The cold gnawed at his ankles, but he barely felt it. His eyes stayed fixed on the shadowy corner of the manor yard where the body had disappeared, swallowed up by servants and silence.
So that's how it happens.
Not in a ritual chamber with chanting and blood slicked daggers.
Not with flames or spells.
Just a quiet death.
A cart.
And a party upstairs so loud no one noticed a soul being stolen.
The chill finally cut through his haze. He blinked, stepped back. His stolen treasures still tucked safely beneath linen rags, suddenly felt heavier.
"An Inheritance," he whispered again, the words sour on his tongue.
He'd always known about them, of course. Everyone had. Spirit Sorcerers taking power from other Sorcerers. Magic transferred like coin, paid for in blood.
But knowing and seeing were two different things.
Veyn's fingers tightened.
He thought about the old man, who he was, what kind of magic he had, he was probably a great grandparent or something passing down his magic for his youngest kin. Or maybe they found him on the black market ready to give his life so his family could live it rich.
A brittle laugh slipped from Veyn's throat.
"Happy birthday."
He turned and slipped back into the manor like a shadow.
He needed warmth. He needed to stash his haul. Because everything just changed. Something much more valuable than just simple relics and riches was waiting inside. That something, magic, a chance at making it off the streets, permanently.
It was here.
In this house.
In Callum.
And for the first time, Veyn felt a different kind of hunger stir inside him. Not for coin. Not even for safety.
Power. The kind you didn't steal with nimble fingers, but with blood and ritual and silence.
The party played on.
But Veyn didn't return to work.
He slipped into the servants stairwell and climbed, past the unused attic, up to the roof access where the snow had crusted the tiles like a shell.
From here, he could see the city.
Frostpoint, wide and quiet and waiting.
Somewhere out there, people were being bought and sold for their magic.
And others, like Callum, were rising with it in their veins.
Veyn clenched the railing.
He didn't have magic. Not yet. But that was about to change.
Because up there, on the roof, in the bitter cold, Veyn was thinking.
Thinking something so outrageous, so reckless, it demanded silence, and a damn good view.
He shouldn't be thinking this. Not about Callum. Not after the boy looked at him like that near the linen room, like they weren't so different. But hunger didn't care about kindness.
'No way.'
'Would that even work?'
'How the hell did I even come up with this… and am I really about to go through with it?'
A pause.
Then a grin.
"Screw it."
He'd already come this far, sneaking around for days, spinning lies like silk, risking everything to make off with a bucket of stolen treasure.
'Might as well push my luck a little further. Won't ever get a chance like this again.'
So, without knowing if it would actually work, and fully aware of the consequences if it didn't, Veyn turned away from the snowy skyline and made his way back down into the manor. No valuables in hand. Just calculations running wild in his head.
'I saw the body about ten minutes ago. Judging by the pallor, he was probably dead thirty minutes before that. That gives me 40 minutes since Callum took his birthday toast, the one laced with the spirit essence.'
He moved quickly, as he slipped through servant corridors, his mind raced faster than his feet.
'They say the mixture has to be consumed immediately for it to work properly. Potency fades by the minute. It takes roughly an hour to fully absorb into the bloodstream… So that means Callum won't start seeing the future, putting his thoughts into other people's minds, whatever his affinity is, until around 10:20.'
He glanced at the hall clock.
9:59.
'I've got twenty one minutes.'
Twenty minutes to make the boldest move of his life.
Twenty minutes to get alone with the newly Inherited son of House Aldergrave… and pull off something no street rat, or anyone else for that matter, had ever dared before.