Cael's breath caught. Vorrin was already moving, snatching up a cloth to suffocate the furnace flame, yanking a heavy panel across the forge with experienced urgency. The light in the wagon was gone immediately, devoured by shadow and smoke.

  Footsteps outside.

  Heavy. Searching.

  Cael slid backward into the wall, hand on the silver coin, heart racing.

  The knock came. Soft, deliberate, like a hand that already knew who was inside.

  Vorrin rummaged for something under the bench. Wood scraped metal.

  He locked eyes with Cael. No words. Only a glance that meant: Be prepared.

  Cael's fingers wrapped the coin in his pocket tightly. It was cold again, but he could have sworn he sensed something stirring within, like a held breath, waiting to be exhaled.

  The door creaked open.

  A narrow sliver of lamplight bisected the forge, and into the room stepped a man muffled in a deep gray travel cloak. Hood up. Road-mud on boots. He moved as if he had no need to rush, as if the room would yield to him no matter whether it wanted to or not.

  "Evening," the man said, quietly polite. "Awfully sorry to disturb you at such an hour.”

  Vorrin stepped forward with the slow calm of someone hiding a blade. "We’re closed."

  "Didn't come for work." The man looked around the wagon-forge, gaze pausing just a moment too long on the embers beneath the furnace. "Looking for someone."

  Cael did not budge, fighting the urge to breathe too hard. He knew that voice. Not because it was familiar, precisely, but by way of memory seared after violence. One of the men who questioned the guards in front of the burned-out workshop. The guy who didn’t seem shocked to see the workshop, Cael’s family home, burned to the ground.

  "I heard you might have seen a boy pass by," the man continued, glancing around. "About so tall, dark hair. Might have something with him that don't belong to him."

  "Plenty of boys pass through the Blackspoke," Vorrin said flatly. "Most don't carry anything but hunger and bad luck."

  "Still. This one… this one's special."

  A pause.

  Then, as if by some unseen cue, the man pulled something from beneath his cloak, a small, golden pin. The shape of a double-ringed sunburst, delicate and cruel.

  Vorrin’s jaw tightened. "You're one of the Gilded Hollow."

  Cael didn't know the name off the top of his head, but the way Vorrin said it made the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up.

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  The man smiled. "You say that like a threat. It's not. It's a promise."

  He took another step forward.

  And Vorrin moved.

  In one motion, the old coinmage grasped the iron poker near the furnace and brought it down. The burning coal erupted in a shower of sparks, fire blazing upward into the man's face. He stumbled, cursing, hood falling back from a pale, gaunt face, eyes too bright, too intelligent.

  "Run!" Vorrin yelled, and Cael didn't hesitate.

  He burst through the side door, heart in his throat, feet pounding on wet cobblestones as he raced into the alley behind the forge.

  Behind him: shouting. A crash. The sounds of metal and wood.

  Cael didn't look back.

  Rain had begun to fall, trickle initially, then steady beat. It greased the cobblestones and muffled the sound of Cael's pounding footsteps. He ducked under a sagging awning of rotting material, cut through a hole in the alley wall, and continued on until the screams behind him devolved into the creak and groan of the poorer quarter.

  Blackspoke Row.

  Cael stopped when his legs couldn’t carry him further. He pressed himself against the wet stone of a narrow courtyard, chest heaving, hair soaked and clinging to his brow. His fingers still clutched the coin in his pocket like it could anchor him to the world.

  He was about to move again when a voice whispered from above.

  “You’re either lost or stupid.”

  Cael’s head jerked up.

  A kid about his age was crouched on a ledge just a floor above, half-shielded by a broken shutter. Wild copper curls, sharp green eyes. He wore a threadbare jacket too big for his frame and no shoes.

  Cael hesitated. “I’m—”

  “Shhh.” The boy hopped down in a flash and motioned frantically. “Get in here. Now.”

  No time to waste arguing. Cael trailed behind him through a hatch made of wood that swung open into a dingy basement full of crushed crates and tattered moth-eaten blankets. The kid slammed the hatch shut after them and placed his ear on it, eavesdropping.

  Silence. Then only the echo of water trickling through the cracks.

  "Did they follow you?" Cael whispered.

  "not if you ran like you looked." The boy turned, looking at Cael. "What'd you do? Steal from the wrong stall? Cut a noble's purse?"

  Cael shook his head. "I… I think they murdered my father."

  That gave the boy pause. His swagger wavered just a little.

  “You’re not from around here,” he said finally. “That was a Hollow agent, wasn't it?”

  Cael nodded.

  “Damn,” the boy muttered, sitting cross-legged on a cushion that might once have been a chair. “Guess that means you’re one of us now.”

  Cael sat too. The cold from the stone floor sank through his clothes.

  “I’m Cael, Cael Calderyn” he offered, after a beat.

  "Name's Tovin," the boy replied. "And before you ask, yeah, I've got a coin. Only one. Bronze. Found it while I was pulling a pouch off a drunk guard. It's got this little shield glyph on it."

  He rummaged in his coat and produced it, a dull, tarnished bronze coin with a sigil on it that resembled a curved wall.

  "Ever used it?" Cael asked.

  Tovin grinned. "Twice only. First time it blocked a punch from a gang kid twice my size. Second time… it fizzed and kicked like a mule. Near about knocked me flat."

  Cael couldn't help but grin. "You know how rare that is? A kid having a working coin out here in Blackspoke?"

  Tovin shrugged. "I know how to stay lucky."

  Cael hesitated, then spoke. "I'm not staying in Veymere. Not for long. I need to find out what happened to my father… and stop them. The Gilded Hollow. I think he made something they wanted."

  "You need help," Tovin said, not unkindly.

  I could use someone who knows the streets," Cael said. "Someone who isn't afraid to get their hands dirty. If you'd come with me… I could forge you a coin. A real one."

  Tovin weighed him, weighing the offer. Then he flipped the bronze coin once, caught it, and grinned.

  "Alright, Calderyn. I'll bite. But I'm not in it for charity. We're partners."

  "Deal.” Cael said, almost a little too fast. But he was happy to have someone on his side who could keep him safe in Blackspoke and beyond. Someone with a coin of protection.

  “Then let’s wait out the rain, partner,” Tovin said, curling up against the wall. “We’ve got shadows on our heels and maybe worse ahead. But with the two of us together, you’ve got twice the chance to find out what happened to your dad.”

  Cael leaned back, clutching the silver coin from his pouch in his palm. He hadn’t let go of it since he arrived here. His hand has been in his pouch this whole time.

  He’d found an ally. And for the first time since the fire, he felt like he might not be running alone.