Roselys watched the shift in his face.

"Explain."

"There's been chatter," he said. "Prince Rulen is leading a private expedition. Church archives. Radiant Spear files. Things from deep storage. Things people forgot existed. New copies of old documents are surfacing. My brother heard more than he should have."

Roselys kept her breathing even. Though an unease feeling crept up in her chest.

"Why would Rulen do that."

"No clue," Paz said. "Something is stirring. Whatever it is, it made the Coriel information resurface. That's how the archbishop ended up mentioning it. That's how my brother caught it."

She tapped a fingertip on the table. One short sound.

"So prince's involvement wasn't accidental."

"Nothing about Prince Rulen is accidental," Paz said. "You know that."

She leaned forward slightly.

"Then let me ask something else. How is your progress on the southern track."

He blinked once.

"Still working on it."

That was the answer she expected. The coded one. Paz never chased that line fast. It wasn't safe.

She straightened.

"That covers everything for now."

Paz pushed his chair back.

"You want more on whatever Prince Rulen is doing."

"Correct."

"You'll get it when I get it," he said. "Try to stay alive until then, kiddo."

Paz left the tea house with his usual uneven stride. His coat swayed behind him as he merged into the late crowd. She watched him pass the window once, then disappear beyond the spice stall.

Roselys reached for her cup only to pause when she noticed a glyphsteel upon a folded slip of paper sitting near the edge of the table.

A glyphsteel is an important component of a gramox. Attaching it with other gramox can let you send letters quickly through the distance to the one who has given them the glyphsteel.

This was not here before. She had not heard anything placed there.

Her eyes moved across the room, but no nearby customer or server stood close enough to explain the letter's appearance.

She picked it up and turned it over. Her name sat on the front in handwriting she couldn't recognized.

She unfolded the paper.

The handwriting stayed neat but carried the uneven pressure of someone writing in haste.

Upon seeing the first few words she understood who left this letter. Vencian.

She turned at once to the window. The stall across the path still displayed its fabric rolls. The cap-wearing figure was gone.

Her eyes searched the room and the street in one steady pass, but he was already gone. She put her attention back on the letter.

Roselys. Keep distance for now. No direct meetings unless arranged. If you need contact, send message to gramox with the glphsteel I gave you.

Below it were the connection details for a private gramox line. A simple cipher string sat beneath the address.

It offered neither apology nor explanation, only the kind of blunt clarity she had come to expect from him.

She read it twice to confirm every mark. She was certain no one else had touched the table. She folded the letter and slipped it into her coat.

Roselys sat still for a moment with her fingers pressed lightly against the pocket.

The message carried no hint of drama or warning.

It felt more like a boundary set for practical reasons.

Even so, it annoyed her that he had placed it in front of her without being seen.

She stood, pushed her chair in, and left the tea house with steady steps. She did not check the windows again.

The street remained crowded, and Vencian remained gone.

- - -

Vencian slipped through the narrow doorway with Quenya drifting at his shoulder. The place sat where no one bothered to look, wedged between two rental blocks that changed tenants every season.

He treated it as a shed more than a home, a plain hideout with its gramox fixed near the front room for messages he didn't want reaching the mansion. Four quiet rooms hugged the cellar below, each scrubbed clean of detail.

He kept the Lucian face in place while he crossed to the trapdoor. The boards gave a small creak under him, the kind that vanished into the nightly noise outside.

Quenya steadied herself near the wall. Her glow stayed dim, her expression tight from the travel. She watched him open the cellar hatch and went down with him.

The basement waited, cold and shallow. One lamp hung from a simple hook, enough to see by. He drew a slow breath, opened his hand, and the dimensional fold peeled apart. The driver slid out like dropped luggage. The man's limbs hit the ground with a flat thud.

Lucian crouched beside him. The driver's color sat badly on his cheeks, but the chest rose. Still alive. Barely.

He searched him first, thorough and without pause. Coat, sleeves, boots, belt. Inside lining, hidden seams. No talismans. Nothing hidden in the boots. A plain scent on his clothes. The man was plain in every possible way, the sort born to carry orders and hope the day passed without noticing him. That had made him useful.

Lucian hauled him into the chair and tied him in place. The knots were quick and firm. Before stepping back, he lifted the man's shirt and checked the arm. The five dots sat there in a neat mark, dark against the skin.

He moved to the far wall and leaned against it, hands in his pockets. Quenya hovered on the steps now, close enough to watch but far enough that the driver wouldn't see her if he woke early.

The driver stirred. A low breath pushed out of him, rough but steady. His eyes opened with a calm that belonged to men accustomed to dirty work. His gaze fixed on Lucian's face without a flinch.

"Name," Vencian said.

The driver's throat bobbed once. "Terin."

Silence held.

Lucian pushed himself off the wall, dragged a chair across the ground, and sat in front of him. The scrape echoed through the basement.

"I have no way of proving whether that's your name," Lucian said. "You have no way of trusting me. None of this matters. What we do agree on is this: you're not leaving this place alive. The only choice left is how your death goes."

He opened a hand. The dimensional fold thinned at his side and the sword slid into his grip. Its point rested against the ground.

"So," he said, "we start with the tattoo. What those five dots actually are."

Terin stared back. "I'm not telling you anything. You can kill me now."

Lucian smiled as if pleased. He watched the tremor run through Terin's refusal.

He let the silence sit between them.

"Do you know anything about tendons and ligaments," Lucian asked.

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