The morning after the tunnels, Jonathan Wayne sat at the desk with his head bowed, staring at the knife Nina had given him.
The faint chant from the night before still pulsed in his skull like a fever.
But the silence was broken by Crane's heavy boots. He shoved the door open, his face grim.
"They've started circling Abe."
Jonathan's head snapped up. "What?"
Crane tossed a folded flyer onto the desk. It was hand-printed, smudged with cheap ink: a political notice. Abe Wayne was to address the workers of South Docks about the coming coal strike.
Jonathan's chest went cold. The flyer's border was not ordinary print. Faint but deliberate, it carried the double-circle symbol, hidden like a watermark.
"Their mark," Jonathan muttered.
Crane nodded "Word in the taverns is Abe's speech is already cursed. They say whoever speaks under the South Docks arch dies before the year is out.
It's superstition but I've seen how they use superstition like tinder."
Jonathan rose sharply "I won't let them take him."
He found Abe Wayne in the upper rooms of the Masonic Hall, poring over ledgers by the light of stained windows.
The old man's frame had bent with years of labor and drink,
but his voice remained iron when he looked up.
"Jonathan you look like a man who's crawled out of hell."
Jonathan didn't smile. "Perhaps I have."
Abe gestured for him to sit. "What brings you here?"
Jonathan placed the flyer on the table Abe's eyes narrowed as he studied it.
"You see it, don't you?" Jonathan pressed "The mark. This isn't just a strike, Abe It's bait."
Abe leaned back, his gaze heavy. "Jonathan, Gotham has always been bait. Men like me were born into chains some forged by debt, others by name. You think you can outrun it? You
can't."
Jonathan's voice hardened "You're marked. If you speak at that rally, you'll be standing in their circle."
For a moment, silence filled the room dust motes drifted between them like ash.
Then Abe chuckled bitterly "You sound like our father."
Jonathan flinched "And where did sounding like him lead?"
"To him raising you," Abe said, voice like gravel.
"Don't forget that, brother don't forget who kept we breathing when the Wayne coffers ran dry."
Jonathan leaned forward, his tone low, urgent. "I owe you my life but if you go there, you'll lose yours."
Abe's eyes softened, just briefly then he reached into his pocket and slid a small flask across the table. "Drink," he muttered. "If we're to talk of debts, we'd best start by sharing one."
Jonathan didn't drink he pressed the flask back.
"I'm not here to share a debt," he said. "I'm here to break one."
That evening, the docks swelled with voices. Workers with soot-streaked faces gathered beneath the looming iron arch, their lanterns flickering like fireflies.
The smell of coal dust clung to everything.
Jonathan stood at the crowd's edge, his coat collar high, eyes scanning every shadow Crane lingered at his side, club in hand.
"Think he'll listen?" Crane asked quietly.
Jonathan's jaw clenched "Abe never listens."
His brother appeared at last, climbing the makeshift platform with a stubborn determination.
The crowd cheered, raising fists and hats Abe raised his hand for silence, his voice booming across the night.
"Brothers! Sisters! Tonight, we speak not of debt, nor curse, nor the shadow of our chains tonight we speak of fire! The fire that burns in the belly of every man denied his wage, every child denied his bread!"
The crowd roared.
Jonathan's eyes darted to the rooftops a flicker of movement. A figure cloaked in black, watching from above.
"Crane," Jonathan hissed, pointing.
The detective cursed and shoved his way through the throng, forcing toward the ladder.
Abe's voice rose "The masters who hold this city think we are dust beneath their boots! But I tell you now dust can choke, dust can blind, dust can bury empires!"
The people cheered again, louder, but Jonathan's blood ran cold. As the sound rose, he felt it that same unnatural silence crawling at the edges, pressing inward.
He shoved through the crowd, fighting toward the platform. "Abe!" he shouted.
But before he could reach him, a cry split the night.
From the arch above, something unfurled a length of black
cloth, slashed with the Owe's symbol, dropping like a banner.
The crowd gasped some screamed.
Jonathan leapt onto the platform just as Abe faltered, clutching his chest.
His face had gone pale, his eyes wide with a terror Jonathan had never seen in him.
"No," Jonathan whispered, catching him as he collapsed.
Crane returned, panting, blood on his hands. "The figure's gone. Slipped the roof like a phantom."
Jonathan knelt over Abe, his pulse frantic but his brother's breath rattled faintly still alive for now.
Abe gripped his sleeve weakly, pulling Jonathan close. His voice was a rasp.
"They've come for me, brother But… not for me alone for you always… for you."
His eyes fluttered shut.
Jonathan looked up at the arch the black banner swayed in the night wind, the circle glimmering faintly as if inked in blood.
The shadows were no longer only symbols. They had touched bloodline.
And they had fallen over Abe.