Aras liked to think of mornings as a negotiation. You could bribe the day with whiskey and a grin, or you could fight it with a sword. Today the day offered both: a sky the color of bruised lemons, rain trying to remember how to be polite, and a girl in a crystal coffin who had apparently missed her own life and needed directions back.
"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty," Aras murmured, because mockery is often the kindest thing you can give someone in a panic. Keen prickled in his hand as if delighted by the plan. The blade liked theatrics almost as much as its owner.
Serane stood opposite him, arms folded, expression immovable as a dam. She had the look of a woman who'd been taught to prune emotion like a gardener trims roses—never let it show until it's ready to be used.
"Are you going to fumble through a speech or do we rip the bandage off like sensible men?" she asked.
"I believe in speeches," Aras said, and gave a half-bow that was mostly muscle memory. "But for an audience of one who's been sleeping through her own credits, maybe a clap will do."
He clapped. The sound bounced off the crystal and made the girl's lashes twitch.
Inside the coffin, life uncoiled like a spring suddenly given a reason. Her eyelids fluttered, then opened. For a breath she stared at the ceiling as if trying to remember the shape of roofs. Her gaze landed on Aras and Serane in that order, and the sudden recognition that she was surrounded by two sharply dressed strangers who might be unwise to trust seemed to rearrange her face into awareness.
"Where am I?" she asked, voice small and remarkably mundane.
Aras couldn't resist. "You're in our deluxe sleep package," he said. "Breakfast included; existential dread extra."
She blinked, then laughed—a wet, surprised thing that sounded like someone finding a coin in an old coat. Serane's jaw loosened in a way Aras had only ever seen when someone smelt bread after a famine.
"I'm Lina," the girl said. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes with a hand that belonged to a child who still believed scrapes could be fixed with kisses. "I remember… chalk. And rain. And a truck. I remember…" Her voice broke on the last word as if memory itself were a fragile thing.
Aras felt the first real weight of what they'd done: not a ledger entry or a philosophical victory, but a human whose life had been interrupted and refiled without consent. The jokes dimmed like lamps being blown out.
Keen hummed against his palm, a sound like a throat clearing. She is one, the blade said. One of many. You wake one, the ledger shudders.
"You're safe," Serane said, the words blunt as a blade. She had the peculiar talent of sounding like comfort and command at once. "We're going to get you back the things you lost."
Lina looked at her blankly. "I… don't know what I lost." Then she smiled, bravely. "But I like people who announce themselves."
Aras felt a step in him ease. Humor, he liked to believe, built bridges faster than pleading. He sat on the crystal rim and produced, from somewhere under his coat, a small battered wooden flute. It was not the most obvious instrument of reclamation, but he had never been accused of being conventional.
"If you like people who announce themselves," he said, "you'll love me. I announce myself loudly and with charm. Also—I'm Aras. That's my official name. Informal names available at a discount."
Lina giggled again—whether at him or the absurdity of having a talking sword in the room, Aras couldn't tell. Serane rolled her eyes in that precise way that meant she was trying to be unimpressed and failing.
"We can't keep her here," Serane said suddenly, the practical knife sliding back in. "If the priests discover this—if the gods—"
Aras waved a hand as if to dismiss an inconvenient fly. "We'll present it as an authorized rescue," he said smoothly. "You'll say you found her in a shrine and the priests will faint with gratitude."
"They may also crucify us for blasphemy," Serane countered.
"Then we'll provide them with a pageant so convincing they mistake theater for truth," Aras said. "We'll need costumes. Lira can sew. Your priests can shout in the right spots. Everyone likes to be dramatic about miracles."
Serane stared at him until he felt like a child who'd been told to stop juggling knives inside a church. He loved that look; it reminded him he was still alive.
As they talked, Lina dressed in spare clothes someone produced from a chest—shirts that smelled faintly of smoke and a life that had not been hers but fit like a borrowed cape. She watched them with the curiosity of someone newly born to the small tragedies and jokes humans use to navigate the world.
"So," she said at last. "Who are you?"
Aras sat up straighter, assuming the posture of a man answering fate. "I'm the person you're not supposed to trust, but probably will anyway," he said with a grin. "I steal what the world thinks is owed and pretend it makes me noble."
Lina's eyebrows knit. "Is that bad?"
"It depends," Aras said. "On whether the world gets nicer with fewer ledgers. Also on whether the gods like being shortchanged."
Serane's expression turned as hard as flint. "The gods do not like it," she said. "They will collect a debt someone else must answer for."
Aras sighed melodramatically. "There's a part of me that likes being chased. It keeps the morning interesting."
Lina sat on the bed and watched them bicker like two halves of a curious duel. "Do you fight a lot?" she asked.
"Occasionally," Serane said, dry as bone. "When people think they can steal souls without consequences."
"Do you like being a leader?" Lina asked, turning to Serane.
Serane froze a moment, then let out the shortest laugh. "No," she admitted. "But I like being useful."
"Useful," Lina repeated, and nodded as if discovering the taste of the word for the first time. "I like that."
For a while they occupied a small island where tragedy and humor coexisted: a man who stole souls with a grin, a general who had been taught to worship order, and a girl who had woken to find her life misplaced. Outside, the priests sharpened their outrage into instruments, and the horn of reckoning blew like a clock counting down.
Aras rubbed his forehead. "We need a plan."
Serane's eyes flicked to the stair that led to the halls where more sleepers lay like coins lost in a well. "We wake a few," she said. "Then we move them out of the city. Hide them until—"
"Until the Light forgets," Aras finished. "Or until we can give them names again."
"Or until they can speak for themselves," Serane amended.
"You overcomplicate everything," Aras teased.
"And you under-estimate consequences," she shot back.
Lina raised a hand, small and decisive. "Can I help?" she asked.
Both of them looked at her as if she had asked whether the sun could rise on a holiday. Lina's gaze had an odd blend of innocence and the quiet assertion of someone who had been given a second chance to matter.
"How do you help?" Aras asked.
"You have a sword. I used to be a teacher. I can read faces. I can tell if someone's lying based on how they say 'always'. I can teach small things. People like being taught." She gave a crooked smile. "Also, I bake an excellent bread. If you're going to hide people, they'll be happier with fresh bread."
Aras laughed, delighted in a way that made Serane's mouth twitch. "Bread," he said. "We will bribe the gods with carbs and charm. It's as good a plan as any."
Keen hummed like it had approved something or perhaps it was simply delighted someone said the word bread. Aras set the blade against his shoulder and stood, the gravity of the room settling on him like a cloak.
"We need a name for our… organization," he said, because every ragged revolution requires branding.
Serane shot him a look sharp enough to cut. Lina's eyes lit up. "The Unsuspecting Rescue?" she offered.
Aras clapped slowly. "Hideous," he pronounced. "I like it."
They moved fast after that—faster than the priests could tally their outrage. They woke three more sleepers that night: a baker who remembered how to knead life back into existence, a shoemaker with hands that could make people walk again, and an old woman who hummed lullabies like a map to home. Each one rose blinking into a world that had decided, without asking them, they were optional.
Outside the castle, the horn sounded again—louder, angrier. The priests were counting, and counting twice. The gods had noticed a gap and were not the sort to let a ledger remain inaccurate for long.
Aras, Serane, and Lina stood in the dim corridor with a flock of newly reborn lives between them, and for a moment the comedy of the situation—the absurdity of waking people and feeding them bread in stolen rooms—was almost tender.
"Tomorrow," Serane said, firm and practical, "we move them beyond the city."
"Tonight," Aras corrected, "we make sure they know how to laugh again."
Lina smiled like someone accepting a role in a much larger story than she knew. "Then teach us," she said.
Aras put the tip of Keen to his lip in a gesture that looked half theatrical kiss and half salute. "Class dismissed," he declared. "Lesson one: how to be alive and irritating in equal measure."
The newly awakened laughed—at first awkwardly, like people remembering which muscles made amusement—and then with more confidence. Outside the fortress, the horn bleated the gods' displeasure, but inside a bakery was being planned, old songs were being voiced into the dark, and a small revolution learned to giggle.
Serane watched the scene with an expression that made Aras feel like a child given a forbidden toy. He grinned, because he liked being that child. The world might have its ledgers; they had their hands