The walk to the merchant quarter is short and I don't remember most of it. I keep my hands in my pockets and my gloves on and my head down, and somewhere between my building and the busy commerce street I stop being a person in a hurry and start being a problem that needs solving.

  The courier company takes up a good stretch of the street front. Busy, loud, moving enough legitimate freight to keep the other kind invisible. Inside it smells of dust and old paper. I ask a man at a desk where his boss is and he doesn't look up, just points toward the hallway at the back.

  There's a guard at the dispatch office door. He shifts to block the entrance when he sees me coming.

  I don't stop.

  He stumbles back as I push through, and I'm already looking past him.

  "Zeke."

  He isn't alone. A runner stands at the desk beside him, both of them bent over a map that Zeke is tracing with a slow finger. Neither of them reacts to the interruption the same way - the runner goes still immediately, recognizing me, whatever he was about to say dying in his throat. Zeke doesn't twitch. He keeps his finger on the map and keeps talking, and I might as well be a coat rack. I take a spot against the side wall and wait.

  The lines on my arm haven't moved since I woke up, but I can feel the wrongness of them the same way you feel a splinter you can't quite reach - not pain, just a constant awareness that something is in there that shouldn't be. I cross my arms, right elbow tucked against my side.

  Then it yanks.

  My elbow jerks forward hard, pulled by something I can't see, and I clamp my left hand down on my right forearm and hold on. The force pushes twice more, insistent, then releases. I stand with my arms crossed and my pulse loud in my ears and watch Zeke trace routes on a map as if nothing happened.

  He's leaner than I remember, or I've been spending time with less careful people. Dark vest over a clean shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbow - forearms carrying old work and older scars. He holds himself with the stillness of someone who decided early that unnecessary movement is a kind of disclosure. His jaw is set. His mouth rests somewhere between bored and privately amused. His eyes, when they finally move, don't rush.

  The runner gathers his papers and leaves. The door clicks shut.

  Zeke looks up.

  "You look like hell, Ashley." He says it the way you'd note a cracked tool - not personal, just accurate. "And you smell like a cheap vintage. I heard the Guild increased the bounty on unidentified intruders this morning. You always did have a knack for being the most expensive person in the room, though you usually look like you can afford the bill."

  "I need your help with something."

  I keep my arms crossed, the right elbow anchored.

  "I ran into a set of runes on a job last night. Rare ones. I want to know what they are and where they come from."

  Zeke leans back in his chair. "Runes. You walked into my office to play scholar."

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  "It's a hobby. I saw them and it sparked some curiosity. You see more unusual cargo than anyone I know - I figured you'd have better resources than I do."

  "A hobby." He lets the word sit there. "You, who wouldn't cross the street without a guaranteed return on the time spent, suddenly developed an academic interest."

  "I have varied interests."

  "You have one interest." He leans forward slightly. "So what actually happened?"

  "I'm asking for information, not a partnership."

  "It matters if you want my help." He looks at me steadily. "You're lying to me in my own office. That's either desperate or stupid, and you've never been stupid."

  I hold his gaze. The pull in my arm has gone quiet but I can still feel the potential of it sitting there, ready.

  "Fine," I say. "I ran into a new ward. Experimental. The backlash damaged my best sensing tools - magical scorching, the kind that takes months to properly replace. I want to identify what I hit so I understand what went wrong and it doesn't happen again."

  "Tool damage," he says.

  "Expensive tool damage."

  He studies me for a moment. "The untouchable Ashley finally found a lock that bit back."

  "The job was a success," I say flatly. "The tools took damage. That's all it was."

  He doesn't look convinced, but I can see him deciding to accept the professional vanity of it - that I'd come to him over damaged gear, that pride would make me want to understand the thing that got past my defenses. He stands, moves around the desk, stops just short of my space.

  "Suppose I believe you. What's in it for me?"

  I reach for my belt pouch. "Money. Enough to make it worth your time."

  He doesn't even glance at it. "I have money, Ashley. What I don't have is a solution to a problem that landed on my desk this week."

  "What kind of problem."

  He leans his hip against the desk edge. "I know a place. A vault - the Magic Guild's seized goods storage. They document everything they confiscate: complex wards, experimental work, forbidden techniques. If those runes came from anything significant, there'll be records."

  "Tell me the location and I'll handle it myself."

  "No." Simple. "You're on the crew. My plan, my timing, my rules. You don't speak of it before or after."

  "That's a steep price for identifying a few runes."

  "It's half the price." His voice drops slightly. "The other half is a favor. One I call in when I choose - could be your skills on another job, could be something else. I decide when the time comes."

  An open debt with no ceiling on it. The kind I don't take.

  But the lines on my arm haven't moved since this morning, and I don't know how long that will hold, and he's the only person I can think of who moves in circles that might have answers.

  "Fine," I say. "Tonight."

  I have no intention of honoring the favor. I just need the information.

  Zeke pushes off from the desk, satisfaction settling into his expression in a way he doesn't bother to hide. He's gotten exactly what he wanted and he knows it.

  The shift in him is immediate - he relaxes, not much, just enough. He's already decided he can handle whatever I try. He steps closer, into the edge of my space, and lowers his voice slightly. "There's no crew. Just the two of us."

  "Two people for a Guild vault."

  "For this vault, yes." He watches me. "The Guild intercepted a package belonging to a specific client of mine - something handled through my courier operation. Losing it isn't an option for my reputation. That's why it stays between us."

  I don't ask what the package is. Something illegal, something valuable, something a client paid to have moved without documentation. In his line of work the specifics rarely matter.

  "Once we have the package, we take a detour through their private libraries. They document everything they seize - if those runes of yours came from anything on record, you'll find it there." He holds my gaze. "I need someone who can handle Guild-grade wards and the alarms inside them. You walked into my office and solved my problem for me. I'm choosing to find that convenient rather than suspicious."

  He's using me. I know it and he knows I know it. But I can't do this alone - not this week, not with what's happening to my arm.

  "Fine," I say.

  "Good. Clockmaker's shop, two streets south of the Guild entrance. Just before closing time tonight." He picks up the brass gear he had in his hand when I arrived, turns it once between his fingers, sets it down. "Don't be late, Ashley. I don't like waiting on my investments."