The city was breaking.
Rain sheeted down in unbroken walls, slapping against roofs that sagged under their own age. Gaslamps hissed and guttered, their glow smeared by smoke and ash. Windows stared with empty sockets; the glass had gone, shattered into the flooded streets. Somewhere, high above the rooftops, something screamed—a sound too large for any throat.
Two men ran through it.
The shorter man stumbled first, catching himself on the rusted frame of a doorway before pushing on. His breath came ragged, ripped apart by the cold. Every few strides, his head flicked back over his shoulder. Whatever chased them didn't make a sound he could name, but the silence behind them was worse than footsteps.
The taller man didn't look back. His coat flared with each stride, rain rolling off in sheets. In his right hand, he carried something wrapped in oiled cloth. His knuckles were white around it.
A flash split the sky. Not thunder—lightning that held still, suspended for the space of a breath before it collapsed into the street three houses away. Stone spat outward in a shower of grit. The smell of ozone clawed down the lungs.
The shorter man swore under his breath, half-prayer, half-curse. Then, clear over the rain, a voice rolled out—deep, unhurried, and too close.
"Divinis influxibis ex alto."
The words didn't echo. They settled, like silt sinking through water.
The shorter man's pace broke into a full sprint. "They've found us!"
The taller one only tightened his grip on the wrapped object. "Then we're out of time."
Lightning struck again, nearer. The air itself flinched, folding inward around the sound. The taller man's jaw clenched; water streamed down his face in rivulets. The shorter one lunged, grabbed his sleeve, and shoved the wrapped object into his chest.
"You know what to do," he said. No question. Just certainty worn into the words.
For the first time, the taller man looked at him. Rain caught in his lashes, turning his eyes to cold mirrors. He nodded once.
The shorter man turned, pulling a small blade from his belt. "Go."
The taller man tore away, boots splashing through water so black it swallowed the lamplight. He ducked into an alley barely wide enough for two shoulders and dropped to one knee, setting the bundle on the stones. His hands moved with the precision of habit, stripping away the oilcloth to reveal a book bound in black leather, a circle sigil burned into the cover.
The voice came again, closer now. "Divinis… influxibis… ex alto."
He didn't look up. His left hand drew a line in the air, his right traced the sigil on the book's cover. The space around him twisted, cobblestones shifting in his vision as if the street were being folded like paper. The rain slowed—not falling, but hanging, each drop caught in place.
A final stroke completed the pattern.
The world collapsed into itself, and the man was gone.
The rain fell again, hitting the empty stones where he'd knelt. Somewhere beyond the mouth of the alley, the shorter man screamed once, and then the city swallowed the sound whole