The Runetokens in Alucent's pocket felt lighter than they should. Not physically. Financially. Three small discs of dark metal weren't going to keep him fed for more than a few days, and that was if he ate nothing but stale bread and watered-down broth.
His stomach growled, reminding him that breakfast had been exactly one piece of questionable fruit bought from a vendor who'd looked at him like he might bolt without paying. Which, honestly, he'd considered.
Need steady income. Something reliable. Something that pays better than begging for scraps.
The memory of Raya's measuring gaze still made his skin crawl. Whatever game was being played in this world, he was clearly a piece on the board whether he wanted to be or not. But pieces that couldn't take care of themselves got swept away fast.
He was standing near the same stall where he'd watched the possession, listening to the ebb and flow of conversation around him. People talked about everything here. Weather. Politics. The latest rune-tech innovations. And, if you listened carefully, work.
"...hasn't been able to fix it for three days now..."
"...Glowroses are expensive. If they all die..."
"...desperate enough to pay in Weavefibers..."
Alucent's ears perked up. Weavefibers were valuable. He'd learned that much from Alucent's memories and his brief time in the market. High-grade textile material that could be woven with runic patterns to create everything from enhanced clothing to industrial components.
He edged closer to the conversation. Two women, both middle-aged, both looking worried.
"You think Mira will really pay that much?" the shorter one asked.
"She has to. Half her crop is dying and nobody knows why. The Runetinkers she hired just scratched their heads and charged her for the privilege."
"Maybe it's cursed."
"Maybe it's just broken. Either way, she's offering good money for anyone who can figure it out."
Alucent stepped forward. "Excuse me. This Mira. Where can I find her?"
The women looked him up and down. Took in his pale skin, his too-long hair, his clothes that were clean but clearly not expensive.
"You a Runetinker?" the taller one asked.
"I'm good with problems," he said carefully. Not a lie. Both versions of him had always been good at figuring things out, finding solutions other people missed.
"Mira's Cultivation House. Three streets north, near the edge of town. Look for the building with the dim lights. You'll know why when you see it."
Perfect. Alucent nodded his thanks and started walking.
The cultivation house wasn't hard to find. It should have been glowing like a beacon, visible from blocks away. Instead, it looked sickly. The Glowroses visible through the glass walls flickered weakly, their usual vibrant illumination reduced to tired pulses of failing light.
The front door was heavy wood reinforced with brass bands. A small sign read 'Sunset Glowrose Cultivation' in elegant script. Below it, someone had tacked up a hastily written notice: 'HELP WANTED. URGENT. GOOD PAY.'
Alucent knocked.
The woman who answered looked exactly like someone whose livelihood was dying by degrees. Gray hair escaped from a practical bun. Dark circles under her eyes. Hands stained with soil and something that might have been lubricating oil.
"You here about the job?" she asked without preamble.
"Depends on the pay."
She smiled grimly. "Direct. I like that. Name's Mira. And yes, the pay is good. Twenty Weavefibers if you can fix whatever's killing my roses."
Twenty Weavefibers. That was more than he'd make in a week doing odd jobs around the market. Maybe more than a month.
"What's the problem?"
"See for yourself."
She led him inside and the smell hit him immediately. Sweet, floral, but with an underlying note of decay. Like flowers left too long in stagnant water.
The cultivation house was bigger than it looked from outside. Rows upon rows of Glowroses in carefully tended beds, their stems and leaves healthy green but their clockwork petals barely glowing. Complex networks of copper pipes ran overhead and underground, all etched with runes that should have been pulsing with energy but instead flickered weakly.
"Started three days ago," Mira said, walking him down the center aisle. "Section by section, they just started dimming. No visible disease. No pest damage. The rune-tech systems all check out according to every Runetinker I've hired. But something's wrong."
Alucent crouched next to one of the affected roses. The petals were intricate works of art, tiny gears and springs that normally moved in constant, hypnotic motion. Now they barely twitched.
"What feeds them? The energy, I mean."
"Runeforce channeled through the pipe system. Each section has its own network, all connected to a central distribution point. The force flows through the pipes, gets focused by runic lenses, feeds into the soil, and the roses convert it into growth and light."
Complex. Elegant. And apparently broken.
Alucent stood and walked deeper into the affected area. As he moved, something strange happened. The ring on his finger, which had been quiet since the incident in the market, began to warm.
Not the burning heat he'd felt before. Just warmth. Like recognition.
He stopped walking and closed his eyes, trying to understand what he was feeling. The warmth in the ring was spreading up his arm, settling somewhere behind his sternum. And with it came a sensation he couldn't name.
Flow. That was the closest word. Like he could sense the movement of something invisible through the air, through the pipes, through the roses themselves.
And there was a break in the flow. A place where something that should have been smooth was stuttering.
His eyes snapped open. Without thinking, he was moving toward the eastern section of the house, following something he couldn't see but could definitely feel. The warmth intensified.
"Over here," he called to Mira.
She hurried over, confusion clear on her face. "That section's been checked twice. The pipes are fine, the runes are intact..."
Alucent knelt next to a junction where three pipes met, their surfaces covered in delicate runic script. To the naked eye, everything looked perfect. But when he let that strange new sense guide him, he could feel the wrongness.
There. A tiny hairline crack in one of the runes. So small it was barely visible, but it was disrupting something fundamental about how the energy flowed through the system.
As he focused on it, the air around his hands began to shimmer slightly. Like heat distortion, but there was no heat.
"This," he said, pointing at the nearly invisible flaw. "This is your problem."
Mira squinted at where he was pointing. "I don't see anything."
"Trust me."
He reached out and touched the damaged rune. The moment his finger made contact, the sensation of flow intensified. He could feel the blockage, the way the energy was backing up and scattering instead of flowing smoothly to the roses.
And somehow, without understanding how, he knew exactly what to do.
The touch was gentle. Almost imperceptible. Just the slightest pressure in exactly the right place, guided by instincts he didn't know he had.
The crack sealed itself.
The effect was immediate and dramatic. Light blazed through the pipe network as energy that had been trapped suddenly flowed free. The Glowroses in that entire section flared back to brilliant life, their clockwork petals spinning and whirring as vibrant violet light filled the air.
Mira gasped. "How did you... what did you..."
Alucent stood slowly, his hand still tingling from whatever he'd just done. "Lucky guess."
She stared at him for a long moment, then at the now-healthy roses, then back at him. "That was more than luck."
Maybe. But he wasn't about to admit that he had no idea what he'd actually done.
"About that payment," he said instead.
Mira laughed, a sound of pure relief. "Twenty Weavefibers. As promised." She pulled a small pouch from her belt and handed it to him. The fabric was soft and seemed to shimmer with its own inner light.
Heavy. Valuable. Enough to keep him fed and housed for weeks if he was careful.
"A rune saved is a rune earned," he muttered, tucking the pouch into his jacket.
But as the Glowroses continued to blaze with renewed life, something else happened. The warmth from the ring didn't fade. Instead, it deepened, becoming something more complex. Something hungry.
For just a moment, Alucent felt connected to more than just the flow of energy through the pipes. He felt connected to the roses themselves. To their artificial life, their controlled growth, their beautiful decay.
And underneath that connection, he sensed something vast and patient. Something that whispered that life and death were just different states of the same fundamental force. Something that suggested that what he'd just done, fixing the flow of energy, might have cost something else somewhere else.
The ring pulsed with a low, satisfied thrum.
Alucent shivered and broke the connection, but the feeling lingered. The sense that he'd just touched something much larger and more dangerous than a simple repair job.
What kind of life had he just saved? And what kind of death had he fed in the process?
The Glowroses blazed on, beautiful and oblivious, while questions multiplied in the growing shadows of late afternoon.