Chapter 4: Cloak and Daggers
The frigid water of the underground river hit her like a slap, shocking the air from her lungs. Anesan fought the current, her injured ankle screaming as she pushed toward the distant torchlight on the opposite bank. Zephyr’s laughter, a sound she’d once found annoying, was now a beacon. She scrambled up the slimy stone ledge, out of the water and into a rough-hewn side tunnel, collapsing behind a pile of discarded crates.
She lay there, shivering, for a long time. The adrenaline of the escape was leaching away, leaving behind the full catalog of her damages: the throbbing ankle, the deep ache in her shoulder from the fall, the raw, psychic bruise left by Regulus’s clinical fingers. Her clothes were soaked, plastered to her skin, every tattoo visible. She was a walking map of vulnerabilities.
First objective: camouflage.
Peering around the crates, she saw a scene of controlled chaos. This was clearly a main artery of the Warrens. Torches guttered in sconces, casting dancing shadows on stalls built from salvage and dreams. The air was thick with the smell of spiced food, cheap perfume, and unwashed bodies. Laughter was the background music here too, but it was different from the Arena’s performative joy or Regulus’s chilling silence. This was the sound of commerce, of life, of people making do.
A couple of stalls down, a dispute was unfolding. A burly man with ink-stained fingers was waving a piece of parchment at a cobbler.
“—the stitching is clearly sub-par! The Language of the laugh should carry, my friend, and this sole emits a squeak, not a chirp!”
“A squeak is a valid tonal expression in the lower register!” the cobbler retorted, hands on hips.
“It is an insult to the craft! I demand recompense!”
Instead of fists, the cobbler sighed, then swiftly jabbed two fingers into the burly man’s exposed side. The man buckled, a sharp, honking laugh bursting from him. He swatted the cobbler’s hand away, giggling helplessly.
“Fine! Fine! A discount! Just stop!” the man wheezed, his outrage utterly deflated.
Anesan watched, cold settling in her gut that had nothing to do with her wet clothes. It was so casual. A tool for everything. Regulation. Conflict resolution. Entertainment. Her secret, the thing she’d hidden her whole life, was here as commonplace as currency.
She spotted her chance. A nearby stall was a jumble of textiles, piles of tunics, trousers, and cloaks fluttering in the damp tunnel draft. The merchant was turned away, haggling with a customer over a bolt of shimmering fabric. Anesan moved low and fast. Her hand closed on a drab, greyish cloak from a heap on the ground. It was coarse and smelled of lanolin, but it was dry. She swept it around her shoulders, pulling the deep hood over her head. It covered her tattoos, her damp tank top, most of her jeans. She felt immediately less exposed, less like a target.
She merged into the flow of foot traffic, trying to mimic the loose, unhurried gait of those around her. Her eyes scanned for familiar faces—Zephyr’s mischievous grin, Elara’s severe braids. The cloak scratched her neck, but it was warmth.
The market unfolded in a sensory overload. One stall sold pies that steamed with savory smells, another displayed glittering fragments of polished crystal that chimed when tickled by the vendor’s feather. A puppet show was underway, the little figures poking each other in perpetual, squeaky-voiced hysterics. Anesan kept her head down, her gaze flitting from shadow to shadow.
She paused at a stall selling practical gear—waterskins, rope, simple knives. Her hand went to her empty belt. A knife would be good. Very good.
“See something you fancy, hooded one?” The voice was melodic, female. The stall owner, a human woman with a round, friendly face and eyes that sparkled with perpetual amusement, leaned on her counter. Her sleeves were rolled up, revealing forearms covered in intricate, swirling tattoos of… feathers. “That cloak looks a bit rough. I’ve got better. Lined with cloud-wool. Very… comforting.”
Anesan shook her head, keeping her voice low. “Just browsing.”
“Ah, a woman of few words! I appreciate that.” The woman’s smile widened. “But words aren’t the only currency here, you know. Sometimes a good giggle gets you a better price.”
Anesan took a step back. “I’m fine.”
“No, no, you’re tense!” the woman said, her cheer undimmed. “I can see it in your stance. All coiled up. That’s no good for the soul. Tell you what.” She reached under the counter and produced a small, wooden foot-shaped contraption with movable, jointed toes. “New customer special. A friendly duel. You win, twenty percent off anything in the stall. I win, you pay full price and get a story to tell. Fair?”
Anesan stared at the device. A tickle duel. Over prices. Her mind flashed to Regulus’s feather, to the cold, calculating pressure of his fingers. This was supposed to be the same thing? Fun? Playful?
The woman misinterpreted her hesitation. “Oh, don’t worry! It’s just feet! Everyone’s got a weak spot there. The toes, the arch… it’s a science, really. Come on, pull up a stool! Let’s see if you can keep a straight face.”
Several nearby shoppers had stopped to watch, smiling at the familiar ritual. Anesan felt the walls of the tunnel closing in. Her breath hitched. The cloak felt like it was suffocating her. She couldn’t do this. Not here. Not now. The mere idea of offering her foot, vulnerable, to this cheerful stranger made her skin crawl with the ghost of violation.
“I…” Anesan’s voice caught. She saw the woman’s eyes narrow slightly, the friendly curiosity edging toward suspicion. A hooded stranger, refusing a basic social interaction, injured, skittish.
Think. Debug.
She forced a dry, rasping cough, bending over and clutching her ribs. “Sorry,” she croaked, dropping her voice further. “Rat-lung. Contagious in the early stages. Wouldn’t want to… share the misery.” She straightened with a wince, selling the injury. “Just need a knife. Fast. Then I’ll be on my way.”
The woman’s face transformed from playful to wary sympathy. She took a subtle step back. “Rat-lung? Down here? That’s nasty business.” The watching crowd subtly edged away. The spell of the potential duel was broken, replaced by pragmatic distaste. “Knives are on the back rack. The steel ones. Don’t touch the ceremonial bone ones, they’re for… gentler engagements.”
Anesan nodded, her heart hammering against her ribs. She moved quickly to the rack, grabbed the simplest, sturdiest-looking blade with a leather-wrapped hilt, and threw a few of the odd, triangular coins she’d taken from the arena onto the counter. She didn’t wait for change.
“Get well soon,” the vendor called, already sanitizing the wooden foot device with a cloth.
Anesan melted back into the crowd, the weight of the knife a solid, reassuring presence against her thigh under the cloak. She’d avoided the confrontation, but the cost was a new layer of isolation. She was the carrier of a fictional plague now. Useful, but alienating.
She needed to find Zephyr and Elara. She needed to tell them she wasn’t dead, that Regulus was more than a petty noble with a cruel hobby. He was building something. He saw her not as a person, but as a prototype.
A flash of color caught her eye—vibrant fabrics fluttering from a stall up ahead. The clothing stall the brief had mentioned. And there, arguing with the jovial, mischievous-looking woman proprietor, was a familiar, slight figure with messy hair, gesturing wildly at a pair of embroidered trousers.
Zephyr.
Anesan moved toward them, a plan forming. She couldn’t just walk up. Regulus had people everywhere. His “scouts.” She had to get Zephyr alone.
The stall owner, a woman with a grin that promised trouble, was holding up the trousers. “But the threading sings when you move! It’s a masterpiece! A chuckle with every step!”
“I don’t want my trousers to chuckle!” Zephyr shot back, though he was fighting a smile. “I want them to hold a knife and a lockpick without announcing my every sneeze!”
Anesan slipped into the shadowed space between two stalls, directly opposite Zephyr. She waited until he glanced away from the proprietress, toward the crowd. Then, she lowered her hood just enough for him to see her face for a single, stark second.
His eyes locked onto hers. His playful exasperation vanished, replaced by pure, undiluted shock. He stared, mouth slightly open.
Anesan pulled the hood back up, turned, and began walking quickly down a narrower, less crowded tributary tunnel, away from the main thoroughfare. She didn’t look back.
She counted her steps, her ears straining. After twenty paces, she heard the hurried, light footsteps behind her. Good.
She ducked into a shallow alcove stacked with empty barrels. A moment later, Zephyr slid in beside her, his back pressed against the stone, his eyes wide.
“Anesan? Blood and giggles, they said you were crushed! Elara’s been… we’ve been…” He reached out as if to touch her cloak, to confirm she was real, then snatched his hand back. “What happened? Where are your boots? Is that blood?”
“Later,” she hissed, her voice low and urgent. “Is Elara safe?”
“Yes, she’s at the safe-house. She’s… not good. Blames herself. But you’re alive! This is incredible! We have to—”
“Listen.” She cut him off, grabbing his arm. Her grip was tight. “Regulus Thorne. He has me. He had me. He’s not just a creep with a feather. He’s running experiments. In the deep Warrens. On people. He’s trying to weaponize… what I am.”
Zephyr’s face went still, the usual levity draining away. “Weaponize?”
“He called me a vortex. A system crash. He wants to map it, control it, use it.” The words tumbled out, sharp and cold. “He’s got others down there. Failed tests. Things that used to be people. He knows about my… the vault.” She couldn’t say it. The words stuck.
Zephyr’s eyes flickered to her cloaked shoulders, understanding dawning. The horror of the arena was one thing. This was something else entirely. “Okay,” he breathed, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “Okay. So we tell Elara. We plan. We get you somewhere he can’t find you.”
“He thinks I’m dead. That’s our advantage.” Anesan released his arm. “But I can’t stay hidden. Not if he’s building an army of… whatever those things were.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we don’t hide.” Anesan’s mind was racing, the logic circuits clicking into place. “We infiltrate. You’re a prankster. A ghost in the system. Elara’s a warrior who knows their protocols. And I…” She paused, the admission tasting like ash. “I’m the exploit. The zero-day vulnerability in their whole damned language.”
Zephyr stared at her, a slow, grim smile spreading across his face. It wasn’t his usual gleeful grin. It was sharper. Deadlier. “You want to hack the nobility.”
“I want to debug Regulus Thorne,” Anesan said, her voice flat. “And I need you to help me write the malware.”
From the main tunnel, the sound of loud, ceremonial laughter echoed—the kind that announced someone important was moving through the crowd. A herald’s voice called out, “Make way for the Registry’s Assessors! Formal census in this quadrant!”
Zephyr’s eyes widened. “Registry. They’ll be checking for anomalies. For unregistered laughs. For you.”
He grabbed her hand, his touch quick and sure. “Come on. We need to get off the grid. Now.”
He pulled her deeper into the Warrens, away from the laughter and the light, back into the welcoming, conspiratorial dark. Anesan followed, the stolen knife a hard weight against her leg, the memory of a clinical touch a colder one in her mind. She wasn’t running anymore. She was compiling her attack vector.