The voice came back that night.

  Cael had tried to sleep, huddled on a borrowed cot in the cellar of the neighbor's bakery. Firewood and yeast should have been calming aromas. But the coin burned hot in his hand beneath the blanket, and the air tasted of ash and questions.

  He slipped out before dawn.

  Down the alley, across the broken stone pavement, and back to the edge of the ruins, where he sat on a bench half-split from its center, with the coin gripped between his fingers, eyes closed.

  "You're here," the voice said again, but this time more loudly.

  "Aren't I always?" Cael breathed.

  There was a moment of silence, then, "No. Not yet. But you will be."

  The face emerged slowly, as if constructed of moonlight and memory, a sheen of a man, his father, with his hands clasped behind his back, a shadow of a smile flicking across his mouth.

  "I don't have much time," Aeron's voice declared, even and distant. "The enchantment on this coin is an anchor. A truth left behind. Not a soul, not a mind, but pieces I left for you."

  Cael's throat closed. "Then tell me who did this."

  "I can't," said the illusion. "I wasn't there when it ended. I didn't know how fast it would come. But I can tell you where to start."

  Cael swallowed, gripping the coin harder. "Then where do I start?”

  Aeron's image looked down the street that led away from the suburb, the bendy one that passed behind the old workshop and into the Ringforge quarter. His voice turned serious, his tone low.

  "There's this guy named Vorrin Tane. I used to work with him a while ago. Helped create the first coins we tried out for experimental binds."

  "I've never met anybody by that name," Cael said uncertainly.

  "You wouldn't have. He left Veymere after the Compact shut down half of the unlicensed circuits. Told me he was sick of working for coins no one would allow him to spend."

  Cael's expression furrowed. "Where is he?"

  "Last I heard, he had returned to the city and lives in a tiny salvage stand in Blackspoke Row. East sector. Find the iron-shuttered wagon with the copper sun pinned to the door. Tell him I sent you."

  The illusion flickered, like the last gasp of a candle. Aeron's expression darkened a little, shadows spreading beneath his eyes.

  "And be careful which eyes you allow to witness you clutching that coin. What I cast upon it. it's not a memory. It's a key."

  Cael stiffened. "A key to what?"

  "To something I was never meant to finish," Aeron answered. "Something the Hollow would kill to obtain. You can't trust the city watch. Or the Mayor's guards. Least of all the Mayor's guards."

  The spectral figure was coming apart at the joints, his words disappearing once more. "I'm sorry I couldn't have said it to you when I was still living. But I'm proud of you, son. Even now."

  "Wait!" Cael held out his hand. "One more thing. What is the Hollow?"

  But his father was already gone.

  The warmth of the coin dissipated into his skin, and Cael stood alone in the gray silence of dawn, the wind whispering through the bones of his old house.

  He left without telling his mother.

  There was something in the manner she had looked at him when the fire was lit; sorrowful, shattered, that made him hesitate to draw her into whatever this was. And if he was being tailed…

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  Better she not know.

  Cael pushed his hood up and walked briskly, working his way through the leaning alleys until the cobblestones changed from well-worn and neat to uneven and split. The aroma of spices gave way to oil and smoke. This was Blackspoke Row, the city's undertow. A neighborhood where no one asked questions and far too many learned how to disappear.

  He passed by beggars near buildings, children peddling broken spellcoins, and men with lantern eyes lingering in darkened corners watching. Finally, there it was, the wagon with the copper sun nailed onto the door. It leans, slanted, on a crooked alley corner, bracketed by two battered stone walls. A solitary lantern flickers above the door, casting a dim orange glow.

  Cael knocked once.

  The door creaked open by itself.

  Inside, the stall was a maze of scrap metal, coin molds, parchment diagrams, and a low-burning furnace tucked in the corner. A man hunched over a table, back turned, welding something small and

  sparking.

  “Hello?” Cael said quietly.

  “You’re early,” the man grunted, not looking up.

  Cael blinked. “You were expecting me?”

  “No,” the man said. “But you’ve got his voice.”

  The man at last turned. His face was older than Cael had expected, lines of time and grime, soot-stained creases, a single glass lens over one eye. Vorrin Tane.

  He eyed one glance at Cael's money pouch and nodded. "He told me once, if this day came, the coin would come back. So… here we are."

  Cael advanced, his heart settled now.

  “I need to learn everything. About him. About the coins. About why someone would kill for it.”

  Vorrin’s smile was sad and tired. “Then you’re going to need more than a silver coin and a name. You’re going to need fire. And iron. And a lot of patience.”

  He gestured to the workbench.

  “Let’s begin.”

  Vorrin moved with surprising grace for a man who looked like he hadn’t slept in a decade. With a flick of his wrist, he swept aside a pile of rusted gear fragments and parchment diagrams, revealing a sturdy iron mold pressed into a steel slab.

  He gestured for Cael to come closer. “First things first. You ever forged anything before?”

  Cael shook his head. “Only watched my father. He never let me near the heat.”

  Vorrin grunted. “Good. Means you haven’t learned any bad habits yet.”

  He pulled a small crucible from beneath the bench, already half-filled with dull copper shards. “Copper for your first cast. Forgiving metal. Holds weak magic well. Mess it up and no one explodes.”

  Cael offered a tight smile. “That’s reassuring.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” Vorrin lit the furnace with a flick of a flint-spark charm, and the room filled with a low hum as heat began to build. “Now. Your father didn’t just forge coins. He bound them. That’s where the magic lives. The coin is just a vessel. The spell? That’s the heart.”

  He placed the crucible into the furnace’s cradle. “Watch the metal. The way it melts tells you everything.”

  As the copper melted into glowing liquid, Vorrin brought out a small package of threads wrapped in waxed cloth. He unwrapped them like a surgeon revealing instruments.

  "Spellthreads," he said. "Siphoned enchantments. Common ones, mostly utility, light, heat, repair, minor warding. You can't just infuse magic into raw metal. It unwinds. You need a thread to embroider it in. A spellthread is woven with intent, that intent is then absorbed by the thread and locked in. Giving each thread its own color based on the spell intent that is absorbed."

  He selected a thin orange strand, no longer than a finger. "This is 'Kindle.' Poor-quality warmth spell. Burns just hot enough to start tinder or warm a pocket. A spellthread may look like a dull, ordinary length of wire, but it isn’t. Once activated, this small thread can hold a might of magic you’ve never seen before. This one, however, is just to keep you warm. Once inserted into the copper coin you’re making, you channel the ambient magic around you into the coin mold. There the thread should activate and solidify as part of the coin itself.”

  Cael leaned in. "That's what I'll be making?”

  "For the time being," Vorrin said. "Take the mold. Press it firm."

  Cael did, taking the coin mold in cautious fingers. It was heavier than he expected, etched along the inner ring with ancient symbols, warding sigils, containment runes, and the slight groove for where the spellthread would go.

  "Now pour," Vorrin said.

  Cael lifted the crucible in both hands. His palms trembled, and copper lapped dangerously close to the rim, but he managed to pour the molten flow into the mold. It spat and hissed, accepting the channels.

  "Thread," Vorrin grunted.

  Cael quickly inserted the 'Kindle' thread, forcing it through the top groove just as the metal began to set. He shut the mold and stepped back, breath held.

  They waited.

  The air was thick with the faint smell of ozone.

  At last, Vorrin opened the mold.

  A new coin fell out, rough-edged, still softly glowing with internal heat, but whole.

  The spellthread was embedded in the rim, like a signature forged in fire.

  Cael stared, speechless. "I did that?"

  "You did," Vorrin said, wiping his hands on a rag that was streaked with soot. "It's flawed. Weight's off. Edge is uneven. Might wobble if you flip it. But it's yours. And it works."

  He tossed the coin to Cael, who caught it by instinct. It was warm, slightly so, like holding a rock that had been in the sun.

  "Try it."

  Cael focused, instinctively pouring his will into the center of the coin. It flashed once. A small flower of heat unfolded across his palm just enough to catch tinder or ward off a chill. Not intense, but real.

  His heart pounding, he said, "This is what he did every day?"

  Vorrin nodded curtly. "Day and night. And secretly, too, after the Hollow caught wind of it. What you just made? Legal. Safe. But change that thread, distort the mold, and you can make a coin that unbinds a binding, or explodes on contact, or worse."

  Cael pocketed the coin carefully. "So he wasn't just a coinsmith."

  "No," Vorrin said, eyes tightening. "Your father was a pioneer. He had work that somebody didn't want seen."

  Cael had hardly had time to respond when the coin in his pouch pulsed faintly. Just once.

  A warning.

  Vorrin stiffened. "Someone's outside."

  They both turned toward the shuttered wagon door.

  Cael's hand brushed the silver coin, its warmth returning with eerie opportuneness.

  A whisper coalesced in his head, his father's voice, low and insistent.

  "Run."