They didn't go back to Kael's shack.
It was too exposed, too close to the Scavenger's Lane patrol routes, and tonight's fight at the docks had left enough noise for half the Guild to start sniffing around.
Instead, Ryn led them to a forgotten tannery on the river's edge. The building was half-collapsed, its roof sagging under years of neglect, but the basement was dry and locked behind a rusted iron grate. She pried it open with a length of bent crowbar, and they slipped inside.
The air was damp and stale, heavy with the lingering scent of old leather and smoke. The single lamp Ryn lit threw long shadows across the walls, revealing shelves stacked with cracked jars and mildewed hides.
Kael set the vial on the only intact worktable. Even in the low light, the blood glowed faintly — that same unnatural pulse, as if a heart still beat inside the glass.
Ryn stared at it for a long moment. "I've seen a lot of beast blood in my life. This… isn't any element I know."
Kael crossed his arms. "It's not just blood. It's alive."
They both stayed silent, listening. Somewhere above, a loose shutter rattled in the wind.
Finally, Ryn said, "We need to test it."
Kael's brow furrowed. "Test it on what? Because I'm not drinking it blind."
She smirked faintly. "Didn't say you should. We find something small. A scavenger beast. See what happens."
It took them nearly an hour to track down the perfect subject — a sewer runner, rat-like and about the size of a dog, captured alive in a rusted cage Ryn had stashed from an earlier hunt. The creature hissed and clawed at the bars as they set it in the middle of the basement floor.
Kael unstoppered the vial.
The scent that escaped was sharper now, metallic but undercut with something almost sweet — a smell that made the hairs on his neck rise. The sewer runner stopped its frantic movements, nose twitching.
"That's… not normal," Ryn muttered.
Kael tipped the vial. A single drop slid free, falling through the air in slow motion — or maybe that was just how it felt. When it hit the rat's snout, the beast jerked back, then froze entirely.
Its eyes went wide, pupils dilating until no color remained.
Then it screamed.
The sound was wet and high, scraping against Kael's nerves. The rat's body twisted violently, bones snapping under its own skin. Patches of fur fell away, replaced by slick black scales. Claws elongated, curling like hooked knives.
Kael's hand tightened on his knife. "That's shaping," he said.
Ryn's face was pale in the lamplight. "And it's fast. Too fast."
The creature turned its head toward them. Its gaze locked on Kael, and for the first time since they'd captured it, there was focus in its eyes.
Then it lunged.
Kael sidestepped, slashing across its neck — but the blade skittered against those new scales. The beast hit the wall, rebounded, and went for Ryn.
She fired point-blank, the bolt punching into its side. It screamed again, but didn't slow.
Kael barreled into it, driving it to the ground. Stonehide met its claws with a grinding screech, but one hooked talon caught his forearm, cutting through the coat to draw blood.
He shoved the beast back, planting his knee on its chest and stabbing upward into the softer flesh under its jaw.
It convulsed once, twice — then went still.
The glow faded from its eyes. The scales began to slough off in brittle shards, leaving a misshapen corpse that steamed faintly in the cold air.
Kael stood, wiping his blade clean. His arm burned where the talon had cut him, but the wound was shallow.
Ryn knelt by the corpse, studying the remaining patches of scale. "This wasn't just control. It rewrote the damn thing. Made it something new."
"And it made it strong enough to go through Stonehide," Kael said quietly. "That's the first thing I've fought that's done that."
They both looked at the vial. Half the blood still remained, pulsing in the glass.
Ryn straightened. "We can't let this get back to the Shaper. If they're feeding this to C- or B-Rank beasts, the Guild won't stand a chance."
Kael shook his head. "Destroying it doesn't help us find them. We keep it. Figure out how it works."
She gave him a long look. "And how do you plan on doing that without turning yourself into that?" She pointed at the corpse.
Kael didn't answer.
They burned the rat's body in the tannery's old fire pit, the acrid smoke seeping into every crack in the walls. Neither spoke as the flames consumed the last of the blackened scales.
When it was done, Kael stoppered the vial again and slid it deep into his coat.
Outside, the city was beginning to stir. The first pale light of dawn cut through the mist rising from the river. But the calm didn't last.
The first scream came from the direction of the merchant quarter.
Then another.
Kael and Ryn exchanged a glance before running for the stairs. From the tannery's roof, they could see smoke curling into the morning sky — not just from one place, but from three, all along the same street.
And moving through those streets, between the scattering crowds… shapes.
Large. Wrong.
They were beasts, but not any Kael recognized — twisted mixes of fur, scale, and bone, eyes glowing faintly with that same pulse as the vial's blood.
Ryn's voice was tight. "They've already used it."
Kael's jaw clenched. "And they're testing how far they can push it inside the city."
By the time they reached the first attack site, the street was chaos. A market stall had been overturned and set ablaze. One of the shaped beasts — something like a horned boar with serrated tusks — was smashing through a row of carts, tossing splintered wood into the air.
The Guild was there, but unprepared. Their spears and arrows glanced off the beast's hide, and every counter it made was deliberate, targeted.
Kael didn't hesitate.
He shoved past a scattering of panicked civilians and drew his knife. Stonehide flared, hardening his skin just as the boar turned to meet him.
The impact was like being hit by a runaway cart. Kael went to one knee but held his ground, stabbing for the creature's eye. It twisted at the last second, tusk catching his ribs. Pain lanced through him, but he used the momentum to roll onto its back.
The boar bucked, trying to throw him. Kael jammed the knife down at the base of its skull — once, twice, three times. On the third, the blade sank deep.
The beast staggered, legs folding. Kael jumped clear as it collapsed, steam rising from its body.
The Guild hunters stared, and for a moment Kael thought they might question him. But another scream split the air from further down the street, and they turned away, sprinting toward the sound.
Ryn appeared at his side, crossbow smoking. "That's one. There are more."
They ran together, cutting through alleys to avoid the press of fleeing civilians. Twice more they encountered shaped beasts — each different, each wrong in the same way. And each one fell only after targeted strikes to vulnerable spots.
By the time the last was down, Kael's coat was torn, his arm throbbed from the earlier cut, and the vial in his pocket felt heavier than ever.
They retreated to the tannery as the Guild locked down the affected streets.
Ryn leaned against the wall, wiping blood — not hers — from her cheek. "They're escalating fast. This wasn't random. This was a demonstration."
Kael nodded. "And we were the audience."
He pulled the vial out, holding it to the lamp light. The pulse seemed stronger now, as if it had fed on the chaos outside.
"We need to know exactly what this is," he said. "Because if we don't, we're going to see a lot more of it."