Two days later the city woke me with noise like somebody dragging nails across a drum. You learn to wake to the city down here; it’s a body that never quite sleeps. I tried to puke and nothing came up. Nothing in the belly but wind and bad receipts. That’s when you know the jump fucked you up proper.

  I keep the same handful of things under the slab I call a bed: two apples that are more hope than food, a skin of water, a scrap of meat so old it tells stories I don’t want to hear, and a bit of medicine stolen from some poor apothecary who won’t remember the loss. I ate fast. Eat fast or watch someone else eat your coin. Quick bites, hands dirty, swallow the taste and get on with it.

  Damn that jump. It left my teeth ringing like someone struck a bell inside my head. My knees felt like they’d been in a fight with a cobbler. Memory-burn is a bitch; it takes small things you like and files them away. Don’t ask me for poetry about it. I swore like a fool and went to fetch my things.

  Sunlight yeah, I think of the sun sometimes. Don’t get cute. I’ve never seen the capital. Never been above the warrens in my life. Don’t start telling me I can hop there like it’s a step on my doorstep. I only dream that one look at the sun would do me some good. Maybe a single clear taste of it would make my guts steady enough to try bigger hops. That’s daydream coin. Worthless until spent. But hell, I’d like to see the sky without soot in my teeth. Who wouldn’t?

  Enough daydreams. The streets told me real news.

  I pushed out and the passage smelled like someone opened a seam and every rat inside decided to sprint. “Merchants” ran with their wares clutched like contraband babies. Calling them merchants is being polite; most of the shit they sell would make a magistrate keel over. Unregistered prayers, powders that eat paint off a wall, charms that carry more debts than sense. They ran like thieves who’d finally heard a warrant with their name on it.

  Tricher barreled at me like a rabid rat who’d found a new squeak. If you don’t know Tricher, congratulations. He’s a scumbag with breath like old coin and loyalty priced in lies. He’s the sort of man who’d sell you a knife with a note that says “good luck.” He came running, eyes wild, palms full of secrets he should’ve kept.

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  I tackled him because sometimes you move bodies faster than you ask questions. He hit the cobbles with a sound like a purse being opened too quick. “Tricher. What’s the noise?” I spat. I don’t waste words. You know that.

  Tricher groaned, trying to roll under me, but I pressed my weight just right. His eyes flicked around like he’d suddenly realized the city itself was staring at him. “Shit… you don’t… you’re not supposed to be…”

  I let him sputter. Let him twist the knife of his fear. “Speak, asshole. What’s going on?”

  He blinked, swallowed hard, and muttered to himself, voice trembling like a bell in a gutter. “Golden Order… two days… city… taking back… Queen’s orders… four heads meeting… Don Cinder… job… you…”

  I let it sink in. Let it sit like a stone in my gut. Yeah. Bad feeling. Thick, coppery, and loud. The Golden Order moving in means they’re sweeping the warrens last time that happened was in The Crownless Rebellion

  Tricher spat the rest like he’d swallowed glass. “Cinder wants you,” he said. “Says—says he wants you at Cinderhall. Tonight. He’s got coin. Lots of coin. Wants hands that don’t ask too many questions.”

  Cinderhall. The name stuck to the air like smoke. Big houses always have fancy names for showing off the stain under their floors.

  “And it’s not just him,” Tricher added, voice small. “Heads… other heads sniffing around. They want business cleaned up too. They want their gold hidden while the Order plays savior up top.”

  Figures. The bigger the mess, the more hands try to tidy it before anyone notices the fingerprints.

  I thought about why they’d want me. Not because I’m brave. Not because I’m loyal. Because I’m good at what I do: fast with a crate, quicker with a route, cleaner than most. Yeah. I’m bragging. That’s a talent, of course. People with houses and titles pay for talents they can pretend to have.

  I don’t like all the heads. Some are sloppy, greedy, brutal for no reason. I avoid them if I can. But the mafias… the organized ones, the calculated ones — yeah, I work with them mostly. I respect that shit. They plan. They run numbers like priests reciting prayers. Efficiency, precision… it’s almost beautiful. Sure, they’re still scum, but all of us are. At least with them, you know the rules, you know the cost, you know the line you can cross without getting shot in the back.

  The heads who run chaos for chaos’s sake? Fuck them. No ledger, no method, just teeth and nails. Give me the scum that calculates. Give me the scum I can admire. That’s why I work with the mafias. Organized assholes beat random assholes any day.

  Still… bad feeling about this shit. Real bad.

  Eymire