The blades were ready at midday.

Gabriel reached the forge as the sun climbed overhead, heat pushing through the grey sky without breaking it. Smoke still rose from the chimney, thinner now, the strikes from within slower and less frequent.

He pushed the door open.

The blacksmith stood at the bench with his back turned, hands working cloth around steel. He looked up when the door closed. His face was drawn, pale in the forge light. Fear still sat in his eyes from the night before.

Two blades lay on the bench between them.

Identical. Long and straight. No decoration. No marks. The steel caught the forge light and held it dully, functional rather than beautiful.

The blacksmith gestured to them without ceremony.

"Done," he said. His voice was tight. "Take them and go."

Gabriel stepped forward and lifted the first blade. The weight settled into his palm exactly as the test blade had. He shifted his grip and raised the second. No difference. The balance matched perfectly, each one an extension of the other.

He set them down and checked the edges. Clean. Sharp. Ready.

The sheath lay beside them.

Cross-back configuration. Twin scabbards bound by a single harness, leather worn smooth and oiled until it moved without sound. The straps were adjustable, reinforced at the buckles. Simple work, but correct.

Gabriel lifted the harness and tested the weight. The leather flexed without creaking. He slid one blade into its sheath. The fit was tight enough to hold, loose enough to draw clean.

He nodded once.

"Good."

The blacksmith wiped his palms on his apron. His hands were shaking.

"You need to be gone," he said. "Now. Before they start asking questions in town."

Gabriel slid the second blade home and secured the harness across his back. The weight distributed evenly, settling into place as if it had always been there. He rolled his shoulders once. The blades moved with him.

"I'm leaving."

The blacksmith let out a breath. Some of the tension left his shoulders, but the fear remained.

Gabriel turned toward the door.

"Wait."

He stopped.

The blacksmith reached beneath the counter and pulled out a folded cloth. He set it on the bench and opened it. Inside lay two small vials, stoppered with wax.

"Oil," the blacksmith said. "For the blades. Keeps them from rusting." He paused. "It's what I had left."

Gabriel looked at the vials, then at the blacksmith.

"Why?"

The man's jaw worked. "Because Johns deserved better than the quarry."

He closed the cloth around the vials and pushed it across the bench.

Gabriel took it and slipped it into his cloak.

"South road's clear," the blacksmith said quietly. "Patrol passed yesterday. Won't be back for three days."

Gabriel nodded once.

The door closed behind him.

The streets were quieter than they had been.

Gabriel moved through them without hurry, keeping to the edges where foot traffic thinned. The blades sat comfortably against his back, their weight familiar already. He passed the market square where vendors called out prices and merchants argued over space.

The sounds washed over him without sticking. Coin changing hands. Wood scraping stone. A dog barking somewhere out of sight.

No one looked at him twice.

He turned down a side street, intending to loop back toward the inn. The cobblestones narrowed here, buildings pressing close enough that their upper floors nearly touched. Fewer people moved through the shadows.

A cat slipped between crates stacked against a wall. A shutter banged somewhere above, caught by wind that hadn't reached the ground yet.

Then he saw it.

A shop front tucked between a cooper's and a closed butchery. The door was painted dark blue, the colour faded and cracked with age. No sign hung above it. Only a symbol carved into the wood itself.

A circle. A star inside. Lines radiating outward.

Mage work.

Gabriel slowed.

The windows were shuttered, but light bled through the gaps. Not lamplight. Something steadier, colder. The kind of glow that came from enchantments left running rather than flames that needed tending.

He had seen that light before in the tower at Vulmire, back when he had been allowed inside such places.

He stopped in front of the door.

His hand drifted toward the hilt over his shoulder, then stopped. No threat had presented itself. Only opportunity. Or warning. The line between the two was thin enough that it didn't always matter which came first.

He pushed the door open.

A bell chimed softly as he stepped inside.

The shop was small and cramped. Shelves lined every wall, sagging under the weight of bottles, jars, bundled herbs, and objects wrapped in cloth. The air smelled of dust, old parchment, and something sharper beneath it.

Iron. Salt. Rendered fat. The kind of ingredients that appeared in spells meant to bind or banish rather than heal or protect.

Light came from a sphere mounted on the far wall. It pulsed faintly, casting uneven shadows that shifted when nothing moved. The glow was steady but felt alive, like something watching rather than illuminating.

A woman stood behind the counter.

She was older, grey hair pulled back tight, spectacles perched low on her nose. Her robes were plain but well-kept, sleeves rolled to the elbows. Her hands were ink-stained, fingers marked by years of work that required precision. She didn't look up when the door closed.

She was writing in a ledger, quill scratching steadily across the page. The sound was the only movement in the room aside from the pulsing light.

Gabriel waited.

The quill stopped.

The woman set it down carefully, then lifted her gaze.

Her eyes found his immediately.

She stared for a moment, expression unchanging. Then her attention dropped to the blades across his back, lingered there long enough to measure their purpose, and returned to his face.

To his eyes.

She went still.

Not the stillness of fear, but the kind that came from recognizing something dangerous and deciding how to respond. Her hands remained on the counter, flat and steady. Her posture didn't shift. Only her breathing changed, slower now, more deliberate.

"Red," she said quietly.

It wasn't a question.

Gabriel didn't reply.

The woman leaned back slightly, her hands sliding off the counter and folding across her chest. She studied him the way someone might study a blade before deciding whether to pick it up. Weighing risk against necessity. Calculating worth against consequence.

"You're new to Bridgedon," she said after a moment. Her voice was measured, each word placed with the same care she had used with the quill. "Or you wouldn't be standing in my shop."

"Passing through," Gabriel said.

"Most people who pass through don't have red eyes." She tilted her head slightly, the light catching her spectacles and turning them opaque for a breath. "Most people with red eyes don't last long enough to pass through anywhere."

Gabriel said nothing.

The woman's gaze didn't waver. She looked at him the way Hanitz used to look at problems that required solving rather than answering. Breaking them into parts. Finding the pieces that mattered.

"What do you want?" she asked finally.

The question hung in the air between them.

Gabriel's hand shifted slightly beneath his cloak, fingers brushing the vials the blacksmith had given him. Oil for steel. Practical. Functional. What he needed now was neither.

"Illusion charms," he said.

The woman's expression didn't change, but something flickered behind her eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or calculation.

"Can you make them?"

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