The man in the long coat didn’t walk toward me; he drifted, the hem of his heavy garment brushing over the scorched cobblestones like a funeral shroud. The smoke from the dying fires seemed to obey him, parting as he stepped into the pale moonlight.

  "Soren Solmar," he said. His voice wasn't loud, but it had a weight to it, like the closing of a heavy book. "That is the name the Registry assigned to this face. And you... you must be Eymire."

  My heart did a frantic little tap-dance against my ribs. Great. Fantastic. The boogeyman knows my name. "Listen, Solmar, or Soren, or whatever—if this is about the noise complaint, it was the shadow’s fault."

  He didn't laugh. He didn't even blink. "The Golden Order is looking everywhere for you, Eymire. Their knights are turning over every gutter in the lower districts. We need to talk."

  I thought.

  He reached into the folds of that endless coat and pulled out a small glass vial filled with a liquid so red it looked like it was glowing from a fever. "Here. Drink this. It will help you recover. An explosion of that magnitude must have drained a significant portion of your Ryn."

  I took the vial, eyeing it suspiciously. In the Undercity, if someone hands you a free drink, it’s usually because they want to watch you twitch on the floor. But standing in front of an agent of the Afterword, I didn't exactly have the luxury of being a picky eater. I popped the cork and downed it.

  It tasted like rusted nails and fermented disappointment.

  I sat down on the curb of the road, waiting for my stomach to stage a coup, but instead, a warm, tingling sensation began to spread from my chest to my fingertips. The exhaustion that had been dragging at my bones started to lift.

  "How did you find me?" I asked, wiping the red residue from my lip. "I’ve been moving like a ghost."

  Soren stood over me, his silhouette blotting out the stars. "Actually, you were never lost. After you escaped the Order, they called me. I found you immediately."

  I stared at him, feeling a sudden, stinging blow to my ego. I’d spent the last few days thinking I was a master of evasion, a shadow among shadows. Apparently, I was about as stealthy as a neon sign in a dark alley.

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  "I followed you to that inn where you slept in the first night," Soren continued, his gaze shifting toward the dark alleyway where the shadow had vanished. "I’ve been suspecting you were the individual involved in the Crow District incident. You escaped without saying a word, which is usually the sign of a guilty man. But I stayed my hand after I saw you were... 'innocent'."

  He said the word with a strange, lingering tilt, like he was testing the weight of a counterfeit coin. He was watching for my reaction. I gave him my best 'I’m just a humble mover' look, which is hard to pull off when you’ve just leveled a street with lightning.

  "So what was that thing?" I asked, changing the subject before he started asking about the fire in the Crow District. "The shadow. Why does it keep attacking me?"

  "I don't know," Soren admitted, and that scared me more than his presence did. Agents of the Afterword were supposed to know everything. "But it is tied to you. It didn't come to the Upper City for the sights, Eymire. It came for you. Or perhaps... for something you stole from it when you first encountered it in the Undercity?"

  "I didn't steal anything!" I snapped. "I’m just a drifter , not a thief. There’s a professional distinction."

  A long, heavy silence stretched between us. The only sound was the distant crackle of a dying ember.

  "So what now?" I muttered, looking at my boots. "You sending me back to the Undercity? Back to the Order?"

  "Hmm. No," Soren said. He reached out and handed me a necklace—a simple silver chain with a small, jagged black stone hanging from it. "You are valuable in this case. I know this creature only moves in the dark; it cannot face true light. Therefore, you will remain here, but you will report to me every night at The Nightward Keep when you finish your work."

  I took the necklace. It felt unnaturally cold. "And if the smoky bastard comes back before my shift ends?"

  "Then you break the stone on that necklace," Soren said. "And I will be there to record the ending."

  He turned to leave, but then he stopped, looking back over his shoulder. One last question. "Why did you escape the Order, Eymire? If you were as innocent as you claim, why run?"

  His voice was firm now, the professional investigator cutting through the bullshit.

  I looked at the charred street, thinking of the cages, the cold iron, and the way the 'righteous' look at people like me. "Because I thought they would send me back to the Undercity," I said quietly. "And I’ve worked too hard to get out of the dirt."

  Soren nodded once, a sharp, clinical movement. "It is time for me to go. I need to find where that thing is heading."

  With a swirl of his coat, he moved into the darkness and simply... wasn't there anymore.

  I stayed sitting on the curb for a long time, the red potion buzzing in my veins and the silver necklace heavy in my hand.

  I thought, leaning my head back against a soot-stained wall.

  I looked up at the high window of my new room. I still had to clean the floor.

  "Rent-free," I whispered to the empty street, a bitter laugh bubbling up in my throat. "Oren, you old bastard. You really did get the better end of this deal."