The hide cart smelled worse than the drain.Ethan lay flat under a pile of raw cowhides with his knees pulled up and his bag clutched to his chest. Each hide was cold and slick and stiff at the edges. Flies walked on his neck. Somewhere to his left, a carter named Wolt muttered to a mule, and Rhea's boots tapped along beside the wheel.She had paid Wolt in silver and promises. She hadn't told him who was under the hides. He hadn't asked. In the lower ward, people got old by not asking."Keep still," Rhea said, low, not turning her head. "Wardens on the corner."Ethan stopped breathing.Stalker's Instinct had already told him. Two steady pulses ahead, a third behind, standing near a lamppost. One of them was pasting something to the wood. He heard the brush slap, the scrape of a flat hand smoothing paper."Two hundred crowns," a woman said, somewhere near. "For a null.""Ten years of rent," a man answered."He's got to be dead already. Nobody lives through that.""Then why's the Warden

"Stay here," Ethan whispered. "Don't open the box. Don't move.""Where are you going?""Anywhere that isn't here."He left Tomas in the dark under the hull with the candle snuffed and the salt ring unbroken. Then he crawled out the far side, crouched behind a stack of drying planks, and looked through a knothole at the fence.Four of them stood at the gap in the boards. Three boys and a girl, all in academy blue, all with the polished look of people whose parents still paid for their boots. He knew every face. Piers, who liked to sit on people. Livia, whose water mark glittered at her wrist. Cade, a tall wind-awakener who laughed at everything.And in front, grinning, fire mark glowing, Dorian Hale.[Dorian Hale. Human. Level 14. Fire Awakener, Rank D. Surface attitude: Eager. Contemptuous.]"I told you," Dorian said, not quietly. "The hide cart. Kessel's cousin owns this dump. Nobody else in the ward would be stupid enough." He cracked his knuckles. "Two hundred crowns, in a boatyard

Anselm believed in work the way some people believe in weather."Hold it flat," he said, for the fourth time. "Flat. Not at an angle. You're driving a rivet, not killing a snake."Ethan held it flat. He swung the hammer. The rivet went in crooked and the rib shuddered."Again."It was an hour past dawn. The yard smelled of wet ash and fresh pine. The burned tar shed stood at the end of the lot like a black tooth, and the morning fog was still thick on the river. Ethan's hands were wrapped in strips of cloth, and every swing sent a bright, sour ache up his wrists. His shoulder throbbed where the gnawers had bitten him. The blisters on his leg had gone from raw to tight.He didn't mind. It was a relief to hit something that didn't hit back.Anselm took the hammer, struck the rivet twice, and the head sat flush. "Like that. Don't think so hard." He handed it back. "Fifty more. I'm going to the lumberyard. If a Warden comes, you're my apprentice from the country. Your name is Eli. You're

He touched the word review.[Observe evolves to Appraise. Reveals true attitude, hidden skills, and weaknesses of living targets.][Cost: one sense. The system selects.]Behind him Rhea shouted something he didn't hear. Steel flashed. A Stalker's claw sparked off her blade, and she staggered back a step and planted her feet again. Five of them were spread across the courtyard in a slow half circle. They weren't rushing. That was the worst part. They moved like animals who had all night."Ethan." Tomas's voice was thin and close, a hand on his arm. "Don't.""I know.""You don't know what it will take.""I know it'll take something." Ethan looked at the five black shapes, at the iron gate that wouldn't open, at the wall that couldn't be climbed. "I'd rather lose it than lose both of you."He pressed his thumb to the word.[Accept.]Heat poured into him like boiling water through a funnel. His eyes watered. His teeth ached. He tasted copper, thick and sudden, filling his mouth, from the

"Do you know what you have done?" Voss said again.His voice was a wet rasp. The cut along his jaw still bled, and every word seemed to cost him. He sat in the cold water with his back to the wall and one hand clamped to his ribs. The freed Stalker stood over him, silent, its chest mouth closed. Nobody moved."I've broken a collar," Ethan said.The window hovered beside the wounded man, small and gold.[Lucan Voss. Level 41. Vitality: 58 / 340. True attitude: Resigned. Afraid of something above him.]Afraid. Of what? Not of Ethan. Not of the Stalker looming over him. The gold text didn't say."You've broken one of eleven hundred." Voss coughed, and a thread of red ran down his chin. "Do you understand what they hold back?""Tell me.""Why should I?""Because I'm not going to kill you." Ethan heard Rhea shift behind him and kept talking. "And because you're bleeding, and your men aren't here yet, and I'd bet you'd like someone to hear it before you die."Voss laughed. It turned into a