Kael

Even in a city as radiant as Arcana, there were places where sunlight forgot to visit.

Not because it couldn't—but because it was too polite to argue with the towering egos and taller architecture that blotted out the sky. The upper tiers bathed in light, enchanted glass, and charm-polished stone; the lower levels soaked in shadow, smoke, and the kind of humidity that made even magic feel sticky. Welcome to the underbelly—where darkness wasn't just a setting. It was a tradition.

In one of the winding alleys of the Greymurk Slums, a scuffle broke out. Predictably.

A wiry kid lunged forward, grabbing at a half-loaf sticking out of someone's satchel. A second later, three more shadows moved—two beggars, one thief, and possibly a third who wasn't sure which team they were on.

"Oi! That's my cut!"

"You're not even homeless, Kriv! I saw you with clean socks last week!"

"Clean socks don't make me rich!"

The fight turned into a blur of flailing elbows and accusations. Nearby vendors watched without moving, having long since decided that emotional investment was too expensive.

From a creaking balcony above, Kael raised one eyebrow and flipped a page.

He leaned back in the half-broken chair, one boot resting on the railing, the other dangling carelessly. The note in his hand was crisp parchment—no name, no crest, just the kind of wax seal people used when they wanted to seem official and mysterious at the same time.

Meeting request. Royal channels. The usual.

Except these weren't the usual royals.

Alex's entourage—if it could be called that—had been sniffing through the underlayers of Arcana for weeks. Quietly. Annoyingly. With the grace of a flock of paranoid ravens pretending to be librarians.

They think they're subtle. It's almost adorable.

He'd traced their queries by accident at first—an odd info loop through an old courier contact, a spike in archive access requests that didn't match any known house, and one too many inquiries into resonance anomalies by someone pretending to be a scholar of antique cauldron design.

Once Kael noticed, he'd started backtracking. Because if someone was going to play chess on his turf, they could at least acknowledge the board owner.

Below, the scuffle took a dramatic turn—someone produced a spoon, another yelled something about honor, and at least one unfortunate soul ran off clutching both pride and a dented tin kettle.

Kael didn't look up.

Instead, he flicked his wrist. A flicker of ink shimmered across his palm before vanishing into a flat silver disc embedded in the balcony's edge. It pulsed once—message received. The info relay would pass the decoded message through three false accounts, bounce it across a courier guildbook, and finally land in the pocket of a waitress who owed him five favors and a night off.

By then, Alex's people would have the time, the location, and the sense that maybe—just maybe—they hadn't been the ones doing the watching.

Weirdos. All of them. But determined. And dangerously curious.

Kael folded the parchment and tucked it into his coat. If they really wanted to meet—they would. If they were smart, they'd come alone. If they weren't… well, the slums had ways of correcting poor judgment.

Below, the alley had quieted. The thieves had scattered, the beggars resumed their eternal performance, and a single spoon lay glinting in the half-light like a monument to pointless conflict.

Kael stood, stretched, and yawned dramatically.

"Time to meet the people trying to save the world through footnotes and magical spreadsheets."

He vanished into the upper lattice of the city like a whisper with somewhere to be.

[One day later]

The air near the slum district carried its usual cocktail of charmed grease, stale enchantments, and the faint scent of ambition left too long on the stove. It was the kind of place where the city's forgotten ambitions came to ferment.

Davor and Orin moved through the busy lane with the precision of men trying very hard not to look like they were on a mission.

Davor, in a plain brown cloak that somehow still made him look like a soldier trying to play commoner, scanned the alleyways like he was expecting to be mugged by the shadows themselves. Orin walked beside him, less obviously paranoid but wearing the permanent expression of someone mentally rewriting an escape plan just in case things got interesting.

They reached a small restaurant tucked between a potion recycler and a tailor who clearly believed subtlety was for the unfashionable. A sign above the door read Mina's Stewpot in fading gold letters. Inside, it was warm, busy, and smelled vaguely of cinnamon and subtext.

The pair stepped in without ceremony.

A waitress approached, already squinting at them with suspicion reserved for new patrons who didn't look hungry enough.

Davor slid a coin across the table. Not gold. Not silver. Just old—worn smooth, etched with a simple key and a line of text that wasn't in any modern language. The kind of thing you gave someone when the price wasn't in coin.

The waitress's expression didn't change, but her eyes lingered. She gave a slow nod.

"This way," she said.

They were led through the back, past the kitchens and into a narrow hallway that shouldn't have existed by the building's external dimensions. At the end of it, a heavy door stood slightly ajar.

Davor stepped in first, scanning, because of course he did. Orin followed, tugging off his gloves and quietly checking the wards along the windowless walls.

The room was plain—round table, a few worn chairs, a tea service that had seen better wars. Nothing special, except for the perfect line of sight it had on both exits and the soundproofing woven into the seams.

They had just started pouring tea when the door creaked again.

Kael entered without fanfare.

He looked exactly as he had in the drawing—young, lean, and somehow more dangerous in his nonchalance than Davor liked. He wore a half-smile that said he'd already seen the punchline.

"So," Kael said, tossing a folded note onto the table. "You're the ones who've been trying very hard to be invisible and failing with great enthusiasm."

Davor tensed slightly. Orin raised one brow, not rising to the bait.

Kael pulled out a chair and sat backward on it, arms resting on the backrest like he was about to deliver a motivational speech or rob a bank.

"You hid your tracks so well you created a breadcrumb trail so obvious even the alley cats were gossiping. Congrats."

"We tried the quiet approach last time," Orin replied dryly, "and ended up with an empty informant network and six lectures on proper data classification. So, we're improvising."

Kael grinned. "Cute. But you're lucky it was me who found your trail. Someone less charming might've sold your heads to the highest bidder."

"We did calculate for that possibility," Davor muttered.

Kael raised both brows. "Oh good, you planned to fail discreetly. Bold strategy."

He leaned forward, expression turning more serious.

"You want answers. Information. Names. I have them. But I don't deal with ghosts and shadows. So let's stop pretending you're just scholars with anxiety problems."

He waited.

Davor glanced at Orin. Orin gave the faintest nod.

"Then let's talk," Davor said. "No more smoke. Just mirrors."

Kael's grin returned, sharp and knowing.

"Now you're speaking my language."