When Radeon and the Ironbuck miners split, some people stayed behind.

Radeon smiled when he saw it. He had expected it. Fear drove most men to cling to the familiar, but hunger for a future despite the unknowns.

With one glance he counted them, at least over a thousand, families and stragglers and quiet workers who had never spoken loud in meetings.

He knew who they were. Minority families, lower in status than Biscuit, Crust, Challah, and the other eighteen. Competent enough.

They had simply learned to keep their heads down and watch from the edges, waiting for a moment that did not punish them for moving.

Biscuit and Crust saw the split and scoffed. To them it looked like a foolish choice, people thinking too much of a cultivator they barely understood.

Challah did not go either. She knew Radeon had seen her fate and had not openly invited her, which meant she would prosper elsewhere.

It also meant she could still run to him if trouble came. When she looked up, she found Radeon looking back.

He gave her a small nod. Challah bowed discreetly, careful not to draw eyes.

This would not be the last time they met.

"Everyone who came with me, listen. You're all on shelter. No wages. The work houses you. The work feeds you. If you've got an issue, speak now."

The men, women, and children shook their heads. The little girl Radeon had rescued came forward. No scheme this time. Only curiosity.

"Uncle. You said you will teach Thimbles martial arts?" she asked innocently.

Fay put out both hands and the child ran to her. Radeon took it as a chance.

"Yeah. Age doesn't matter. If you can stand, you can train. Martial arts stays on the table for all of you."

Goldkeep Crownmarkets waited ahead. Land was free there, but free land did not mean a free life.

There were two unwritten rules everyone here followed. You could not set up a house. Only shops. Services people needed.

Second rule. Make sure your town followed standards. Clean roads. Clean running water. Steadfast security.

Neglect what you built, and the Merchant Union itself would bulldoze it for you.

Radeon had been writing nonstop. Cookbooks. Herb plots. Practical trades. Systems that turned common laborers into a town that could stand on its own feet.

He knew people would leave old loyalties behind, even after years under Biscuit and the eighteen families.

It was simple. Better to be the tail of a phoenix than the head of a chicken.

Most of those before Radeon did not know it yet, but that choice would become one of the best decisions of their lives.

Radeon wanted Fay to take the lead one day. If he vanished on some journey, he needed someone who could hold the line and keep the work moving.

He handed her a town layout, lines that would become streets and lanes and storage yards.

Fay read it with the same diligence she had given everything lately, burying herself in subjects that did not amuse her, then returning to her martial arts with a grim kind of patience.

She did not want another boar day. Not ever again.

Her eyes kept darting toward Radeon when he called the wolves over, curiosity tugging at her.

She stopped herself. Watching something complex without the groundwork was often a waste of time.

So she focused on the blueprint instead, writing down every question that snagged her mind, each one marked for later.

Radeon's work was uglier. He siphoned his own blood into a wide jar.

He was going to build a living array. He could not lean on the Paradoxical Devouring Art every time he cultivated, not when it fed on his internal energy with greedy teeth.

So, Radeon would make the wolves the nodes themselves. They would drink in misfortune, malice, and a sliver of fortune, then patrol the streets of his future town. Order and collection in one motion.

He poured the blood he had collected. It was still warm. He mixed it with array ink until the liquid darkened into a thick metallic crimson.

Then he let a sliver of his soul sink into the mixture. The ink stirred.

Tiny eyes budded and blinked within it, an anomaly only he could see.

To anyone watching, it would look like the ink simply moved on its own.

Radeon stepped to the first wolf and pressed it down with a firm hand. The beast whimpered, sensing what was coming.

He dipped two fingers into the ink and pressed the dark crimson onto the wolf's forehead.

Pain hit. The wolf jerked. Radeon held it steady.

An eyeball swelled into being beneath fur, black veins pulsing for a heartbeat before the lid formed and sealed.

The new eye vanished under the coat like it had never existed.

He repeated it. Again, and again. Wolf after wolf, each one taking the mark, each one becoming part of the lattice he was building.

By midnight he was finished.

The camp of a thousand miners slept in heavy silence.

Fay waited until Radeon was done, then handed him her notes and papers without a word. She then turned toward her own tent and went to rest.

Radeon was already tired, but he wrote the answers anyway, line by line.

When morning came, the men were already laboring. Hammers rang. Ropes creaked.

Smoke rose in thin streams from breakfast fires, and the refugees moved as if purpose had been handed back to them.

Radeon had no intention of buying buildings in Goldkeep Crownmarkets.

He had read records from two Courts, the Necropolis and the Archivists, and he knew how those markets worked.

Wood was recycled. Reused. Sold repeatedly. It meant someone had already sweated into it. Lived under it. Made children under it.

That history clung. Radeon would not take that chance for a small inconvenience, then let his men get sick the next day.

What was more, that lumber might have talismans wedged within it. Espionage. Product secrets. Scrying for sensual pleasure.

So, Radeon chose his own lumber. With that in mind, he designed every structure as modular.

Pieces that could be slotted together fast, like a puzzle built for tired hands. When they arrived, the town would not take months or weeks to rise.

It would stand within hours.

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