The footsteps were still there.
Close enough to catch between the clamour of the docks, far enough to vanish if he turned too fast.
Kaelen kept his pace steady, shoulders loose, eyes forward. East Docks branch was still a good twenty minutes away on foot, if he took the direct route. Too long to spend as prey in someone else's game.
He ran through options. He could cut south toward the main quay and lose himself in the press of labour crews changing shifts, but that was open ground. If they were armed, he'd be a moving target. West meant tighter streets and smaller crowds, but every shortcut ran straight past a Guild checkpoint. Risky. North would take him into the merchant quarter. Too clean, too well-lit; he'd stand out.
Or… he could run the in-between.
The city's veins weren't drawn on any map. Couriers learned them step by step, turn by turn, the thin lanes where wardlight only reached in ragged streaks, the raised walkways no cart could follow, the half-forgotten maintenance paths strung between upper floors like brittle webbing. He'd worked these streets for long enough to know which ones bent back on themselves and which spat you out a district away.
A half-glance in the warped glass of a closed apothecary showed the faintest ripple of movement at the lane's mouth. Patient. Tracking. They weren't closing the distance unless they had to. That meant they weren't amateurs.
He slid between two carts loaded with split timber, ignoring the curses, and ducked into a side street that narrowed to barely more than arm's breadth. It opened onto a plank bridge laid over a drainage channel, the boards slick and bowing under his weight. A soft creak, the faint tang of stagnant water rising. He crossed without hesitation, letting his stride stay even.
At the far end, the path forked. Left was a tight switchback that climbed into a cluster of high balconies, a dead end unless you knew about the hidden drop to the loading decks below. Right curved back toward East Docks but left him in full view for three blocks.
Left it was.
Boots struck old stone, the air cooling as he climbed. Each step echoed in the narrow vertical space, but the pattern behind him stayed, a second after his own, just enough lag to keep the sound from overlapping.
He could call in a favour. Dockside lookouts owed him more than one night's work. A single whistle from the right balcony, and he could have a half-dozen street rats scatter in front of the tail, muddying the line of sight. But that meant owing again, and word travelled fast in the Docks. If this was Guild business, he didn't want the wrong ears picking it up. If it wasn't… he'd rather not advertise his next move.
The walkway tilted under his step; wood warped from years of salt air. Below, dockhands were stacking crates under the cover of stretched canvas, their shouts muffled by distance. Kaelen followed the line of the beam to its end, stepped off onto a service platform, and dropped into the alley beyond.
A perfect blind spot. If the tail was close enough, they'd close in here.
Nothing.
He walked another ten paces, slowing to listen. The footsteps didn't return. No scrape of boot, no ripple in the shadowed edges of the lane.
Too clean. Too sudden.
They hadn't been lost. They'd broken off.
He kept walking, but the tension didn't ease. Whoever it was hadn't been lost, they'd chosen to leave. Which was worse.
You didn't lose them. They let you go.
If it was Guild, they'd have shown their face by now. A Handler on the doorstep, a summons waiting at the branch. The Guild doesn't play hide-and-seek. Not with couriers.
So maybe not Guild. Which left the other half of Brassrest, the one that lived in lanes with no names, traded in favours with no paper trail. Smugglers. Gangs. Spark-brokers. Factions that didn't officially exist. Black Cord would be the obvious bet; they've been increasingly active recently… but they're not the only ones who'd watch before they bite.
Maybe this was about last night. Veyr. The woman. Keelbrand.
If it's tied to that… how would they even know I was close?
I was questioned this morning by the warden before heading off to South Docks. By now, word might've spread I'd been called in. Or maybe they've got someone inside the Guild. Wouldn't be the first time.
And Veyr… he didn't feel like a man meeting her for the first time. Not just some enforcer running an informant. The way he spoke, the weight behind it, that wasn't new acquaintance. He'd known her a while. Known more than he should. Maybe even been one of them. Whoever they are.
If that's true… then I wasn't just in the wrong place last night. I was standing in the middle of something I shouldn't have seen.
Too many angles. Too little light.
Whoever they were, they'd made the first move. Which means the next one's mine. Just… not today.
The East Docks Guild branch loomed at the end of the street, a squat, ward-heavy block of brick and steel framed in pale wardlight. Even here, the tang of brine clung to the air, sharp under the smell of hot metal from the smithy annex.
Kaelen stepped through the archway into the front hall. Runners, porters, and Enforcers moved in every direction, voices bouncing against the ribbed ceiling.
It wasn't Lira at the desk today, she'd gotten off early, according to the log slate. Instead, it was Hask, a broad-shouldered clerk Kaelen had dealt with before. Competent, quick, and about as warm as wet slate.
Hask slid the docket across the counter, stamped it without comment, and passed over a slip for two crowns. "Run's cleared. Pay's on the slip." No smile, no nod. Kaelen didn't bother trying to force one. They'd never been on friendly terms, and there was no point extending a conversation neither of them wanted.
He folded the slip into his inner pocket and headed for the back stair.
The library took up the top floor, quiet, away from the clang and shuffle of the main branch. A pair of junior couriers were bent over a Spark registry, tracing runes on thin glass with their fingertips.
Kaelen moved past them and pulled a general-use reader from the rack, keying in a search for mobility-class Sparks.
The list sprawled across the crystal's surface, dozens of registered variants. SkyStep. FleetingStep. Vault Breaker. Crosswind. Each with Guild-compiled notes on charge efficiency, tether strain, safe usage thresholds. Footnotes logged historical incidents: tethers burning out mid-run, charges collapsing under strain, one runner whose Soulfire had shattered entirely.
Nothing on Nexus. Not that I expected it. If it isn't in the official lists, it's either classified… or they don't know it exists.
He dug deeper into the entries, cross-referencing older revisions against newer. The alterations over the decades were minor, refinements in recommended burst duration, updated warnings about sustained use. Nothing hinted at overlays, nothing that would explain what was happening to his SkyStep.
An hour bled into two. He skimmed defensive and utility spark categories for anything loosely tied to spatial positioning, just in case, but came away with the same conclusion: the Guild's official records were as clean as they wanted them to be.
Closing the reader, he headed back down to the main hall and toward the far wall where the job offers hung in neat rows. The notices were colour-tagged:
White – Training & Internal Tasks
Basic in-housework for new recruits, like message relays inside the Guildhall or assisting with archives. Not always posted on the public board.
Green – Low-Risk External Runs
Standard errands, light deliveries, non-combat escort within warded zones. Couriers max out here unless temporarily approved for more. All ranks.
Blue – Specialised Non-Combat Assignments
Moderate difficulty but non-lethal risk, e.g., urgent deliveries under time pressure, or runs that require traversing mildly unstable wards. Usually reserved for Initiate rank and above.
Yellow – Moderate Hazard
Jobs with genuine danger potential, areas with known hostile presence, escort of high-value goods, recovery from partially unsafe zones.
Red – High Hazard / Sanctioned Ops
Sanctioned strike or subjugation work, retrieval from hostile zones, suppression of anomalies. Requires Handlers or senior approval.
Black – Proscribed / Classified
Jobs not posted publicly. Usually Guild-directed or tied to Central Guild orders. Often outside the law entirely.
His eyes flicked over the yellows and reds by habit, even though he couldn't take them. Lira had reminded him just this morning, couriers were green tag only unless a Handler personally signed off. The restriction was there to "keep them alive," as she'd put it.
Alive or under control. Same difference.
The green section was stacked with the usual: sealed courier runs, dock-to-warehouse deliveries, minor retrievals. Easy money, but they'd tie him to fixed schedules, exactly what he didn't want while someone might still be watching.
No. Not until I know who's watching. Not until I've got a clearer map of the underbelly.
Turning away from the wall, he started making a mental list. Supplies first: field rations, ward tags, a patch kit for his harness. Then contacts, a few names he hadn't spoken to in months, people who lived closer to the city's shadow than its warded streets.
The Under Market wasn't a place you walked into cold. First came groundwork: letting the right people know you'd be coming, calling in old debts, and buying enough goodwill to make sure you walked out again.
Whoever was on his heels wouldn't vanish on their own. If it was Guild, they'd call him in. If it was one of the city's factions, silence only meant they were waiting for the right cut. Either way, answers weren't going to come by standing still. The Market would have whispers, if he knew where to lean. Somewhere in that smoke and shadow, tomorrow he'd find out who had eyes on him, and maybe why Nexus was suddenly worth the risk.