17th of Gloamreach, Year 150 A.V.
Outskirts of West Ward, Noxhollow
The moment Jack stepped beyond the iron gate of Noxhollow General, it hit him.
Not a threat. Not a ward. Not a blade drawn from shadow.
A view.
It sprawled before him like a dream sculpted in smoke and stone—Noxhollow, unveiled at night. The city wasn't just large. It was layered. A labyrinth of towering pillars, marble-clad balconies, and glass bridges that arched between rooftops like veins of crystal.
And above it all—airships.
Great hulking silhouettes glided slow and silent through the cloud-brushed sky, their hulls blinking with veillamps and signal glyphs. Trails of steam curled behind them, feathering out against a distant moon—ashen violet, massive and quiet—its light staining the clouds and rooftops in soft purples and shadow-glazed silver.
He paused, coat flapping softly behind him in the breeze, one hand still pressed against the file beneath it.
Goddamn…
It was breathtaking.
Not just for its scale—but for the contradiction. Ancient Greek structures—white stone columns, crescent rooftops, engraved friezes—woven seamlessly into a Victorian industrial machine. Brick smokestacks and chiming clock towers loomed beside bronze-gated plazas and arcanum-lit walkways. Some streets glowed from railtrack veins—thin, humming channels that pulsed with soft blue light beneath steamcar wheels and floating carts.
To his right, a watchmaker's shop displayed ornate clocks and veil-synced timepieces that tracked the hour, the star drift, and something labeled Cycle Phase. To his left, a quiet apothecary glimmered beneath purple-glass panes, its window lined with bottled flame, fog vapor, and truth-toned vials etched with tiny runes.
Down the road, a station house rose like a fortress of civic silence—gaslamps flickering outside its iron-barred windows, brass bell hanging quietly above a gate. Patrols of masked enforcers in long coats strode nearby, their boots clinking with silver-threaded straps.
And above it all, winding along the higher tier—
A rail-line in the sky.
It slithered between towers and walkways like a snake made of light and steel. Suspended railcars passed in eerie silence, their polished glass floors offering passengers a panoramic view of the glowing sprawl far below.
Jack stood motionless, his breath caught somewhere between awe and calculation.
This place is insane.
And I love it.
There was danger in its beauty. Secrets baked into every streetlamp and coat-button. You could feel it humming through the stone.
And somewhere in all of it… was a house.
Not his, but his now.
43 Drowmere Street. East Veilrise.
He adjusted his coat, took one last glance at the city, and stepped down into the streetlight-dappled path that would take him deeper.
The street sloped downward, winding along a broad marble railing lined with aged lion statues and lanterns that flickered violet beneath the breath of the ashen moon. Jack kept a steady pace, coat drawn close, the stolen file pressing lightly against his chest with every step.
The deeper he walked, the more the city changed.
Narrower alleys. Older stone. Doors with strange locking mechanisms—sigil-twined bolts and silver-threaded hinges. Noxhollow was quiet, but not dead. There was a pressure to the silence, as if the whole city were watching through shuttered windows and smoke-glassed domes.
Then he heard it.
The clang of metal against metal, distant and rhythmic. Someone working late in a forge.
And suddenly—
Flash.
The heat of a fire. Sparks flying past his cheek.
A man's arms—strong, scarred—guiding his grip on a thick, half-shaped blade.
"You hold it like this, Michael," the voice said, deep and steady. "Respect it. It's not just iron."
The hammer came down again.
The memory snapped.
Jack blinked, breath caught in his throat. The hammering continued somewhere beyond sight—but now it was just noise. Real. Unthreatening.
That wasn't mine.
That was his.
He turned the corner—and stopped short.
A masked figure strode past on the opposite walkway, half-draped in violet cloth, the mask porcelain and expressionless, shaped like a stylized animal. A feathered ribbon trailed behind them.
Then—
Flash.
Music. Laughter.
Running feet on cobbled stone.
A festival. Lights strung above, confetti in the air.
Michael's hand gripping someone else's, weaving through a crowd.
"You're going to get us caught!"
"I don't care!"
Then—
Screams.
A shift in the air. People running. A mask shattered beneath someone's heel.
The memory shredded like torn silk.
Jack stumbled to a stop, chest tight.
What the hell was that?
He steadied himself and kept walking, pulse rising beneath the borrowed coat. A pair of lamplighters passed him on the opposite side of the street, dragging a ladder and muttering about the upper rings of the ward. They didn't even look at him.
He passed a darkened storefront—an old bookshop, its windows fogged with condensation. A faint smell of ink and parchment drifted out through a cracked upper pane.
And then—
Flash.
Warm candlelight.
A desk. A stack of thick books, half open.
Michael's fingers ink-stained. His eyes tired, but calm. Pages scribbled with notes in tight, slanted script. The muffled sound of distant bells.
Not fear. Not loss.
Just focus.
Peace.
And something else.
Love.
He loved this.
The scene dissolved like breath against glass.
Jack stopped and leaned lightly against a lamppost, the metal cool beneath his palm.
Three flashes. None of them his. Not really.
But they had felt real.
Felt like… home.
He stared down the fog-veiled street ahead.
"Okay," he muttered under his breath, voice low. "That's not unsettling at all."
The city didn't answer.
Only the quiet hiss of a railcar passing somewhere overhead, and the whisper of steam along the gutter veins.
He stepped forward again, toward the district ahead—toward the address written in red ink and sealed into the life he had stolen.
Toward 43 Drowmere Street.
He crossed into a quieter street, the lanterns growing sparser, the fog heavier. The hum of the railcar above faded, replaced by the gentle hiss of distant steam and the ticking clink of metal against glass.
Jack paused near the edge of a split avenue, uncertain.
Drowmere Street. Where the hell would that even be?
The buildings here were taller, close together. Their windows stared like shuttered eyes. A few gaslamps crackled, casting long shadows across brass mailpipes and sigil-stamped stone.
As he stood scanning the street names etched into the walls—none of which made immediate sense—he heard a voice behind him:
"You look lost, lad."
Jack turned, forcing a friendly half-smile as the older man approached.
The man wore a heavy patchwork coat and leaned on a carved cane, his spectacles catching the violet gleam of the moonlight. He gave Jack a once-over—and his gaze paused ever so slightly on the doctor's coat.
"You one of the new transfers from Starward Wing?" the man asked, voice casual but clearly curious. "Don't usually see healers out this far from the central clinics."
Jack chuckled, lifting a hand in sheepish mockery of a salute.
"Filling in for a case that got shuffled my way—wrong district paperwork, you know how it is." He tapped his temple. "I follow the symptoms better than I follow streets."
The man gave a quiet laugh at that. "Don't we all. Bureaucracy's cursed worse than half the wards these days."
Jack leaned in slightly, keeping the act going. "I'm trying to find Drowmere Street. Knew it once, but it's been a few rotations."
"Ah. East Veilrise sector," the old man nodded. "Not far. But you'll want to check the route map—things shift near Third Bell Hollow. Down two corners, near the courier pole."
"Appreciate it."
The old man tilted his head. "City's changed a lot, hasn't it?"
Jack paused—just for a second—then nodded. "Yeah. More than I expected."
The man gave a quiet hum, then continued on his way.
Jack turned in the direction he'd pointed, exhaling slowly.
Still got it.
The roads narrowed as he reached East Veilrise. Buildings grew tighter, more vertical—stacked like memory boxes in stone and brass. A soft mist coiled between walkways, hugging the edges of the rail veins that pulsed with quiet blue.
The air was still.
Not the kind of stillness that warned of danger—just the quiet weight of a neighborhood too old to care about noise anymore.
Then he saw it.
43 Drowmere Street.
Three stories tall. Stone base. Upper floors shaped in sweeping Greco-Victorian arcs, with chimneys branching like fingers. Shuttered windows, iron flowerboxes left untended. The building leaned slightly, like it had been resting a long time and didn't expect visitors.
The front of the house loomed silent—stone and iron wrapped in moonlight and dust. Jack stood before the door, the quiet around him almost sacred.
There was no panel. No sigil. No mechanical voice asking for a phrase.
He stepped closer, fingers tracing the edge of the doorframe.
Then he paused.
Wait…
His hand moved before he could think. A loose stone near the base of the entry step. He knelt, pulled it free—and there, tucked into the hollow behind it, was a slender brass key wrapped in waxed cloth.
Michael had hidden it here.
Not a memory. Not exactly. More like… an instinct.
He stood, key in hand, and slid it into the lock.
Click.
The door creaked inward.
Jack stepped into stillness.
The house was cold and quiet, walls thick with dust and silence. Light from the moon barely reached through the shutters. But as the door closed behind him, wall sconces lining the entryway sparked to life—glass veins flickering with violet and amber light, casting delicate shadows across dark floorboards.
Then his eyes fell on it.
The coat.
It hung on a standing rack just beside the door—tall, lacquered wood, aged with use. The coat rested there like it had been waiting for someone to come home.
A strange fusion of styles, it wasn't quite like anything Jack had seen before. Its base was cut like an Ulster coat—long, double-breasted, tightly tailored through the chest and waist—but a shoulder-length over-cape draped from collar to elbow, thick and weather-resistant. Beneath that, a second layer formed a longer, sweeping cloak reminiscent of an Inverness cut, elegant and slightly theatrical.
And stitched into the collar seam—a deep hood, lined in near-black velvet, sewn with care into the outer shell like a hidden truth. The inner lining bore a faint shimmer when it caught the light, like old parchment brushed with ink.
There were no insignias. No crests. Just a single, subtle clasp in the shape of a closed eye.
Jack approached it slowly, fingers brushing the fabric.
Heavy. Warm. Familiar.
He didn't remember putting it there.
But something in him remembered wearing it.
Jack stared at the coat a moment longer before finally turning away.
He shrugged off the doctor's coat—folding it carefully, setting it on the edge of a nearby chair. The sterile white looked out of place here, like a scrap from a different life. He tugged loose the tie, ran a hand through his hair, and breathed out slowly.
The weight of the day pressed in all at once.
He hadn't truly stopped moving since the forest. Since the sigil. Since waking up in a world not his own.
Jack wandered deeper into the house—just far enough to find a lamp and a couch not completely buried in dust. He passed framed sketches, a mantle lined with cracked books and candle stubs. The air was thick with age, but not rot. It was a space left behind, not abandoned.
Eventually, he drifted toward the nearest window, brushing aside the faded curtain.
The view opened up like a painting.
The rooftops of Noxhollow curved away beneath him, stacked in silhouette. Between towers and distant spires, the sky unfurled like a velvet sheet scattered with stars.
And there—hung high above the world—
The ashen violet moon.
It was vast. Beautiful. Quietly wrong.
Its pale glow poured through the glass, casting long shadows across the floor. It painted Jack's skin in shades of smoke and lavender, lit his eyes with a dreamlike sheen.
He stared up at it for a long time.
The forest. The whispers. The sigil. The escape. The file. The coat. The memories that aren't mine but still feel like home.
What now?
There were no answers in the sky. Only light.
Only the quiet pull of a city wrapped in secrets.
Jack stood still, letting the moonlight wash over him.
Not Jack. Not Michael.
Someone new.
Someone becoming.