# Chapter 21: The Anonymous Source
The rain had lessened to a fine, cold mist that clung to the air like a shroud, but the sense of being hunted was a palpable heat against Konto's skin. Every distant siren, every flicker of a passing mag-train's light, felt like a potential harbinger of Commander Kaelen's arrival. The crimson keycard was a lead weight in his pocket, a constant reminder of Crew's sacrifice and the treason they now shared. They moved through the Undercity's labyrinthine alleys, not with the panicked rush of fugitives, but with the deliberate, unnerving stillness of predators trying to become invisible. Liraya navigated, her steps sure on the slick, uneven cobblestones. She held the data-slate Crew had given them, its screen displaying a single, blinking dot superimposed over a faded map of the city's old infrastructure.
"The coordinates lead to a dead zone," she whispered, her voice barely disturbing the oppressive quiet. "The old M-7 line. Decommissioned fifty years ago after the Great Collapse."
"Perfect place to get lost," Konto murmured in return, his gaze sweeping the shadows. The Somnolent Corruption was a low thrum at the base of his skull, a dissonant chord that made the edges of his vision shimmer. He fought it down, focusing on the cold, solid reality of the stone wall beside him. "And a perfect place for a ghost to leave a message."
They found the entrance tucked behind a rusted-out noodle stall, its faded sign promising a taste of the old world. A spiral staircase, slick with moss and grime, descended into darkness. The air that rose from it was thick with the smell of damp earth, rust, and something else… the sterile, ozone tang of old, forgotten magic. Liraya activated a small light-globe, its soft, white illumination pushing back the gloom, revealing a tiled tunnel that stretched into an abyss. The platform was littered with the debris of a bygone era: discarded newspapers with headlines about the first Aspect Weaving regulations, a shattered ticket kiosk, and a single, forlorn shoe. The place was a tomb, frozen in time.
According to the slate, their destination was a maintenance office two hundred meters down the track. They walked in silence, their footsteps echoing unnaturally in the cavernous space. The silence was so profound it felt like a pressure against Konto's eardrums. His psychic senses, usually a chaotic storm of background noise from the city above, were met with a void. It was unnerving, like being deafened. "Can you feel that?" he asked Liraya.
She nodded, her own Aspect tattoos glowing faintly on her wrists. "A dampening field. Crude, but effective. It's why this place is a dead zone. No signals in or out. Clever." It also meant they were completely cut off, unable to call for help or warn anyone if this was a trap.
The maintenance office door was steel, reinforced with rune-etched bands that had long since lost their power. The handle was stiff, but with a grunt, Liraya forced it open. The room inside was small, dominated by a large, dust-covered console and a single, swivel chair. And sitting in that chair, facing them as if she had been waiting for hours, was a woman. She was unassuming, dressed in the plain grey jumpsuit of a low-level Magisterium clerk. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and her face was pale and plain, the kind of face designed to be forgotten. But her eyes were sharp, intelligent, and held no trace of fear. They held only a cool, appraising curiosity.
"You're late," she said. Her voice was crisp, devoid of any discernible accent. "I was beginning to think Kaelen's hounds had already caught you."
Konto's hand instinctively went for a weapon he didn't have. He stepped slightly in front of Liraya, his mind reaching out, trying to get a psychic read on the woman. He was met with a wall, not of hostile power, but of sheer, disciplined emptiness. It was like trying to read a blank sheet of paper. "Who are you?" he demanded.
"My name is Isolde," she replied, rising from the chair. She was shorter than she'd appeared sitting, but carried herself with an air of quiet authority. "I'm the one who's been feeding you information."
Liraya stepped forward, her skepticism a palpable force. "You? The anonymous source? You're a clerk. I've seen your profile in the junior analyst database. Low-level, no security clearance, no family, no history. You're a ghost."
"A carefully crafted ghost," Isolde corrected, a faint, humorless smile touching her lips. "It's the best kind of cover. You look at me and you see nothing. That's the point." She gestured to the console behind her. "I routed the purged records to Crew. I'm the one who told him where to find you. And I'm the one who sent you the coordinates for this meeting."
"Why?" Konto asked, the single word heavy with suspicion. "Helping us is a death sentence. The Magisterium doesn't tolerate traitors."
"The Magisterium is a cancer," Isolde said, her voice dropping, losing its corporate crispness and taking on a harder, more fervent edge. "A bloated, corrupt oligarchy choking the life from this city. Moros and his cronies sit in their ivory towers, weaving reality to suit their whims, while the rest of us scrabble for scraps. I'm not helping you. I'm using you."
The confession hung in the dead air. Liraya's eyes narrowed. "Using us for what?"
Isolde walked to the console, her fingers tracing the dust-caked controls. "I am not, as you so astutely observed, a loyal servant of the Magisterium Council. My allegiance lies elsewhere." She paused, turning to face them fully. "I am an agent of Hephaestia."
The name hit Konto like a physical blow. Hephaestia. Aethelburg's great rival, the industrial powerhouse to the south, a city-state fueled by fire-aspect and technology, and a deep-seated, generational hatred for Aethelburg's magical dominance. Everything clicked into place with sickening clarity. The anonymous source, the perfect intel, the timing. It wasn't an act of rebellion. It was an act of war.
"Hephaestia," Liraya breathed, her face a mask of dawning horror and fury. "This is all a ploy to destabilize us. You're not trying to stop the Nightmare Plague; you're *encouraging* it."
"Of course," Isolde said, her tone matter-of-fact. "Aethelburg is strong. Its foundations are deep. A conventional war would be costly, bloody, and unwinnable. But a house that rots from within? That collapses under its own weight? That's a victory that costs nothing but patience. The Nightmare Plague is the perfect weapon. It sows terror, it paralyzes the leadership, and it turns the city's greatest strength—its magical infrastructure—into its greatest weakness. We're just giving it a little push."
Konto felt a cold rage wash over him, momentarily overriding the thrum of his corruption. They were pawns. All of it—the fragmented grimoire, the purged records, Crew's desperate warning—had been orchestrated by a foreign agent to lead them down this path. "And what do you get out of this?" he snarled. "A medal from your fire-mage masters?"
"I get a world where my city isn't living in the shadow of yours," Isolde shot back, her own composure finally cracking to reveal a core of cold, hard zealotry. "Where innovation isn't stifled by ancient tradition and magical elitism. Moros is a monster, but he's a useful monster. His plan to merge the dreamscape with reality is apocalyptic, yes. But the chaos leading up to it? The purges, the paranoia, the breakdown of order? That's the perfect cover for us to move in, to seize key assets, to ensure that when Aethelburg falls, Hephaestia rises from the ashes."
Liraya was shaking, not with fear, but with a barely contained, incandescent anger. Her Aspect tattoos flared to life, bathing the small room in a brilliant blue light. "You're insane. You're talking about sacrificing millions of lives."
"Collateral damage," Isolde said dismissively, though she took a half-step back from the raw power Liraya was channeling. "Every great advancement requires sacrifice. Now, are you going to listen to what I have to say, or are you going to posture until Kaelen's dream-sniffers triangulate your dampening field and turn this tunnel into your tomb?"
Her pragmatism was a bucket of ice water on Liraya's fury. She forced the light to recede, her knuckles white. "Talk."
"I know you're planning to hit the waterworks," Isolde continued, her voice regaining its calm, analytical tone. "I know you have a Warden keycard. And I know you're looking for the rest of the ritual text, the failsafe. You won't find it there."
Konto's heart sank. "Why not?"
"Because Moros isn't a fool. He wouldn't leave the key to his undoing in a decommissioned archive, no matter how well-hidden. The archive is a red herring. A trap. Kaelen is likely waiting for you there right now." She let that sink in before continuing. "The real information, the identity of the plague's true mastermind and the complete details of the Great Unwinding, is held on a private server. A device called the 'Chronos Anomaly.'"
Liraya's eyes widened. "That's a myth. A theoretical piece of pre-Collapse tech. It doesn't exist."
"It exists," Isolde stated flatly. "And Moros has it. It's a quantum-entangled data core that records not just information, but the *context* of that information across multiple timelines. It's how he's been able to stay ten steps ahead of everyone. It's his personal oracle. And it's currently housed in the Magisterium's most secure vault: the Aegis Spire."
"The Aegis Spire is impenetrable," Konto said, his voice flat. It wasn't an opinion; it was a statement of fact. It was the heart of the Council's power, a tower protected by layers of magical and technological defenses that made the waterworks look like a garden shed.
"Not for you two," Isolde countered. "Not with what you can do." She looked at Konto, a flicker of something unreadable in her eyes. "A Dreamwalker who can rewrite reality from the inside, and a high-level mage who can crack any arcane lock. You're the perfect team for the job."
Liraya laughed, a harsh, bitter sound. "You want us to perform an impossible heist on the most secure building in the city, for you. Why would we ever agree to that?"
"Because I'm offering you something you want more than anything," Isolde said, her gaze locking onto Konto's. "I'm offering you the name of the person who ordered the hit on your partner, Elara. The person who put her in that coma."
The air in the room went still. The name hung between them, a baited hook dipped in poison. Konto felt the world tilt, the buzzing in his head roaring into a cacophony. Elara. Her smiling face, the way she'd laugh at his cynical jokes, the light in her eyes just before the mission went wrong. It was a wound that had never closed, a source of guilt and pain that fueled his every waking moment. He had always assumed it was a random act of violence, a job gone sour. But to know it was deliberate, that there was a single person responsible… it was a fire that threatened to consume him.
"How do you know that?" he asked, his voice dangerously low.
"Because the order was logged on the Chronos Anomaly," Isolde said softly. "It was one of the first things I found when I gained access to Moros's network. It was a test run, a demonstration of a new kind of psychic weapon. A weapon that was later perfected into the Nightmare Plague. The name is there. All I have to do is retrieve it."
Konto stared at her, his mind a battlefield of rage, grief, and a desperate, aching hope. He could feel Liraya's eyes on him, a silent plea not to fall for it. But this was Elara. This was the ghost that haunted his every step. He had spent years running from that pain, burying it under cynicism and work. Now, a chance for answers was being offered, wrapped in a treasonous, impossible deal.
"What's the catch?" Liraya asked, her voice sharp, cutting through the tension. "You want us to steal this 'Chronos Anomaly' for you."
"Not the device itself," Isolde clarified. "Just the data core. It's a self-contained unit about the size of your fist. I'll give you the schematics, the patrol routes, the access codes I can procure. You get in, you extract the core, you bring it to me. In exchange, I give you the name you want, and I'll wipe your presence from the city's security net. Kaelen will be chasing ghosts. You'll be free to disappear, or to use the information on the core to stop Moros yourselves. It's a win-win."
"A win for Hephaestia," Liraya spat. "You get the device, you get the chaos you want."
"Perhaps," Isolde conceded with a shrug. "Or perhaps you get a fighting chance. Which is more than you have now. You can go to the waterworks and walk right into Kaelen's trap. Or you can listen to me. The choice is yours."
She turned and walked to the door, pausing with her hand on the frame. "I'll be in touch. Let me know what you decide." She stepped out into the dark tunnel, her footsteps receding until they were swallowed by the oppressive silence, leaving Konto and Liraya alone in the dusty office with the weight of a devil's bargain.
Konto sank into the chair Isolde had vacated, the metal groaning under his weight. He felt hollowed out. Elara. Her name was a litany in his mind. He could almost feel her presence, a phantom warmth against the cold reality of the room. He looked at Liraya, his expression raw, stripped of all its usual cynicism. "She's lying," he said, the words tasting like ash. "She has to be."
"Of course she is," Liraya said, her voice softening. She knelt in front of him, her hands on his knees. "She's a spy, Konto. Her entire job is to manipulate people. She found your biggest vulnerability and she pressed it. Hard."
"But what if she's not?" he whispered, the hope a painful, physical thing in his chest. "What if the name is real? What if I can finally… know?"
Liraya searched his face, her own conflict clear in her eyes. She wanted to stop Moros, to save the city. But she also saw the torment he was in. "And what if it's a trap? What if she uses you to get that device, and the information she gives you is a lie? Or worse, what if it's the truth, and knowing it destroys you completely?"
He didn't have an answer. He just sat there, the crimson keycard in his pocket feeling like a brand, the ghost of his partner's name on his lips, and the impossible choice of a city's fate versus his own desperate need for closure hanging in the balance. The silence of the abandoned subway station was no longer peaceful. It was the sound of a ticking clock, counting down to a decision that could save them all, or damn them forever.