The Sewer Markets reeked of rust and rotting copper, a winding bazaar wedged beneath Vespera's sagging aqueducts. Kael pressed through the crowd, Kael's face now his own, Kael's name whispered like a curse on every vendor's tongue.
The Syndicate's lockdown had driven the black market deeper underground. The air buzzed with rumors of the Maw's hunger. A child hawked jars of bioluminescent eels that snapped and blinked like haunted stars. A butcher carved steaming meat from a clockwork boar, its gears still twitching.
A fortune-teller blew aether-smoke into Kael's path, her eyes milked-white behind a brass mask shaped like a shattered gear.
"You're late," she rasped.
Kael froze. "For what?"
She smiled behind her mask, smoke curling from its vents. "For the reckoning."
Before he could answer, a meaty hand yanked him into a grease-choked stall. The Butcher of Gears loomed behind a table of mechanical hearts, his apron stained with oil and old blood.
"Kael," he said, voice like a clogged valve. "Heard you died."
"Rumors." Kael shrugged, voice smooth. "Heard you sold me faulty gear."
The Butcher slammed a piston-fist on the table. "You bought a soul-anchor. Not my fault you didn't cage your ghost proper."
Kael's pulse jumped. So the killer knew about it. A soul-anchor should have locked Kael's soul in place—prevented Silas from slipping in. But the anchor was gone.
"Who else knew?"
The Butcher leaned in, breath thick with aether-gin. "Archivist's pet. The one with the painted face."
Greasepaint Moll.
Kael tossed a vial of stolen aether-blood onto the table. Payment. The Butcher grunted and nodded toward a curtained alcove.
"She's in the Echo Den. But careful, Moll eats liars for fun."
---
The Echo Den pulsed with narcotic smoke and low, wordless chants. Greasepaint Moll lounged across silk cushions, her face a cracked mosaic of porcelain and gold leaf. She didn't look up as Kael entered. Her fingers danced over Cipher-carved bones—no tarot here.
"Kael the Ghost," she cooed. "Or should I say… Kael the Thief?"
He sat opposite, posture calm, hands visible. "I hear you're the one who gutted my soul-anchor."
Her laugh chimed like shattering glass. "Darling. I didn't take it." She cast a bone onto the table, etched with ⵙⵀⴼⵓⵍ (Traitor). "I just told the Syndicate where to look."
The lens flickered. Faint runes glowed across her golden mask-- ⵊⵍⵍⵓⵙ (Illusion).
"Why?"
"Because the Syndicate pays better than dead engineers." She leaned close, breath sweet with poison. "But you... you're interesting. A ghost that thinks he's a man."
She slid a small vial across the table. Iridescent. Shifting.
"Echo Ink. For your stolen ledger. Consider it an investment."
Kael pocketed the vial slowly. "What do you want in return?"
Her painted smile widened. "The Architect's eyes. They're watching you. I want to know what they see."
---
Back in the workshop, Kael poured the Echo Ink across the ledger's blank pages. Symbols bloomed in light, familiar handwriting twisting across the paper. A map revealed itself: a maze beneath the Clockwork Cathedral. At its center, a place marked The First Betrayal.
Beneath the sketch, a scrawled warning:
They're editing us out. The Architect writes the past. The Cipher writes the future. Burn this.
A sudden clatter at the window.
The Shadow Child crouched on the sill, her teeth gleaming in the half-light. She tossed something into the room, a cog, etched with a single rune: ⵓⵍⵉⵎ (Sacrifice).
"Tick-tock," she whispered. "The Cathedral's hungry."
She vanished into smoke.
Kael lifted the cog. Pressed it to the map. The runes aligned. A hidden layer glowed, revealing a phrase burned into the ink:
The First Betrayal. Where mortals cut out a god's tongue.
Kael stared into the lens.
His reflection winked.