Quinn walks down the street with rain tapping against his umbrella. It's steady, not heavy, the kind that soaks in slowly if you let it. A gust of wind catches the canopy now and then, tugging it sideways before he steadies it again.
The air smells wet and cold. Stone, old wood, smoke hanging low.
He walks at an easy pace, letting the morning move around him.
Vendors line the road beneath sagging awnings, canvas pulled tight against the rain. A baker lifts a cloth to adjust a tray of loaves, steam curling into the damp air. Quinn smells it as he passes, warm and familiar, and feels his stomach tighten before he realizes he's still hungry.
He knows this stall. He knows which bread sells out first.
That thought comes and goes before he can settle on it.
Further along, a butcher works a whetstone in slow, even strokes. The sound cuts cleanly through the rain. The man glances up and nods.
"Morning."
"Morning," Quinn replies, without thinking.
It keeps happening like that. The answers arrive before the questions.
The street opens slightly, old buildings leaning inward from both sides. Rainwater runs down carved gutters into shallow channels cut into the stones. Quinn steps over one without looking, instinctively avoiding the deeper puddle near the corner.
He frowns, just a little.
His reflection slips past in the dark glass of a shop window—broad shoulders, steady posture. He looks like someone meant to be here, moving through the morning says its own quiet truth about him.
That truth doesn't feel like his.
A small knot of people crowds around a stall selling tools and scraps of metal. A woman argues over the price of nails while her child pulls at her sleeve. Quinn watches as he passes, the rhythm familiar even if the details aren't.
Near the next corner, two members of the Civic Registry stand beneath a stone arch. Their coats are neat despite the rain, boots clean. They aren't speaking.
One closes his eyes briefly.
Quinn feels it—a tightening in the air, subtle but wrong. The man opens his eyes again, and the other officer nods once.
Whatever passed between them didn't need words.
The first officer's gaze sweeps the street and pauses on Quinn. Not suspicion or interest, it was assessment.
Quinn keeps walking. The pressure fades behind him, but the sense of being counted lingers a moment longer than it should.
State Nine, the paper had said.
He shakes the thought loose and turns down a narrower street, the noise of the market thinning behind him. The buildings here sit closer together, windows fogged, smoke drifting from chimneys. The rain sounds louder, boxed in by stone and wood.
This road leads toward the mill.
He notices the slope of the stones, the way water always pools near the gutter. His foot stutters for a split second—just enough for him to notice the ground feels… off. Too shallow. Too deep.
Then it corrects itself.
Quinn stops.
No one else reacts. The rain keeps falling. Somewhere nearby, a door opens and shuts.
He exhales slowly and keeps moving.
The mill comes into view through the mist—dark, solid, the great wheel turning steadily beside the channel. Water churns below it, loud and constant.
He slows.
This isn't his usual work. The knowledge comes quietly. He's helped here before—enough times to be expected—but not often. Today is a favor. A promise. Something he said yes to without thinking.
Something someone else said yes to.
He adjusts his grip on the umbrella and heads toward the entrance anyway.
It's still honest work. Something his hands know how to do, even if his mind doesn't remember agreeing to it.
Behind him, far down the street, a bell tolls once.
Quinn doesn't know why it makes his shoulders tense.
He keeps walking.