The morning after the storm, the city smelled of wet stone, smoke, and the faint sweetness of roasting chestnuts. Lyra kept her hood low as she moved through the bustle of the Grand Market.
Beside her, Kael followed silently, his battered armor now hidden beneath a travel cloak. "Who are we looking for?" he murmured.
"Not a who," Lyra said softly. "A voice."
The market was a maze of colors and scents—saffron merchants shouting over fishmongers, cloth traders swatting away street urchins. But Lyra's eyes weren't on the goods. She was watching shadows. She'd learned long ago that information moved fastest through hands no one noticed—beggars, errand boys, spice sellers.
Near a spice stall, a thin woman in a faded yellow scarf gave her a fleeting glance. It was the signal. Lyra approached casually, pretending to examine jars of crushed cinnamon.
"The moon will be dark in three nights," the woman said without looking at her.
"And the wolves will be hunting," Lyra replied.
The exchange unlocked a torrent of words. In hushed tones, the woman told her of a network—small, scattered, and dangerous—belonging to Lord Theron, one of the men on Lyra's list. He controlled half the city's underworld, moving gold and secrets through innocuous shops like this one.
More importantly, Theron had been seen meeting with a robed figure whose description matched one of the Binder's enemies.
Lyra's pulse quickened. A rival to the Binder meant a threat… but also an opportunity.
She pressed a silver coin into the woman's palm. "If you see him again, tell me. No matter the hour."
As they walked away, Kael finally spoke. "You're planning something."
Lyra gave a half-smile. "Always."
She could feel the pieces aligning—the knight she'd saved, the whispers in the market, the old names etched in her mind. The clock on her wrist ticked ever forward. Five years would vanish faster than she could imagine.
And when they did, the city would either be hers… or she would burn it to the ground.