Victor's shadow fell over the alley. His face was hard under the light, hands loose. He didn't smile.
Kai felt the city press close. The thing at his ribs tapped like a glass. The voice inside hummed: Ready.
"You got lucky," Victor said. "Don't get used to it."
Kai wanted better words. He wanted to tell Victor about the eyes, the armor inside him, but the words refused to line up.
"Go," someone hissed. The crowd circled, phones bright, money shifting toward Victor like tide.
Victor moved first, fast and clean. Kai's body answered before his mind finished. The voice shaped his hands—angles, openings—and he moved.
The blow landed. Pain flashed, then a strange clarity washed in, like a window wiped clean. Kai hit back. Flesh met flesh. Shoes scuffed wood. Blood marked both of them.
A new sound cut the alley: a hollow knock, small and deep. The air shivered.
The voice inside Kai grew into a shape. Not words—an image: a corridor of shadow and brass, spears like teeth. It smelled like first blood.
"What's that?" someone asked.
Victor glanced. Curiosity did not make him step back. He stepped toward the sound.
Kai felt the pull like a hand on his shirt. He tried to pull away, but the hand was inside his chest. The inheritance reached.
Professor Cross arrived as if he'd expected weather to change. He stood at the mouth of the alley, umbrella and all, and the crowd fell quiet.
"Leave the boy," Cross said. His voice was soft and fixed.
Victor spat. "You pick him up now, old man? Where were you before?"
Cross smiled, small. "The coin has a pattern. Step away."
Victor lunged. Cross moved like a man who'd practiced small quick things in old rooms. The umbrella hit Victor's shoulder with a noise like rain. Surprise made Victor stagger.
Kai seized the moment. He moved, pushed, hit a spot near Victor's jaw. Victor broke like a brittle branch and fell against the ropes, breath leaving him.
The crowd went still, like waves realizing the sea had changed. Kai stood, chest heaving. The inheritance hummed, pleased.
Cross stepped closer but didn't touch him. "You will come to the university," he said. "You will learn to name what you have. If you refuse, you'll give them reason to kill you."
"Why trust you?" Kai asked. People wanted things; they didn't give them.
Cross's eyes held pity and something colder. "I can keep you clear for now. Teach you to listen without being swallowed. I've lost people to the same hunger."
Kai thought of the photograph in his pocket—the girl's eyes like a map. He thought of the silver ring from the man who had pressed the card to his palm. He had taken the card without thinking. It had an address and a number and a face. He had meant to find the man, to ask why he had chosen Kai that night. Now the card felt like a thin weight in his jeans.
Victor coughed, spit blood, and glared. "This ain't over." He stumbled out into the night, dragged by men who still believed money would fix them.
As the crowd left, the door at the alley's mouth thinned, like a curtain. The smell of brass faded. The taste of thunder left Kai's mouth.
"Three days," Cross said. "There will be a test. Come alone."
Three days felt like a week. Kai's mind moved through small tasks: rent, Elena's pills, the cashier shift, the essay he owed his professor. He counted them like coins. Each one was small. Each one mattered.
"Come with allies, and you will lose them," Cross added. "They will not survive what you wake."
Cross's jacket smelled faintly of old books and lemon. He turned as if to leave, then paused. "There are watchers," he said. "Not just the men in the rings. Eyes that do not sleep. Move careful."
Kai wanted to ask who the watchers were. He wanted to ask how Cross knew so much. But the alley had cooled. Answers were thin like the cold air. He swallowed them.
He stepped onto the street. A bus hissed by. A child laughed in a window. The city kept its face, even when doors opened under it.
A hand touched his back. He froze. He did not look.
"Don't—" a whisper at his neck. He turned.
Elena stood on the curb, wrapped in a threadbare scarf, eyes red from crying. She looked smaller under the streetlight, a brave scar of a person. "Why'd you go?" she asked.
Kai wanted to tell her everything. He wanted to tell her about the armor, the voice, the corridor of spears. He wanted to say he had broken a man. He wanted to tell her that Cross had offered a door and a threat.
Instead he gave her the small lies that kept rooms quiet. "No big deal," he said. "Just stupid men. I'm fine."
"You smell like blood," Elena said, reaching for him. She tried to laugh. "You promised no fights."
"I know." He sank to the curb beside her and they held hands the way people hold on to small solid things in big storms. Her hand was cold and thin. He could feel the pulse, like a small drum under skin.
"You're lying," she said. "Tell me."
He told her some. He said a man had offered help. He said a man had helped him. Not the parts that would make her afraid and not the parts that would make him look like a fool.
Elena's face softened but worry stayed like a shadow. "You can't go alone to some test," she said. "What if they want something from you?"
"What if they do?" Kai asked. He did not know. He wanted to promise her the moon and her pills and a bed that didn't smell like bleach. He wanted to be small and safe. The other voice inside him stirred like a bird in a cage.
"Promise me you'll be careful," she said.
"I promise," he lied, and it felt like a thin coin that could shatter.
They moved home together. The walk was quiet. The city hummed, anonymous and loud. Kai thought about Cross's words: learn to name it, don't be swallowed. He wondered what naming felt like. He wondered if the inheritance would let him keep his own face.
When they reached their block, a man leaned in a doorway, his face shadowed. He nodded at Kai, slow and careful. Kai nodded back. He had the card and photograph.
He went inside. Elena went to bed. He checked her pills. He looked at the photograph again. The girl's eyes looked back, asking.
He lay awake as the dark pressed in. The voice inside him hummed, like a thing content to be near heat. The city breathed around the building.
Tomorrow was rent and a shift. In three days he would go and try to learn the language.
Something opened below the city, somewhere under his feet. He felt it like a draft through the bones. It wanted him to see what lay inside.
He did not sleep.