The Ash Wards always had a smell of burning metal filling the air, like a struck match held too close to your nose. Not the sharp sting you get when a forge is working, but something older—like the scent had sunk into the stone decades ago and refused to leave, though time has passed. The rain couldn't wash it out, the fog couldn't hide it, and the people who lived here had long stopped caring about it.
Lucian Argyros leaned forward on the wooden railing outside the flat balcony, elbows resting on weathered boards slick from the mist. Below, the narrow street sloped downward into a maze of the dimly gaslit alleys, their yellow glows blurring into soft golden shadows. It was late enough that the usual shouting of the busy streets had died down, but this part of Authrioz never truly slept. Somewhere nearby, a cart wheel creaked over uneven, cracked cobblestone. Farther off, a vendor with a voice stale and hoarse called out his last sales of goods.
Lucian stayed quiet. Watching.
The trick to the Wards was knowing when not to be seen. You didn't watch with your head—you watched with your ears, your shoulders, the corners of your eyes. You let the street pass through you like water, and if someone's gaze lingered on you too long, you let it slide right back off.
The front door behind him creaked open. He didn't have to look to know it was Retsu. The door in their building stuck at the hinge, and she always gave it that same strong shove to make it swing open.
"Out here again?" she said, voice low but carrying just enough weight to cut through the mist.
Lucian smirked without turning. "It's quieter than inside."
Retsu stepped up beside him, her coat brushing his arm. She always smelled faintly of the street after a job—coal smoke, rain, and something metallic that wasn't quite blood but wasn't far off. Tonight it was stronger than usual.
"You've been sitting in the cold for how long?" she asked, leaning forward on the railing. Her eyes scanned the street below with the same calm precision she used on suspects.
"A couple of hours," Lucian said. Retsu's brow arched. "And you wonder why you're always tired in the morning."
He glanced at her hands. Blood?. No dirt?. But the way she kept flexing her fingers told him whatever she'd been dealing with wasn't exactly routine.
"Bad case?" he asked.
She kept her gaze forward. "Routine," Which in Retsu's language meant don't ask.
The wind shifted, and somewhere deeper in the city, the Clockspire began its slow, resonant chime. Twelve chimes, each one rolling through the streets like a ripple on water. Lucian listened, letting the sound fill the air between them.
When the final note hung in the fog, he noticed something strange. The gaslamp across the street flickered—not dimming, but flaring brighter, the light stretching unnaturally.
And then, for what felt like a heartbeat, there was someone standing under it.
Tall white coat, white suit, wide-brimmed hat, face turned up toward him. The man's shadow stretched in the wrong direction, bending toward the lamp instead of away from it. Lucian blinked—
The street was empty again.
Retsu noticed it instantly.
"What's with that look?"
Lucian kept his eyes on the empty street. "Thought I saw someone."
"In this weather?" Her voice was flat, skeptical, the way she sounded when she thought a suspect was lying but couldn't prove it yet.
He shrugged. "Could've been nothing. Just… wrong angle on the light, maybe."
Retsu didn't reply right away. She studied him for a second too long, her silver-gray eyes narrowing ever so slightly. She had the same eyes as him, though hers never drifted—they locked onto people and held them there, stripping away whatever front they tried to put up.
Finally, she said, "You need to get inside. There's more fog than air out here tonight. Aren't you cold?"
He smirked faintly. "Is that a health warning or a Bureau one?"
"Both." She reached into her coat and pulled out a small tin, sliding it toward him on the railing. "Picked these up at the market—don't eat them all at once."
Lucian opened it and frowned at the neat row of dark sugar candy cubes inside. "What are these, bribes?"
"Consider it hazard pay for not asking what I was doing tonight on the job."
He let out a soft chuckle but didn't push her. That was their unspoken agreement not to dig into what he got up to in the Wards, and he didn't demand to know the details of her Bureau work. Still, sometimes, that silence was heavier than words.
Somewhere down the street, a muffled shout broke through the fog, followed by the sharp sound of glass breaking.
The gaslamp flickered again.
This time, Lucian didn't just see the flicker—he felt it.
Like the air between one second and the next had thickened, like sticky syrup-slow, dragging the world into a pause. His breath caught without him meaning to.
And then the street changed.
The fog thinned. The air warmed. The buildings across from him looked newer—paint unpeeled, windows unbroken. People walked the street in clothes he didn't recognize, the gaslamp's glass still clear and bright.
A man with the same long coat and brimmed hat stepped under the lamp. He turned his head—slow, deliberate—and looked straight at Lucian.
Lucian's chest tightened.
The sound of the Clockspire's chimes rolled again, but this time they overlapped, out of sync—one set in the present, one echoing from somewhere else entirely.
The man lifted a hand as if to wave—
And the world snapped back.
The fog returned, heavy and wet. The buildings were old again. The street was empty.
Retsu's hand gripped his shoulder hard. "Lucian."
He blinked at her. "What?"
"You just froze." Her tone was sharper than before. "For almost a minute...what the hell was that?"
"It felt like…" He stopped himself. Whatever he'd just seen didn't have words that wouldn't make him sound crazy. "…Nothing. Guess I zoned out."
Her eyes lingered on him, but she didn't press. "Alright, fine... let's head in."
Retsu shoved the door open with her hip, the wood giving its usual reluctant groan. She stepped inside first, boots leaving damp prints on the floorboards, and shrugged off her coat and put it on a peg.
Lucian followed, shutting the fog out with a hollow thunk. The warm, stale air of the flat wrapped around him—tea leaves, boiled rice from earlier, and the faint smell of street musk that never seemed to fade from Retsu's clothes.
Without saying a word, she crossed to the sink. The tap squealed as she turned it, water splashing into the dented kettle.
"You only rush for tea when something's eating at you."
She set the kettle on the stove and struck a match. "Or maybe I'm just cold."
"Yeah, and I'm the Emperor of Lalucia."
"Very funny, Lucain," she said, mocking him, pulling two mugs from the shelf.
Lucian smirked, leaning against the wall. "Consider it character building."
She shot him a sidelong look. "One day, your character's going to get you killed."
"That's oddly optimistic coming from you."
The kettle began to hum, steam curling up into the air. She busied herself with the leaves, movements quick but precise—the way she did everything when she wanted to think without looking like she was thinking.
Lucian's gaze lingered. "Seriously, though… you've got that presence tonight."
Retsu poured the water, the steam ghosting over her face. "Presence?"
"That thing you do. You walk in, and the air feels heavier. Not in a bad way, but… like you've been standing in a place the rest of us shouldn't."
She slid a mug toward him without answering. "Drink. You're half frozen."
He wrapped his hands around it, letting the heat sink into his fingers. "You know that doesn't answer me, right?"
"It wasn't meant to." She sat down opposite him, blowing on her tea. "And before you ask, no—this isn't a conversation you get to win."
Lucian grinned faintly. "Then it's not a fair one."
"That's life." She took a sip. "Besides, if you're bored, you can always go stare at the street until something else weird happens to you."
He chuckled, but the image of the man under the gas lamp tugged at the back of his mind. "Yeah. I'll pass on that."
They drank in a silence that wasn't exactly comfortable but wasn't hostile either—just the quiet of people used to each other. Outside, the wind pressed against the thin windows, carrying a faint rattle of chains from somewhere down the street.
Then the landline rang.
The shrill, metallic brrring cut through the room like a blade.
Retsu was up before the second ring. "Stay here."
Lucian tilted his head. "Who—"
"Room, Lucian." The way she said it left no room for argument.
He carried his mug into the back half of the flat, slipping behind the heavy curtain. He didn't sit; he stood just inside, listening.
Her voice on the phone was lower, clipped, and professional. "Retsu Argyros… yes. Go ahead."
A pause.
"…Confirmed. Frequency disturbance, Sector Three. Humanoid resonance signature."
Lucian frowned.
"…No, not residual—it's active. Strong negative polarity spike. Harmonics too clean for random fluctuation." Another pause. "Yes, Luan, I understand the risk assessment."
Luan Valcairn.
"…Sentience probable. If cooperative, attempt alignment. If hostile… Sanctum clearance."
Lucian's fingers tightened around his mug.
"…No confirmed worshippers yet. But the draw is strong. Too strong for chance."
Her voice dropped a fraction lower. "Yes… an Abomination."
The line clicked. Silence.
Lucian lay back on his bed, staring at the cracked ceiling, the word echoing in his head like the Clockspire's bells. Abomination…?
Sleep didn't feel safe, but it came anyway.