaped prisoner who killed guards and a high ranking member of a House. No one in a uniform would forgive that, and plenty out of uniform would see it as an opportunity. Even if they could look past the break and the bodies, the fact of what I am would never sit quiet. Having magic is a bell I cannot unring. It exists and it's part of me, and in Radan, that meant I would never be safe. People would always be keeping an eye out for me. They would pounce on any weakness I showed which meant I would never be allowed to show any.

I sat by the pond and let the water cool my hand while I argued with myself. The selfish part of me wanted to find Dillon and Morgana, to reunite and run, to escape from Radan and spend whatever gold remained on a new start somewhere that didn't know our names. It would be hard, but we'd manage. I could work the shadows like always, learn the alleys of a new city, take the risks so they didn't have to, and we'd build something that wasn't forever one step from ruin. I could almost see it: a cramped room over a shop that would one day be ours. A burgeoning delivery company with prospects around the globe. The start of a dream that we could live in forever.

Another voice told me to move on. It said the kindest thing I could do was stay away, that I was a storm that couldn't help but bring disaster with me. My very nature would churn up the waters and cause problems for those around me. If it wasn't my crimes it would be my magic, and if it wasn't my magic it would be the people who hunted those like me. They didn't need that. We hadn't seen each other in two years and they couldn't have been sitting still waiting for my return. They were clever enough to turn a stake into a business, to turn a business into a life. I wanted to believe they had, and that my absence was the empty space that made it possible.

Dawn found me still there. The first light skimmed across the water and turned the surface into a thin sheet of gold. A fish nosed up, produced a small ripple, then vanished. When the circles settled I saw a face I recognised but not as my own. Not as the person I pictured in my head. Gone was the cheeky boy and in his place was a dour man, someone who had done things worth neither boasting nor confessing. My life had narrowed in the Dungeons to a small, sharp point. I had gone dark to survive and the dark had stayed. Even the relative good I'd done left bloodstains behind. Looking into my own eyes, I wondered whether they would like the person I'd become, and whether I wanted to see the answer in theirs.

I couldn't sit there waiting for the house to wake and make the choice for me. The sun was up which meant the city would be shrugging into its day. I stood and brushed dirt and water from my hands and settled on the only path that felt like it would bring me out of the negativity that enveloped me. I would tell Erick what had happened. I would give him the news they deserved to hear, answer what I could, and then I would go. I would leave Radan alone and try to find the part of me that hadn't been carved down to anger and reflex. I would fake it if I had to but I'd get there. Whatever road that was, it wasn't one I could drag them onto. They deserved mornings that didn't start with a knock from a hunted man. They deserved more than to live in fear that a loud noise would start off the end of their life. They deserved more than dealing with my issues.

I took one last breath by the pond, fixed the route to the door in my head, and started toward it with the simple promise that I would not make my friends pay for the things I had become. I would find my happiness, I would find my freedom, and only then would I seek them back out.

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