The smoke was the first thing, a thick, greasy blanket that smelled of burned incense and ozone. It clung to the high, vaulted ceilings of the Parliament of Currents, turning the grand chamber into a hazy, echoing tomb. Kaelen pulled Seraphina deeper into the shadows behind a massive, overturned stone bench, the carved relief of some forgotten Seer pressing cold against his back. His goal was simple: disappear. They had won, and the price was to become ghosts in the victory they had made.
Distant shouts still echoed from the main floor, the sharp commands of Seer guards restoring order mixed with the angry recriminations of the delegates. The battle was over, but the political war was just beginning. Every shadow felt like a threat, every flicker of a failing light a sign of approaching guards. He was a rogue agent. She was the woman who stood with him. They were liabilities to everyone now.
A flicker of movement in the gloom ahead. Kaelen tensed, his hand instinctively going to the cracked obsidian charm in his pocket. It was just a warm stone, useless as a weapon. A figure in a dark, hooded cloak detached itself from the shadow of a pillar and moved toward them, not with the logical stomp of a Conclave guard, but with a fluid, almost apologetic grace.
— I thought you’d be here, — a familiar voice whispered.
Orion Vale, the flamboyant junior Seer, pushed back his hood. The glitter was gone from his hair. His face, usually a canvas for theatrical cheer, was pale and smudged with soot. The crisis had burned the drama out of him, leaving only a raw, anxious loyalty. He held out a bundle of dark fabric.
— You need to disappear. Properly this time.
He handed them two rough, heavy cloaks. They were the kind the canal workers wore, smelling of damp wool and river silt. Not the fine, flowing robes of the Seers or the sterile grey of the Conclave. The uniform of the invisible. Kaelen took one, the coarse texture a grounding reality against his skin. This was their new station. The price of their choice was anonymity, a life lived in the margins.
— The Parliament is a mess, — Orion said, his voice low and urgent. He kept glancing over his shoulder, back toward the main floor. — Matrona Helia is already making moves, consolidating the council. She’s using the Conclave’s attack to purge anyone who isn’t completely loyal.
Kaelen processed the information. Matrona Helia, the serene elder who held Seraphina’s temporal debt. She had given the order to sever the tether, but that was politics, not charity. A free Veridia made her look strong. Two rogue heroes who knew her secrets were a loose thread.
— She’ll want us gone, — Seraphina murmured, her voice rough with exhaustion. She pulled the heavy cloak around her shoulders, the dark wool swallowing her.
— Quietly, — Orion confirmed. — You saved the Athenaeum, but you also broke it open. You’re a symbol, and she can’t control what you symbolize. You have to leave. Now.
Kaelen looked at his own wrist, a habit he couldn’t break. The digits of his T-Minus still glowed a desperate, angry red. Three days. Saving an entire district hadn’t added a single second to his ledger. It was never about that. He knew that now.
He glanced at Seraphina. The steady, placid blue of her own T-Minus was gone. It was now a pale, wavering cyan, flickering as if the numbers themselves were struggling to hold their form. He remembered the pressure drop in the air when she had seized control of the Scrying Basin, the sheer force of will it must have taken. The system always sent a bill. She had paid for their victory with her own time.
They were both running on fumes, two fugitives with dwindling accounts, bound by a choice that had saved everyone but themselves.
— Where? — Kaelen asked. The single word was heavy.
— The Athenaeum has other doors, — Orion said. He gestured not toward the grand exits, but to a small, unassuming service hatch set into the floor, one Kaelen had dismissed as part of the plumbing. — The old maintenance channels. They run beneath the main canals. They’re dark, they stink, but they’ll get you out of the city.
Orion knelt and worked the latch. It opened with a low groan of rusted metal, revealing a narrow stone staircase descending into absolute blackness. The air that rose up smelled of stagnant water, mold, and something else. The deep, cold scent of forgotten stone.
— Go, — Orion urged, his eyes pleading. — I’ll cover your tracks here. Tell them I saw you fleeing toward the west docks. It’s the least I can do.
Seraphina placed a hand on Orion’s arm. — Thank you, Orion. For everything.
— Just… try not to get any more brilliant ideas for a while, — he said, a ghost of his old smile returning for a second before vanishing. — It’s exhausting.
Kaelen gave a sharp nod of gratitude he couldn’t voice. He had once dismissed men like Orion as fools, believers in snake oil. Now, this man’s sincere, idiotic belief was the only reason they were still alive. He had chosen to trust a person, and that person had shown up. Silas Marr would have found it grimly amusing.
He went first, leading the way down into the dark. Seraphina followed, her hand finding his in the oppressive blackness. Her fingers were cold. The heavy stone hatch scraped shut above them, plunging them into a world without light, leaving only the sound of their own breathing and the slow, steady drip of water somewhere in the distance. They were leaving their lives, their names, their histories behind in the chamber above. All that was left was the path forward, and the person walking it with him.
