Lysska devoured my stunned expression before I could leash a single sensible thought. “Spare the theatrics, darling,” she purred. “Since my feathered tattletales are no secret, I’ll confess: I marveled you missed the crow shadowing your triumphant flutter back to the Alchemy Tower. Curiosity was a mere nibble… until I learned your ‘poison’ spared those brutes’ lives.” Her tongue flicked like a serpent tasting air. “Agony without expiration? A soufflé of suffering, perfectly bitter. How… inventive.”

  Her tone was as much a jab as a compliment, and I bristled at the edge in her words. Well… it wasn’t like I hadn’t heard the horror stories about those gangs. Ruthless. Merciless. The sort of terrors you didn’t cross if you valued your skin. Maybe I’d subconsciously wanted to make a statement, perhaps some petty part of me craved to etch my disdain into their marrow. In hindsight? Cringe-worthy. Sure, I could’ve adjusted the venom’s potency to paralyze them without subjecting them to that exquisite torment, but… well, I didn’t. Why garnish mercy for vultures?

  Lysska smirked, clearly enjoying my discomfort. “After that, the rest was easy. My little eyes slipped inside, and guess what? You weren’t exactly a model of subtlety. No detours. No clever evasive maneuvers. Not even a token attempt at a decoy. Just ditched your clothes and made a beeline for your cozy little home. I expected more, honestly. A zig-zag route, a fake trail, maybe a dramatic ruse with, oh, I don’t know, an illusion of a silver head running the opposite way? Alas.” She tsked, tails swishing in mock lament.

  “Pardon my failure to interrogate every sparrow for treason,” My words came out defensive, but hey, how was that my fault?

  “And yet, here we are,” she said, one of her three foxian tails flicking lazily as she settled back, still studying me like a particularly juicy mystery. “Not only did you figure out you were being watched today, but you traced it back to me. I must say, I’m impressed.”

  I shrugged. “We all hoard skeletons, Lysska. Some just rattle louder.”

  “Mistress under scrutiny,” Alice purred. “Fear, maybe? No, too controlled. Calculating, then.”

  I ignored her. Well, mostly. The analysis wasn’t wrong, though she had a knack for stating the obvious. Besides, even if I was reacting, the mask on my face ensured none of it showed. Not that the mask served any purpose other than protecting my oh-so-elaborate fake identity. My old self was buried in the past. Silver hair, crimson eyes, and a slimmer frame than before ensured no one who’d known me back then would recognize me now.

  With a sigh, I reached up and pulled off the mask, letting it fall to my side. Lysska’s grin widened, sharp and full of mischief.

  “Uhh, you’ve got quite the innocent face for someone who pulled off something so sadistic,” Quickpaw quipped from somewhere behind me, and I nearly jumped. How had I forgotten she was even there?

  Lysska’s laugh spilled into the room, a deep, velvety chuckle that slithered down my spine like a whisper. “Innocence wears irony well. Though the ballads paint you fiercer—lone argent siren sinking twin crime fleets? The tavern tales are… mouthwatering.”

  Seemed like the grapevine had already wrapped its tendrils around my existence, but truth be told, I didn’t care much for the flavor of their stories. Gossip was cheap, and time wasn’t. I cut through the pleasantries, steering us toward the reason I’d come here in the first place. Belle’s ritual couldn’t wait, and I needed to ensure my little Badger had enough teeth to fend for herself.

  “So…” I leaned forward. “I’m guessing you’ve got a reason for dragging me into this chat. Part of why I’m here, I presume?”

  “Motives weave tapestries, darling.” Her claw tapped crystalline nails. “But why assume I hold the loom? You sought more than ganglord blood—a scalpel strike, not club swing. Why would Alchemy Tower’s star prodigy wade into gutter politics? Unless…” Amber eyes narrowed. “…your motive was to milk Iron for intel. Choking the wolf to find the bear.”

  I suppressed a sigh. She wasn’t a detective for nothing. “You’re not wrong,” I admitted, letting just enough truth spill to make the lie beneath it untraceable. “They were shifting—beast forms, unnaturally. I wanted to know how. Pure curiosity, you could say.” I left out the part where I already knew the how and the what, just not the who pulling the strings. That Thing… Its claws were digging too deep into Varkaigrad for my liking.

  “But my focus has shifted,” I continued, steering the conversation before she dug too deep. “Right now, I just need to find this little secret market in the lower district. There are some… let’s call them ‘complicated’ ingredients that don’t quite make it to the Alchemy Tower’s approved shelves.”

  Lysska arched a perfectly sculpted brow. “Funny coincidence. I’ve got business there myself. Why not let me play escort?”

  That was… convenient. Suspiciously so. Still, beggars can’t be choosers when time’s short. “Fair enough,” I said, though my eyes stayed sharp on hers. “But if I’m spilling my motives, seems only polite you do the same.”

  Her smile widened, a vulpine curve. “Oh, that’s easy. I want you to join us.”

  I blinked, and she laughed again. “Unclench, darling. We’re chaos’s gardeners—pruning rot so the district doesn’t splinter into anarchy’s embrace. Should ‘noble rogues’ grace ballad sheets, we’d claim the crest.”

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  I’d believe it when dragons sprouted feathers. Hmm, I think I got an option to do just that once. Still, the offer hung there, intriguing in its own warped way.

  “Interesting,” I said finally, my tone noncommittal. “I’ll… season the proposition in my mental cauldron.”

  “Simmer at your leisure,” she purred.

  ***

  Parda. The woven veil of existence. The only barrier separating the seven known planes. In Vraal’Kor—and, frankly, everywhere else—messing with it was a no-go. Taboo. Illicit. Forbidden with a capital "don't you dare." And that’s saying something for Vraal’Kor, where "illicit" is just another word for "we’ll allow it if you pay enough." But summoning? That was the one rabbit hole everyone agreed not to dive down too deep.

  Honestly, it made sense. Summoning wasn’t just playing with fire—it was juggling a bonfire while covered in oil. Dangerous, volatile, and prone to blowing up in ways you couldn’t predict. I didn’t know much about the finer details back then—just that it was outlawed. The whispers said some types of summoning were, in and of themselves, bad ideas. Period.

  There’s a saying in Vraal’Kor I’ve heard a few times: “Parda is the breath between worlds, the seam that stitches the planes. To pierce it is to unspool the fabric of reality, inviting the shadows that were meant to stay unseen.” Yeah, poetic and ominous. People didn’t just dislike tampering with Parda—they feared it. And for good reason.

  Which brings me to the little fiasco I pulled off when I summoned Barn. That wasn’t just summoning. It was a mirrored breach. A summoning that uses a mirror as its medium. And, let me tell you, mirrors are their own kind of madness. They don’t just reflect; they distort. Twist. Mock. Unless you were absurdly precise—down to the breath—on what you wanted, where you wanted it, and how you wanted it, you could end up dragging something through that would make even your nightmares ask for a safe word.

  Oh, and those wards and protections people use for regular summoning? Designed for specific entities. If you pull the wrong thing through, well… let’s just say your survival odds drop to laughable.

  I think back to my first summoning now and can’t help but cringe. If I’d known then what I know now, I’d have been bricking myself. Sweating over the “illicit” part was bad enough, but realizing it was a Mirror Summoning? Aiming for a NetherBeast as my target? Yeah, if dread could kill, I wouldn’t have made it past the ritual circle. The only reason I survived was Lotte’s expertise. If she’d been anyone else, I’d have been a smear on the Parda.

  And yet here I was again, preparing to poke the veil of reality with another ritual. This time for Belle. Something about making her my supplicant in some kind of official capacity. How that translated into Parda-weaving was a mystery only Lotte could explain. All I knew was it sounded equally reckless.

  A snowflake landed on my nose, snapping me out of my musings. I sneezed, the sound muffled in the quiet of the carriage. The snow-covered road stretched endlessly ahead, swallowed by the night. My air sense mapped the terrain automatically, every bend and turn embedding itself in my subconscious. Despite my spiraling thoughts, I had a good idea of where we were headed.

  Lysska sat across from me, her posture effortless and regal as usual. Her gaze was fixed on the window, though her eyes seemed distant, unfocused, as if they were seeing something that wasn’t there—or maybe wasn’t here. Knowing her, probably both.

  “You’re brooding,” she said without turning her head, her voice breaking the silence. “What’s on your mind?”

  Well, whatever it was, I wasn’t about to spill it. “Just curious what happened to Iron.”

  That earned a low, throaty chuckle. “A fair curiosity. The enforcers dragged his half-dead carcass off. Beyond that? Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Figured it’d be easy for you to dig up intel if you wanted. Y’know, with the kind of… influence you have.” Honestly, having crows as your personal intelligence network was straight-up nightmare fuel. You could never shake the feeling you were watched.

  “Not as easy as you think, little drakkari,” she said, her tone half amusement, half pity. “Especially when it comes to the Iron Pact. Their perimeter isn’t mere mortar and malice. It breathes. My darlings plummet mid-flight—feathers rotting before they hit the ground. Death-wards, perhaps. Or something… hungrier.” She shrugged, casually sinister. “Of course, I could get past their defenses if I really wanted to. But Iron Pact’s secrets aren’t exactly worth the blood, sweat, and feather loss. Fret not though. Our dear Iron isn’t escaping his dues. Last I heard? Your venom’s still composing symphonies in his veins. A concerto of agony, sans antidote.”

  I winced, just a little. So, Iron was alive. Miserable, sure, but alive. At least I knew where he was—or at least, where they’d stash someone in his state. My thoughts veered into darker territory: infiltrating their HQ wouldn’t be impossible. A few paralytics, a sleeping charm or two for the guards, maybe some reducers to keep Iron’s jaw mobile enough for… persuasion.

  Lysska’s tail flicked, slicing through my plotting. “Tsk. I taste those gears grinding. Hunting the hunter now, little drakkari?”

  “Merely… seasoning possibilities.”

  Her grin widened. “Stir too many pots, and you’ll scorch the soup.”

  But Lysska wasn’t wrong. Those bastards were paranoid. The barrier surrounding the place wasn’t just one element—it was Earth, Water, and Light, a trifecta of nope. Slipping through it? Not happening. Phasing through it? Forget it. And even if I somehow pulled a miracle out of my scales, there was no doubt they had a detection system waiting for intruders like me.

  And that wasn’t even counting the heavy hitters they kept stationed inside. Iron Pact wasn’t just a faction; it was a militarized political monster masquerading as the city’s peacekeepers. The whole thing was a frustrating tangle of why bother.

  Maybe Alice could help divine a solution. Something to consider later. The carriage gave a jarring lurch as it screeched to a halt, yanking me from my thoughts. Lysska was already moving, pulling her hood low and sliding on her mask. I followed her lead, settling my mask into place.

  She handed a few copper coins to the driver through the narrow window before stepping down. I trailed after her, boots hitting the cold ground.

  We stepped out, and I was immediately greeted by... a wall. A half-broken, battered wall. The street was deserted, the faint glow of a flickering mana lamp barely holding back the gloom. The lamp looked like it hadn’t been serviced since the last century. A beggar was huddled in the shadows, shivering against the cold. That was it. That was the grand scene.

  “Welcome,” Lysska said with a sweep of her hand, her tone dripping with mock grandeur, “to the illustrious, elusive secret market of Shadow’s Warren.”

  I stared at the wall, then at her. “Uh…?”

  +16 Adv. Chapters on Patreon!!

  Ranthorn, Max W., Kyle Brown, Ben Ben, DarKSoulS