By the time Kael reached the last turn of the tunnel, the sounds of Tidecrown had faded to a dull, steady thrum above his head. The city was a sleeping animal up there: occasionally twitching, never quite at peace.
Down here, it was just his footsteps, the drip of water, and the ledger pressing a square bruise into his ribs.
He palmed the final door twice, knuckles rapping out the rhythm he'd been taught as a kid: two short, one long, pause, one short.
A bolt scraped. A peephole slid back. One mismatched eye peered out at him through the slit.
"You're late," a voice muttered.
"Streets are wet," Kael said. "Slows the city down."
The eye rolled. The bolt thudded back and the door swung inward, letting a wash of warmer air and lamp-glow spill into the tunnel.
The boy on duty couldn't have been more than thirteen. Human, all elbows and bad attitude, scars on his knuckles that said he was learning to punch before he learned to count.
"You drip on Overseer's rug, she'll skin you," he warned.
"I'll make sure to bleed politely instead," Kael replied, slipping past him.
The hidden door led into the back of what, on the surface, was a perfectly ordinary cooper's shop. Barrels, hoops, stacks of staves; the smell of old ale and sap. The forge was dead at this hour. A single lantern burned low near the front, where another kid dozed on a stool, his head bobbing over a ledger of his own.
Real work and shadow work fit together here like two halves of an old coin. That was the Guild's way. One face for the city, one face for itself.
Kael crossed the room, shoulder brushing hanging hoops, wrapped blade nudging them into soft clinks. He kept his hand on the satchel strap. The ledger inside had changed the air around him; or maybe he was just imagining that.
The shop's front door was barred and chained; he didn't go near it. Instead he ducked behind a stack of barrels, lifted a trapdoor with his boot, and slipped down into the space beneath.
The real guildhall began there.
The undercellar opened into a honeycomb of low chambers and narrow halls carved out of the ground under three different buildings. It was never truly quiet. Even this late, someone was always coming in, going out, rolling dice, sharpening steel, arguing over cuts.
Smell hit him first: smoke and sweat and stew, damp stone and cheap soap, spilled ale and the faint copper ghost of old blood buried in the dirt. It smelled like home.
He stepped into the main cavern and paused a heartbeat on the threshold.
It was a long, broad room held up by thick pillars, beams darkened by years of smoke. Tables were scattered without much order. A rough chalk map of Tidecrown and its boroughs sprawled across one wall, marked with coloured pins and tiny notes. Lanterns hung at different heights, throwing layered shadows and pockets of gold light.
Half a dozen thieves clustered around a card game near the centre. Someone laughed too loud at a bad joke. A beastkin woman with fox-ears and a half-lost tail argued quietly with a stonefolk man over who'd rightly claimed a roof route. In the far corner, a pair of kids practised knots on a length of rope while an older woman watched with a switch in hand, ready to rap fingers that fumbled.
Kael's shoulders loosened without asking. For all its dangers, the Guildhall was the one place in Tidecrown where he knew most of the rules.
"Look what the gutters spat back."
Lira dropped down from somewhere above his line of sight, landing on the table in front of him with a clatter of tin plates. Kael jerked back on instinct; she grinned, feral and pleased with herself.
Half-elf, all trouble. Her short dark hair was still damp from the rain, shaved close on one temple where a silver cuff winked against the skin. A constellation of tiny scars decorated her knees where they stuck out of patched trousers. She spun a coin over her knuckles because Lira was constitutionally incapable of leaving her hands empty.
"You were due back a bell ago," she said, hopping lightly down off the table. "We took bets."
"On what?" Kael asked, adjusting the satchel so it didn't swing into her.
"Dead, caught, or sulking in a gutter somewhere." She sniffed theatrically. "You smell like all three."
"Optimistic of you," he said. "Who lost?"
She twitched her chin toward one of the tables. Hobb sat there, ink on his fingers and worry lines on his forehead, a half-finished cup of tea cooling by his elbow. He pushed his spectacles up his nose when he saw Kael, relief loosening his face for a moment before he scowled to cover it.
"You're late," Hobb called. "Overseer's been pacing grooves in the floor."
"That's just age," Lira said cheerfully. "Bones do that after forty."
Hobb threw a breadcrumb at her, badly. Lira snagged it from the air, popped it into her mouth, and chewed with relish.
"Ledger first," Kael said, tapping the satchel. "Then complaints about my timekeeping."
Lira's gaze sharpened. "So you got it."
"Did you doubt?" Kael asked.
"Yes," Hobb said. "Openly. Out loud. To your face. Before you left."
Kael smirked despite himself. "Your faith warms me, Ink."
Hobb's shoulders hitched at the nickname. He'd earned it the day he'd forged a magistrate's seal so perfectly that the man himself had apparently bristled at the sight of it, insisting he'd never been in that part of Tidecrown in his life.
"Overseer's in the high room," Hobb said, serious now. "She sent Brann to drag you back in if you weren't through the lower tunnel by the second bell."
"Brann loves dragging people," Lira added. "He'd make a good hound. Or a terrible one. Not sure."
"Is he up there?" Kael asked.
"Was," Lira said. "He came down once to growl at us and drink half a pot of coffee, then slunk back up. He's in a mood."
Brann was always in a mood. The former soldier carried his war with him like another piece of armour: old scars, deep frown, shoulders too broad for the narrow tunnels. But he kept the Guild's blades alive, and that made him useful.
"Overseer wants you clean," Hobb added, eyeing the smear of soot and rain on Kael's sleeve. "Or at least… less like something the river dredged up."
"Good thing I landed on a roof and not in the river," Kael said.
Lira's coin stilled between her fingers. "Roof?"
"Later," he said.
If he started on Tolvar's early return and the nephew with the soldier's eyes, they'd be here all night. And if Overseer heard the story second-hand, she'd take it out of his hide.
"Fine," Lira said, clearly filing later under I will pry this out of you even if I have to sit on your chest. "Nessa's in the infirmary corner if you want the head start of getting patched before you get yelled at."
"I'm not—"
He moved his arm and felt the stab of pain where the nephew's blade had grazed him under the ribs. He'd forgotten that in the scramble.
"…all right," he admitted. "Maybe a little."
The infirmary was really just a nook fenced off by hanging cloth and a few shelves full of jars. It smelled of alcohol and bitter herbs, with something sharper under it that Kael had never identified and wasn't sure he wanted to.
Nessa stood over a kid whose nose was bleeding in earnest, her dark, furry hands surprisingly gentle as she pinched the bridge and tilted his head just so.
"Did I or did I not," she was saying in her low, smoky voice, "tell you that if you were going to jump from that roof, you should not do it head-first?"
The boy mumbled something watery.
Nessa's ears twitched. They were wolf-like, high and triangular, currently pinned back in exasperation. A pair of ash-grey stripes ran from her temples down into the hair at the nape of her neck, which was braided tight against practical necessity rather than style. Her tail, long and bushy, flicked once behind her.
"Next time, land on your arse," she advised. "You don't use it for thinking anyway."
She released the boy's nose, checked the flow, and nodded, satisfied. "Go wash. And don't touch the bandages with those sewer-hands."
She glanced up as Kael stepped in.
"You're late," she said.
"Good evening to you too," Kael replied. "I'm discovering this is a theme."
"You're dripping on my floor," she observed, eyes flicking to his boots.
Kael looked down. Mud, rain, someone else's roof-slate. Maybe a little blood. Hard to tell. "Floor started it."
Nessa's mouth did something that might have been hiding a smile. "Overseer sent word you were back. I told her you would stop here first."
"You speak for me now?" Kael asked.
"I speak for the part of you that bleeds," she said calmly. "Lift your shirt."
He hesitated, then sighed and obeyed. The cut along his side wasn't deep, but it was angrier than he'd hoped. Blood had soaked into his shirt, tacky and dark.
Nessa let out a soft hiss. "Sword cut?"
"Glancing," he said. "He wasn't trying to kill me."
"That's disappointing," she said. "Hold still."
Her fingers were precise and steady as she cleaned the wound with a cloth that stung like the memory of every bad decision. Kael gritted his teeth and stared at the hanging cloth in front of him, its pattern of old stains and patched holes suddenly fascinating.
"Roof?" she asked quietly, echoing Lira's earlier word.
"Rope," he said. "Then roof. Then ledger. Then tunnels. We'll call it scenic."
"Overseer didn't order scenic," Nessa said. "She ordered quiet."
"Didn't have a choice," he said, sharper than he meant to. "Tolvar came home early. Brought a guard and a nephew fresh from the lines. You'd have loved him. All scars and honour and very sharp steel."
Nessa's hands didn't pause, but her eyes flicked up, studying his face. "You all right?"
"I'm here," he said.
"That's not the same thing," she murmured.
He looked away.
Nessa wrapped a bandage around his ribs, tying it deftly. Her fingers brushed old scars and the raised line of the strap that held the wrapped sword in place. The blade lay across his back, as ever, a silent accusation.
Her hand hovered for a heartbeat over the cloth bundle, then moved away. She never asked about it. Nessa was good with silences.
"There's more blood than I like," she said. "But you'll live, unless Overseer kills you first."
"Comforting," Kael said. "Do I at least look presentable enough to be scolded?"
She stood back, tilting her head. "You look like you've been somewhere you shouldn't and got away with it. Which is to say: exactly like usual."
He tugged his shirt down carefully, wincing as the cloth brushed the fresh bandage. Nessa slipped him a small clay cup of something that steamed.
"What's this?" he asked.
"Sleep, if you let it, and less ache in the morning if you don't," she said. "Sip. Not gulp."
He took a cautious swallow. Bitter herbs, a ghost of honey, and something woody. It settled warm in his stomach.
"Thanks," he said.
"Don't thank me yet," Nessa replied. "Overseer wants you."
"Everyone keeps saying that," Kael muttered.
"That's because it's true," came a dry voice from the doorway. "Move, boy."
Brann filled the entrance like a door that had decided to grow a man around itself. Late twenties, human, his nose broken at least twice, a scar pulling one corner of his mouth into a permanent near-sneer. His hair was cropped close, more practical than stylish, and his arms were all corded muscle and old nicks.
He wore no armour now, just a rough shirt and the Guild's colours stitched on a leather vest, but Kael could still see the soldier under the cloth. The war hadn't left Brann; it had just changed his employers.
"You took your time," Brann said.
"Tolvar complicated things," Kael said. "And gravity had opinions."
Brann's gaze flicked to the wrapped sword on Kael's back, then to the satchel at his hip. "You draw it?"
"No," Kael said, before Brann had even finished the question.
Brann grunted, satisfied—or at least no more displeased than usual. "Good. Overseer likes her floors without curses on them. Come on."
The high room wasn't actually high. It was just what they called the chamber at the far end of the underhall where Overseer held her business. It sat under the back corner of an old guildhouse upstairs, its ceiling low enough that Brann had to duck.
The door bore no marks, but everyone knew it. You didn't go there unless you were sent, and you didn't loiter outside it unless you had a death wish or a terrible sense of humour.
Brann rapped twice and half-opened the door. "He's here."
"Send him in," came a voice from within.
Brann stepped aside. Kael took a breath that did nothing much for his nerves and went in.
Overseer sat behind a table that had seen more schemes than most people saw meals. Human, fifty or so, maybe older; age here was a tangle of years and hard living. Her hair was iron-grey, scraped back in a knot that brooked no nonsense. Lines bracketed her mouth and eyes, not all of them from frowning. She wore simple dark clothes, a knife at each wrist, and the Guild's bronze token on a chain around her throat.
She'd picked up the title Overseer during the war, when the Guild had needed someone to watch three fronts at once and not lose track of which soldiers were stabbing which. No one called her anything else now, not if they wanted their tongue to stay in their mouth.
Her gaze took him in top to toe in one sweep: wet hair, muddy boots, the way he favoured one side slightly, the set of his shoulders.
"You're late," she said.
"If you like, I can fall out of a window faster next time," Kael offered.
One corner of her mouth twitched. It was not, quite, a smile.
"Sit," she said, nodding to the stool opposite. "Put that on the table."
He sat, the bandage pulling tight under his shirt. He set the satchel down and slid the ledger out, placing it between them.
Overseer's gaze sharpened as she ran her fingers over the stamped numbers on the spine. "You opened it."
Not a question.
Kael weighed his answer. Lying to her was like juggling knives in the dark; technically possible, fatal when it went wrong.
"Yes," he said. "In the lower chamber. I wanted to know what I was carrying into our hall."
Her eyes flicked up to his. Dark, unreadable. "And?"
"War indemnity schedule," he said. "Tolvar's shares, Crown's shares, a tangle of villages and tariffs. The kind of book that keeps men like him rich and everyone else angry."
"Mmm." Her fingers flipped the cover open with practised care. The pages flickered by, columns of ink and numbers reflecting in her eyes.
Kael hesitated, then added, "There's a line in there you should see."
Her hand stilled on the page. "There are many lines I don't need a boy telling me about."
"This one," he said, "will get you hanged if the wrong ears hear of it."
She looked at him properly then, weighing something behind her gaze. "Say it."
He swallowed. The word sat heavy on his tongue.
"Darkenfell," he said quietly. "He's keeping their estates on his books. 'Provisional.' With interest."
The silence after that word stretched. The lamps in their brackets hissed softly; somewhere beyond the door, someone laughed and was immediately hushed.
Overseer's eyes shuttered, the lids lowering for a heartbeat. When she opened them again, they were sharp as broken glass.
"You speak that name again in this room," she said, voice very soft, "and I will take your tongue myself. Do you understand me?"
Kael's jaw tightened. "I thought you might want to know—"
"I know," she cut in. Her fingers had found the line already; he could see the tiny tightening around her mouth as she read it. "Tolvar's not the only one with long accounts from the war. But he is… careless."
She closed the ledger gently, as if not to disturb the ink.
"You did well to bring it," she said. "You did poorly to read it."
"I don't like carrying blind things for other people," he said. "Especially things that make guards say I'm dead either way."
Her gaze flicked back to his face at that. "Explain."
So he did, in as few words as possible: Tolvar's early return; the guard, Jarun; the nephew with the regiment cloak and quick blade; the open safe; the ledger under his arm; the rope and the roof.
Overseer listened without interrupting. Only the slight flex of her fingers on the table betrayed any reaction, and Kael had known her long enough to know that even that was a shout.
"You were seen," she said when he finished.
"Yes."
"You threatened Tolvar with his own guard."
"Yes."
"You knocked the guard senseless."
"Yes."
"You didn't kill them," she said.
"No," Kael replied, a touch of heat in his voice. "That wasn't the job."
Her gaze flicked to the wrapped blade on his back, then to the short sword at his hip.
"And that stayed wrapped?" she asked.
"Didn't touch it," he said. "Short steel was enough."
She studied him for a long moment. Whatever she was looking for, only she could say.
"You made a mess," she said finally. "Tolvar will shout. The Watch will listen just enough to pretend they're not in his pocket. Guards will grumble about thieves. The city will do what it always does: complain, tighten its grip, and forget."
"Will it?" Kael asked. The ledger felt like a weight on the table, bigger than its size. "That book says a lot of people owe money for a war they weren't old enough to fight in. And that men like Tolvar get rich making sure the owing never ends."
Her mouth twisted. "Welcome to Crownmarch."
He bit down on the words that wanted to come next. Some names in there aren't like the others.
Overseer tapped the ledger once. "This is not your concern, boy."
"It feels like my concern when I'm the one stealing it," he said.
"It's your job, not your cause," she replied. "You want causes, go join a temple. Or the Watch. They like boys with long swords and too many questions."
He flinched, just a little, at long swords. Her gaze flicked to the motion.
"The letter," she said, almost softly. "You still have it?"
"Of course," he said. "You told me to keep it."
"And I told you," she said, "not to take that blade from its wrappings unless there is no road back."
He held her eyes. "I remember."
"Good." She leaned back slightly, the chair creaking. "Because whatever games this ledger is about to pull us into, that promise stays."
Kael felt the weight of the wrapped sword against his spine, familiar and unsettling. "You know more about what that promise costs than I do."
"I know enough to keep you alive," she said. "Most days, that's the same thing as keeping you ignorant."
The bitterness that rose at that surprised him with its sharpness. "I'm not a child."
"No," Overseer agreed. "Children don't bring me war ledgers and say 'this feels like my concern.' Children fetch messages and mop blood. You've earned a longer leash, Kael. Don't mistake it for wings."
He swallowed back a retort. She watched him, then sighed, the sound more tired than angry.
"You did well," she said again, and this time there was no sharp edge on it. "You brought me what I asked for, and more besides. You kept your promise to that letter. You didn't break the steel that shouldn't be broken."
"Then why does it feel like I've stepped in something I can't scrape off?" he asked quietly.
"Because you have," she said. "It's called history. And it sticks."
She slid the ledger toward herself. "This goes nowhere near the main hall. It'll live in the quiet boxes until I decide what to do with it."
Kael raised a brow. "Quiet boxes?"
She gave him a look. "You think I leave everything interesting where drunk card-players can spill ale on it? Go eat, wash, and sleep. You'll be on errands for a day or two. Low work. Let the noise around Tolvar die down."
"That's it?" he asked. "No lash, no lecture about how I risked everyone's neck?"
"The lecture would be for making noise where I asked for silence," she said. "The praise would be for bringing me something worth more than half the vault. They cancel out."
He huffed a small, humourless laugh. "Balanced books. How fitting."
Her mouth curved, very slightly. "Now go before I remember I'm supposed to shout at you in front of the others, to keep up appearances."
He stood, then hesitated. "Overseer…"
"Mmm?"
"If the Crown ever decides to clean house," he said slowly, "books like that will make convenient bonfires."
"Then we'll make sure we're standing in the smoke, not on the pyre," she said. "Out."
He went.
Back in the main hall, the noise hit him like a warm, messy wave. Someone had started singing a rude marching song and forgotten half the words. Dice clattered. The stew pot in the corner gave off a smell that was either comforting or ominous, depending on your upbringing.
Lira materialised at his elbow like she'd been waiting for hours.
"Well?" she demanded. "Did she flay you? Blink twice if you're actually a skin-walker in a Kael suit now."
"She offered me a promotion to 'boy who runs quiet errands,'" Kael said. "I'm moving up in the world."
Hobb snorted from his seat nearby. "That means she's keeping you close. She doesn't do that unless she's planning to use you for something sharp."
"Comforting," Kael said again.
Lira leaned in, eyes gleaming. "So? Roof? Rope? Nephew?"
He sighed, knowing resistance was useless, and sketched out the basics: the guard, the war nephew, the nearly-dropped lantern, the swing into the rain.
By the time he finished, Hobb's tea had gone completely cold and Lira was practically vibrating.
"You swung across a street with a war-book under your arm and a soldier shouting behind you," she said. "That's not petty, that's romantic."
"That's stupid," Hobb corrected.
"Stupid is half of romantic," Lira said. "The other half is not dying. He managed both."
"You weren't there," Hobb pointed out. "If he'd missed, you'd be saying 'I always knew the boy would break his neck someday' and stealing his boots."
Lira considered. "True."
Nessa appeared beside them, sliding a bowl into Kael's hand. The stew was mostly turnip, a little meat, and something green pretending to be a vegetable. It steamed, and it was hot, and that was enough.
"Eat," she said. "You're pale."
"I'm always pale," Kael said, but he spooned stew into his mouth anyway. Warmth spread down his throat, settling over the herbal burn from her earlier concoction.
"We heard Tolvar screaming from three streets over," Lira said conversationally. "Word is he's offered a reward for information on 'a masked gutter-ghost with two swords and no manners.'"
"Two swords?" Hobb repeated, eyes flicking to the wrapped blade on Kael's back.
Kael's jaw clenched. "He saw what he wanted to see."
Lira's gaze lingered on the bundle. "You do realise," she said lightly, "that the longer you carry that thing without drawing it, the worse the stories get. At this point, I've heard versions where it eats souls, or turns into smoke, or is actually a snake."
Kael swallowed stew that suddenly felt thicker. "It's just steel."
"Then why don't you ever use it?" she asked.
"Because steel is honest," he said. "It does what it's made to do. People… aren't."
"That's not an answer," Hobb murmured.
"It's the only one I have," Kael said.
For a moment, the four of them stood in the small island of quiet their conversation had carved out of the hall's noise.
Brann loomed into it, mug in hand. He looked Kael over, then jerked his chin toward the rafters.
"Overseer's not hanging you," he said. "So either you did very well, or very poorly and she hasn't decided which yet."
"Thank you for the reassurance," Kael said dryly.
Brann's mouth twitched. On him, that was practically a grin.
"You smell like rain," he said. "And trouble. Get both off you before you sleep. We're on dock detail tomorrow."
"Dock?" Lira groaned. "I hate docks. They smell like fish and sailors who've forgotten what washing is."
"You smell like alleys and thieves who've forgotten what soap is," Brann said. "Some of us adjust."
Hobb drained his cooled tea and stood, stretching. His joints popped. "Dock detail means manifest work," he said. "I can do manifest work."
"Of course you can," Lira said. "You can read."
"Unlike some people," Hobb murmured.
She elbowed him, not very gently. He elbowed back, more gently than he could have.
Nessa's tail flicked, amused. "Dock work means fewer stab wounds for me," she said. "I approve."
Kael spooned the last of his stew out of the bowl and licked the spoon clean. The thought of docks, ropes, and cargo lists sounded almost simple after ledgers full of war debt and forbidden names.
"Fine," he said. "We'll play dock-rats for a day."
"Two," Brann corrected. "Maybe three. Depends on how loud Tolvar screams."
"He screams in numbers," Hobb said. "No one listens until he turns them into chains."
Kael felt the ledger's phantom weight at his side, even though it was gone now, locked away in whatever quiet hole Overseer kept things she didn't want the world tripping over.
"Let him scream," Lira said. "We'll be too busy stealing someone else's breakfast."
She slung an arm around Kael's shoulders without asking, light and careless. He tensed, then forced himself to relax into it. Affection here was like everything else: half joke, half shield.
"Come on, Two-Blades," she said. "Before Brann makes us scrub floors as a character-building exercise."
"Stop calling me that," he said automatically.
"Make me," she shot back, already dragging him toward the sleeping alcoves.
He let her.
Later, when the hall had thinned and the lanterns had been turned down to small, stubborn glows, Kael lay on his bunk staring at the rough boards above him.
Around him, the Guild breathed: snores, mutters, someone grinding their teeth, a muttered prayer in a language he didn't know. The air was thick with sweat and the lingering tang of stew.
The wrapped blade lay along his spine where he'd loosened it just enough to sleep with. He never took it off completely in the hall. Not because he didn't trust his own, but because he didn't trust what the city might do if it ever got its hands on the steel his father had left him.
He reached back and let his fingers rest lightly on the cloth-wrapped hilt.
Only when there is no road back. Only when death is certain.
Tonight there had been a road: a rope, a roof, a tunnel. A ledger.
Somewhere under the hall, Overseer was probably reading that thick book by lamplight, tracing lines of ink that bound villages and men to debts they'd never chosen. Maybe she was staring at that one forbidden name and remembering a battlefield he had no memory of.
Kael didn't know. He just knew that a petty job had turned into something that made the Guild's leader lock herself in with a war ledger and threaten to cut his tongue out for saying the wrong word too loudly.
He turned onto his side, hissing as the bandage pulled. The blade eased against him, settling as if finding its place.
"I'm not drawing you," he whispered into the dark. "Not for them. Not for ink."
The sword didn't answer.
Eventually, the ache in his ribs and the weight of exhaustion pulled him under.
Tidecrown kept rumbling overhead, the city's restless heart beating on. Somewhere in its upper streets, Garin Tolvar counted losses and planned revenge. Somewhere else, men who dealt in numbers and fear shifted in their sleep without knowing why.
Down under the cooper's shop, in the not-quite-high room, a ledger lay open under a tired woman's steady hands.
And in the narrow bunk with the worst view of a cracked ceiling, a boy with two blades and too many promises slept, not knowing that the quiet days on dock detail would be the last easy ones for a long time.