The days that followed were a blur of noises, strange faces, and aching feet.
Kaelen and his parents stayed at the Bluebird Tavern, a noisy place near Greystone's western edge, where the walls were thin and the beds smelled faintly of damp straw. Their room was cramped, barely large enough for the three of them, and Kaelen often woke in the night to the thudding noise of late drinkers below.
Honestly The city simply overwhelmed him.
It wasn't just the size—though the twisting streets and packed squares made Redfield feel like a child's toy village in comparison. It was the motion. The noise. The press of strangers. Every day, carts rumbled past their window, wheels clattering on stone. Voices rang out from every corner, sharp with laughter or loud with argument. Even the air felt thick—full of smoke, spice, and unfamiliar smells that clung to Kaelen's clothes long after he returned inside.
At first, Edrin and Selene spent each day trying to find work.
They left Kaelen behind those first mornings, tucked between the tavern hearth and the stairs, told to stay quiet and out of the way. He obeyed, mostly, watching the boots of passing patrons and trying not to flinch at raised voices or spilled mugs. But the Bluebird wasn't the kind of place to leave a child unattended, not even during the day. Too many rough men crowded its benches, and too many broken bottles littered the corners.
By the end of the first week, Selene refused to leave him behind again.
"We'll find something," she told him firmly, setting her jaw as they walked the streets together, her hand never leaving his shoulder.
But the days grew longer, and the coins in Selene's pouch grew lighter.
Edrin returned night after night with nothing but new blisters and fresh disappointment. The carpenter's guild was flooded with hands; the hunting licenses for the surrounding woods were tightly controlled. Even hauling crates for the dockmasters paid only a few coppers—and those jobs were swallowed by men stronger and quicker than Edrin, who was no longer young.
Selene tried the weavers, the laundresses, the vendors in the cloth market. But many shops already had more help than they could afford, and others turned her away with tight smiles and empty promises.
Kaelen felt the fear settle into their little room like a fourth member of the family—silent, heavy, hard to breathe around.
Then, finally, a break came.
Mistress Harrow, an aging seamstress with a bent back and a sharp tongue, needed extra hands for the winter rush. Selene's neat stitching and steady fingers earned her a place.
It wasn't much, but it was enough.
Selene started the very next day—and brought Kaelen with her.
Mistress Harrow's shop sat on a crooked lane near the western market, squeezed between a candlemaker and a butcher's stall. The windows were cloudy with dust, and the whole place smelled of soap, wax, and worn cloth. Inside, it was a tight warren of shelves stacked with bolts of fabric, jars of buttons, baskets of fraying ribbons.
Kaelen sat quietly on a low stool tucked between two worktables.
At first, he was glad just to be near his mother again. He watched the needle flash between her fingers, marveled at the neatness of her stitches, breathed in the comforting scent of the wool she worked.
But as the hours dragged on, the shop grew stifling.
The close air made his legs twitch. His fingers itched to touch the colorful cloth, to climb the wooden shelves like ladders. But he didn't dare. He knew how hard Selene had fought for this job.
So he sat.
And fidgeted.
And stared at the same crooked nail hammered into the floorboards.
After three days of this, someone finally said something.
"You'll turn to stone sitting like that," said a voice above him.
Kaelen looked up.
A girl—older than him by a year or two at most—stood with her arms crossed and a smirk tugging at her mouth. She had dark hair braided roughly over one shoulder and a bit of thread stuck to her elbow.
Mari.
Mistress Harrow's daughter.
Mari studied him like he was some odd beetle she wasn't sure whether to flick away or keep.
"You'll wear a hole straight through the stool," she said, stepping closer. "Come on. You can't sit here forever."
Kaelen glanced toward Selene, but she only smiled without looking up from her work.
Mistress Harrow gave a nod, more focused on her needles than either child.
"Stay close," Selene said. "And listen to Mari."
Kaelen nodded in responsive and followed Mari out the shop.
And just like that, Kaelen's world grew a little bigger.
Mari led him into the streets like she was giving a tour of her kingdom.
She moved fast, slipping between passersby, calling back over her shoulder with a smirk whenever he slowed. She led him past the fishmonger's stall, where the ground was always slick with scales, and showed him the butcher who would sneak Kaelen a bit of dried sausage when Mari wasn't looking. They passed the alley where the neighbor's cat always slept, the fire-scorched bricks of a tavern that had burned down years ago, and the window with the red curtain where a violin played soft, sorrowful tunes each evening. They even found the old bakery that sold broken loaves for a single copper, if you caught the baker in a good mood.
They moved past alleyways that smelled too sharp, and doorways you didn't want to stand near after dark.
Greystone was a hundred tiny cities packed into one. Every street had its own rhythm: the hammering clang of the blacksmiths' row, the sing-song cries of vegetable sellers, the slow, shuffling steps of old women moving between shrines.
Mari seemed to know them all.
She taught Kaelen how to cross a crowded street without getting clipped by a cart, how to spot the best street vendors by the size of the crowd, which guards to avoid when sneaking across a courtyard, and how to move through a market without getting trampled.
"Not all of them are bad," she said once, tossing a pebble into a gutter, "but most of them are busy. Busy people don't look down."
Kaelen followed her everywhere, soaking up every word like dry earth drinking rain.
Sometimes they stopped at the fountain where pigeons fought over crumbs. Other times they climbed a crumbling stone stair behind the weavers' quarter to watch the sun set over the river, the light painting the rooftops gold and red.
"Stick to the big streets," Mari told him. "Don't trust the ones with no signs. And if you see a man with three dogs and a patch over his eye, turn around."
Kaelen nodded every time, committing every lesson to memory.
Just like that, a few weeks passed by.
Edrin found regular work helping repair riverboats, patching hulls and fitting planks. Selene's fingers bled from endless sewing, but her shoulders no longer sagged quite so low.
With the coins they saved, they rented a room above a cooper's shop—a small, drafty place with a stove that smoked in the mornings and a window that stuck in the rain. But it was theirs.
They had a door that locked.
A table where they could eat.
A bed where Kaelen could dream.
Some nights, after Selene and Edrin had fallen asleep, Kaelen would sit by the window, pressing his forehead to the cool glass, and watch the city breathe—the faint glow of lanterns, the distant clatter of hooves, the endless hum of unseen voices rising into the night.
And somewhere, out there in the dark, adventure waited.
Greystone had shifted around him. It was still big. Still strange. But walking beside Mari, it no longer felt like a storm trying to swallow him whole.
Each day after morning chores, Mari took him exploring a little farther. They wandered through wide market squares where pigeons fought over crumbs, to the grand temple where pilgrims lit candles beneath a silvered crescent moon, and to a small hilltop beyond the weavers' quarter, where you could watch the river twisting away into the misty horizon.
Kaelen listened. Watched. Learned.
Greystone was still enormous. Still dangerous in ways he didn't yet understand. But under Mari's guidance, it became something more than fear.
It became familiar.
And slowly, day by day, Kaelen began to smile again.
And soon enough, three whole months had passed.
The day everything changed started like any other.
The morning sun burned away the mist quickly, leaving the streets clear and sharp-edged. The bells of the temple chimed, signalling the start of the day Kaelen woke early to the sound of gulls crying and the distant clatter of carts. He helped Selene carry bundles to the shop and sat quietly while she sorted pins and buttons. Helped sweep the shop floor. Helped wherever he could. The air smelled of beeswax and warm fabric. Mistress Harrow hummed under her breath.
But more and more, his days were spent trailing behind Mari.
She was bold and clever and didn't mind that he was quiet. She told stories about city life like they were old myths—how she once saw a thief climb across a rooftop with a chicken under his arm, how the city guard captain once caught a pickpocket with a fish slap. Some of it, Kaelen suspected, she made up. But he didn't care.
She made him laugh.
One afternoon, they sat on the edge of a dry fountain, splitting a bruised apple Mari had swiped from the market's discard bin.
"You still homesick?" she asked.
Kaelen stared at the apple core in his hand.
"I miss my friends," he said. "But not as much as I did."
Mari nudged him with her elbow. "Good. Greystone's better anyway. You'll see."
He smiled faintly.
Sometimes, he even believed her.
Then Mari whispered, "Come on. The puppet man's back in Millstone Square."
Kaelen gave her a bright smile and hesitantly said. "B-but, Mom said to be back before sunset."
Mari rolled her eyes. "Gods, come on Kaelen, don't be such a bore, come on, lets go have some fun, it'll be fine. Worst case We get scolded harshly or grounded for a few days"
Kaelen unsure of what to do, though for a moment before trusting her as they darted out into the afternoon bustle.
The puppet man stood atop an old crate, working a pair of painted wooden animals—one fat, one skinny—who argued about sharing a pie. Kaelen laughed, clutching his ribs, as the skinny one got bonked on the head with a spoon.
After the show, Mari tugged his sleeve. "Let's check the bridge. Some merchant's selling firefruit."
"What's firefruit?"
"You'll see."
They took the long way, cutting through side streets and quieter alleys. The sun was dipping behind the roofs, casting long shadows across the stones.
Then they turned a corner—and stopped.
A group of older boys, maybe ten or eleven, stood leaning against a crumbling wall. Four of them. All taller than Mari. All watching.
Kaelen's stomach dropped.
The tallest one had a scar across his chin and a crooked grin. "What's this?" he drawled. "Kids skipping school?"
Mari's hand gripped Kaelen's wrist. "Come on," she whispered, pulling him back the way they came.
They didn't get far.
The boys followed, slow at first, then faster.
They turned down an alley. The wrong one.
It dead-ended at a rusted gate.
Kaelen spun. The boys were already there.
The scarred one stepped forward. "Hey. We just want to talk."
Mari put herself in front of Kaelen. "We don't have anything. Leave us alone."
The boys spread out.
One had a dull knife. The kind not meant to kill, just scare.
Kaelen's breath hitched. His hand went to his pocket.
The wooden fox was there—solid and smooth beneath his fingers.
He held it like a lifeline.
But this wasn't a story. There was no hero to stop what was coming.
Only them.
And the alley was very, very narrow.