But he didn't get far.

  The mud sucked at his boots, a cold, wet mouth seeking to swallow him whole before he had cleared the city’s shadow.

  The fog off the river was thick enough to chew, tasting of coal smoke and the iron tang of the smelters upstream.

  August halted, looking down at his belt where a chisel and hammer hung beside the bag of silver from Borin.

  That was all.

  He was walking into a mire that swallowed horses, to climb a ruin that yearned to fall, and to fight beasts that screamed loud enough to rend the mind. And he was doing it with a shard of sharpened steel and one good arm.

  He remembered her voice. Sharp. Vexing.

  Right.

  Turning his back on the road, he began the trudge back to the Artisan’s Hall.

  The rain had turned to a fine, freezing mist that plastered his white hair to his skull. When he reached the workshop door, he found it locked, though he could hear movement within.

  Pacing. The ragged, frantic rhythm of one seeking to outrun their own thoughts.

  He knocked.

  The pacing ceased, replaced by silence, and then the slide of the bolt.

  The door cracked open. Warmth spilled out, scented with machine oil and the dying embers of a hearth.

  Bella stood there. She wore her heavy apron, goggles pushed up into her messy hair, looking as though she had not slept in a se'nnight. She looked at him, at the mud on his boots, and at the lack of gear on his back.

  "You are returned," she said.

  Her voice was flat, but her hand tightened on the doorframe.

  "Have you forgotten your leash?"

  "I need rope," August said.

  "And a lantern. Crampons. I can't afford them. The silver Borin gave me... no merchant's gonna take coin from a 'malfunction' without calling the Watch."

  Bella stared at him, blinking slowly.

  "You came back to beg? After that departure? 'Better than being a subject for the trials,' was it not?"

  "It is," August said, not looking away.

  "But dead subjects pay no debts. If I die in the Bog, Valerius loses his Instrument. You lose your scholarship. I need a loan, Handler. Put it on my bill."

  She let out a breath, a sharp hiss of air through her teeth. Stepping back, she opened the door wide.

  "Get in. You let the heat out."

  He stepped inside, standing on the mat and dripping grey water onto the floorboards.

  Bella walked to her workbench. She picked up a ledger, opened it, stared at a page of numbers, and then snapped it shut. The sound cracked like a pistol shot in the quiet room.

  "You shake," she said, not turning around.

  "You are already freezing, and the city limits you have not yet left. You are no soldier, August. You are a weakness wrapped in cloth."

  "I'm a mason with a hammer. It's enough."

  "It is a reckoning," she snapped, spinning around.

  "The strength of the venom against the weight of the body... the sum is death. You have not the numbers."

  She grabbed a heavy leather coat from a hook—her father's old riding coat, by the look of it—and threw it at him. It hit him in the chest. Heavy. Warm.

  "I do not trust you with coin," she said, grabbing a heavy purse from her strong-box.

  "I shall buy the rope, but you must carry it."

  The Night Market in the Artificer's District was an assault.

  This wasn't the shouting, brawling chaos of the Lower Ward markets; it was a refined kind of chaos. A labyrinth of stalls lit by hissing Aether-lanterns that cast a harsh, blue-white glare. The air smelled of roasted chestnuts, storm-scent, and hot copper.

  Steam vented from the grates in the street, curling around the legs of the patrons—rich merchants seeking novelties, apprentices hunting for parts, and thieves hunting for purses.

  August walked a step behind Bella, feeling huge and clumsy. His right arm was strapped tight to his chest under the new coat, throwing off his balance. The noise of the market vibrated in his teeth, a thousand different notes of metal and glass grinding together.

  Bella moved with lethal precision. She didn't browse; she hunted.

  She stopped at a stall hung with coils of rope and climbing gear. The merchant, a man with a brass eye, leaned over the counter.

  "Finest make faux-silk," the merchant said, tapping a coil. "Spun from Spinner-Silk and soaked in alchemical gum. Holds a carriage, it does."

  "It frays at the third twist," Bella said, pointing.

  "And the resin smells like pine tar, not alchemy. Three silvers for the coil, and throw in the iron crampons."

  "Three? The crampons alone be worth five!"

  "The crampons are cast iron, not forged. In the cold they will snap. Three silvers, or I tell the Inspector about the pine tar."

  The merchant scowled, but he took the coins.

  August took the rope, slinging it over his good shoulder. He felt the eyes of the crowd on him—the white streak in his hair, the way he moved, shielding his right side.

  They moved deeper into the market where the crowd thickened and shoulders brushed. August felt the hum of the folk, a muddy, chaotic thrum of heartbeats and footsteps on stone.

  A man in a rough coat bumped into Bella. Hard.

  "Watch yer step, darling—"

  The sound of fabric tearing.

  "Ho!" Bella spun. "My—"

  The man was already moving, a blur of motion diving into the steam. He had her purse. The heavy one. The loan.

  August neither thought nor shouted.

  He moved.

  His movement wasn't a soldier's run; it was the shift of earth. Sudden. Heavy.

  Taking two long strides and ignoring the pain in his shoulder, he cut the angle. He didn't reach for the man, but for the space the man was moving into.

  He slammed his good forearm into the thief's chest.

  Thud.

  The thief hit the brick wall of a warehouse, the breath leaving him in a choked wheeze.

  August stepped in and pinned the man, his left forearm across the throat. He leaned his weight forward. Leverage. Pure weight.

  The thief clawed at August's sleeve, eyes bulging as his feet dangled an inch off the cobbles.

  "Drop it," August said.

  His voice wasn't loud. It was grinding. It was two stones rubbing together deep underground.

  "Ghhhk..."

  "Drop it, or I break the wrist." August shifted his weight. "Then the elbow. Then the shoulder."

  The purse hit the ground. Clink.

  August stepped back. He didn't shove; he just removed the pressure.

  The thief collapsed, gasping and clutching his throat. He looked up at August with wide, terrified eyes. He didn't see a broken man anymore. He saw a wall that had decided to fall on him.

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  He scrambled away on hands and knees, disappearing into the crowd.

  Bella stood there, steam curling around her boots as she stared at August. Her chest heaved.

  "August," she whispered. "He... he dropped it."

  She looked at his arm. The good one. The one that had just pinned a man to a wall without a tremor. She looked at him as if he were dangerous.

  And for the first time, she didn't look as if she hated it.

  "He stood unsteady," August muttered, picking up the purse and handing it to her.

  "His weight sat too high."

  Bella took the purse, her fingers brushing his. A spark, not Aether, just sparks, jumped between them.

  "Right," she said, her voice breathy.

  "Gravity."

  She shoved the purse into her pocket and turned away quickly, her movements jerky.

  "We need... we need light. The Bog is dark."

  She marched toward a stall selling alchemical supplies. August followed, rubbing his forearm. It felt warm.

  They found a quiet corner of the market, away from the main road. The vendor here sold volatile compounds, flash-dust, flares, things that went bang.

  Bella bought a box of common light-glass. Then she hesitated.

  She reached into her own pocket—not the purse with the loan money, but her personal pocket.

  She pulled out a small, heavy brass sphere etched with runes that glowed with a faint, amber light.

  She handed it to him.

  "Common light-glass dies in the bog gas," she said, not meeting his eyes. She was rearranging the supplies in his pack with unnecessary force.

  "The foul air eats the wax. Take this. It is... a trial-piece. Strong sunstone core. Fire-salts."

  August took the orb. It was warm. He turned it in the light, admiring how the brass was milled to perfection.

  "If you are swarmed," she said, "twist the cap and throw it. Do not look at it, for it burns the eye. It creates a blast of brilliance, and silence follows."

  His thumb traced the base of the sphere. There, etched into the metal, was a tiny mark.

  A bird. A songbird.

  Simple. Elegant. Three lines that captured the idea of flight.

  He looked at her.

  "A bird?" he asked.

  "It is carved into the casing."

  Bella froze, stopping her fiddling with the pack. A flush crept up her neck, pink against the white collar of her shirt.

  "It is... it is a maker's mark," she stammered.

  "For the clerks. Mandatory marking. The Guild's law. One must file the form in triplicate."

  August looked at the mark. The lines weren't stamped; they varied in depth. A machine hadn't cut this. A hand had. A hand holding a graver, late at night, thinking about something other than gear ratios.

  "It looks hand-carved," he said softly.

  "The line weight varies. A machine didn't cut this, Bella. You did."

  She snatched her hand back from his pack.

  "Just take the damned light, August. And try not to swallow it."

  He smiled.

  It wasn't a smirk. It was genuine. It cracked the grime on his face.

  "Thank you, Handler."

  She glared at him, but the glare had no heat.

  "Go," she said, shoving him toward the West Gate.

  "Go. Before I drag you back to the cage."

  He turned. Walking away, he clutched the brass orb in his good hand like a heartbeat.

  The road ended three leagues past the gate.

  It didn't fade so much as dissolve. The paving stones gave way to gravel, the gravel to dirt, and the dirt to a soup of black peat and grey water that smelled of ancient eggs and bad deeds.

  The West Bog.

  August halted, adjusting the strap of the pack. It dug into his bad shoulder, grinding the bruised muscle against the bone.

  Pain was a constant now, a low drone in the background of his life. He didn't heed it.

  The mist here was different. In the city, the fog was industrial, heavy, wet, man-made. Here, it was organic. It clung to the ground, hiding the sinkholes, curling around the twisted roots of dead cypress trees like pale fingers.

  And the sound.

  Silence.

  Not the absence of noise, but the stifling of it. The Bog ate sound. His boots made a wet squelch that seemed to die the instant it left his feet.

  He walked.

  He had to test every step with the haft of the hammer. Poke. Solid. Step. Poke. Mush. Detour.

  Hours passed. The cold seeped through the leather coat, and his breath plumed in the air.

  Then he felt it. A pressure.

  It started in his teeth. A vibration. Then it moved to his head, becoming an ache that wasn't an ache.

  Thrummmmm.

  Low. Grinding.

  He looked up.

  The Tower loomed out of the mist like a broken tooth.

  It was First Dominion. You could tell by the stone. It wasn't built of bricks; it was a single, seamless spire of grey rock that had been grown, not stacked. But it was dying.

  The foundation had sunk into the mire. The tower leaned at an impossible angle, fifteen degrees off vertical. It should have fallen centuries ago.

  To anyone else, it was but a ruin.

  To August, it was wailing.

  It was a low, agonizing moan of compression, the sound of stone being tortured by gravity. The "song" of the First Dominion wasn't a choir here; it was a dirge. It was the sound of a bone bending just before it snaps.

  August grabbed his head and staggered, his boots slipping in the mud.

  "Peace," he hissed.

  He pressed the heels of his hands into his temples.

  "Just... hold your peace and stand still."

  The Tower didn't listen.

  Thrummmmm-CRACK.

  A trembling traveled up his legs. It wasn't the ground moving; it was the shudder of the stone settling deep underground.

  He felt the weight of it, the great weight of stone. It felt as if he held it on his own shoulders.

  He reached into his pocket. His fingers brushed the pebble, but closed around the smooth, carved stone Borin had given him. The Rune. Endure.

  Connection. Not conquest.

  He squeezed it. He tried to find the center. Tried to find the quiet place.

  "You're heavy," he whispered to the Tower.

  "I know. You're weary. Just hold. Twenty minutes. Just hold for me."

  The wailing didn't stop, but it steadied. It became a rhythm, a pulse of pain he could time his breathing to.

  He walked to the base.

  The door was gone. The entrance was a black maw breathing out the smell of sharp rot and damp earth.

  Inside, the stairs spiraled up the outer shell. They were wood—rotten, slick with moss and filth, clinging to the stone like a fungus.

  He looked up into the dark.

  "One arm," he muttered.

  "One hammer. One fool."

  He started to climb.

  It was a nightmare of hard choices.

  He couldn't use his right arm, for it was dead weight. He had to haul his entire body weight up each step with his left hand, gripping the jagged stone of the wall because the railing had rotted away decades ago.

  Heave. Step. Breathe.

  Thrummm.

  The stone vibrated under his fingers. It felt feverish.

  He was fifty feet up when the step broke.

  CRACK.

  The wood crumbled under his boot.

  He fell.

  Instead of screaming, he scrambled. His left hand clawed at the wall.

  Fingertips found a seam, a tiny flaw in the seamless First Dominion stone.

  He caught himself.

  He dangled over the black shaft of the tower's interior, fifty feet of nothing below him. His left arm screamed, the sinew straining like a wire pulled to the breaking point. His legs kicked at empty air.

  Hold.

  He slammed his boot into the wall. Found purchase on a lip of stone. Pushed. Hauled himself up.

  He rolled onto the next landing, gasping, sweat stinging his eyes.

  "One," he wheezed.

  "Two. Don't look down. Down is mud. Up is silver."

  He stood up. The belfry was above him, a platform open to the sky.

  The smell of piss was overpowering now. It burned his nose.

  He reached the top.

  The belfry was a cage of stone arches. The roof had collapsed long ago. The moon, fat and yellow, peered through the mist.

  And hanging from the arches, like clusters of overripe fruit, were the bats.

  Hundreds of them.

  They were wrapped in leathery wings the color of slate, pulsing gently as they slept.

  August moved slowly, reaching for his sack.

  Click.

  His boot scraped on a loose piece of gravel.

  Silence.

  Then, a ripple ran through the cluster.

  A head uncurled. Pale. Blind. Ears that were too big for the skull. A mouth full of needle-teeth.

  It opened its mouth.

  August flinched.

  The world tilted.

  SCREEEEEEE.

  The sound wasn't mere noise but a spike driven straight into his ear.

  Dizziness hit him like a mace's blow. The floor rushed up to meet him, and he stumbled, hitting his knees as the contents of his stomach churned.

  The great wail.

  Crag Bats didn't hunt with eyes. They hunted with sound. And August... August was a struck bell.

  To a normal man, it was disorienting. To August, it was blinding. The air vibrated. His vision fractured into shards of broken glass, grey and black.

  Too loud! It's too loud!

  The swarm woke up.

  A cloud of leather and teeth erupted from the ceiling.

  They swarmed him.

  Buffeting wings beat against his face, and claws tore at his coat. He swung his left arm blindly, the heavy hammer useless against the swarm.

  "Get back!"

  Standing was impossible; the screams were destroying his balance. He crawled, one-handed, dragging his useless right side.

  Biting.

  Teeth snapped near his ear.

  He needed the light.

  He fumbled for the pocket. His fingers were numb.

  Where is it?

  The bats were landing on him now. Heavy. Warm.

  He found it. The brass orb.

  He twisted the cap.

  "Eat this," he snarled.

  He threw it at the floor.

  WHUMP.

  It wasn't a bang. It was a physical displacement of air.

  A sphere of pure, agonizingly white light expanded from the orb, burning away the shadows and turning the mist into glowing steam.

  The shriek cut off instantly.

  The bats dropped.

  They fell like stones, stunned, their delicate senses overloaded by the sudden blast of light.

  August blinked, purple spots dancing in his vision.

  He scrambled.

  He grabbed the sack and shoveled the stunned bats into it. One. Two. Three.

  He tied the sack.

  He stood up, though the confusion was still there, swimming in his head.

  "Go," he told himself. "Move."

  Something hit his shoulder.

  The bad one.

  He dropped his hammer into the abyss.

  Pain.

  The pain wasn't a dull bruise; it speared through him like a lance of fire.

  He spun.

  A single bat, bigger than the rest, had recovered. It was clinging to his coat. Its teeth were sunk deep into his shoulder, punching through the leather, through the shirt, into the withered muscle.

  Venom.

  It felt like ice water and boiling oil mixing in his veins.

  "Ah! Get off!"

  He grabbed the bat with his left hand. He ripped it free. A chunk of leather coat came with it.

  He smashed the creature against the stone wall.

  Crunch.

  It fell, broken.

  But the fire was inside him now.

  It spread fast. Down his arm. Up his neck.

  His knees buckled.

  No.

  The tower groaned. A deep, final sound.

  The explosion of light had been the last straw. The trembling had pushed the unstable foundation past the tipping point.

  Grind. Crack.

  The floor under his feet tilted.

  "Move," he gasped. His tongue felt thick. Numb.

  "Move, damn you. You're stone. Stone falls. You move."

  He threw himself at the stairs.

  He didn't climb so much as fall, sliding and bouncing off the walls, his left arm wrapped around the sack of bats. The venom was shutting him down. His right side was gone, just a void of numbness. His legs were heavy, unresponsive logs.

  The tower was coming down around him.

  RUMBLE-CRASH.

  Blocks of First Dominion stone the size of carriages sheared off the outer wall. They slammed into the mud below with the sound of cannon fire.

  August hit the bottom landing. He rolled. He dragged himself through the opening.

  He hit the mud.

  He kept moving, clawing at the peat with his left hand, pulling his dead weight.

  Behind him, the belfry sheared off.

  It fell in slow motion, a crown of stone tumbling into the abyss.

  KA-BOOM.

  A geyser of mud and water erupted, washing over him and knocking the wind out of him.

  He lay there, face down in the muck.

  Silence returned.

  Heavy. Wet.

  He breathed. It rattled.

  He had the wings. He had the prize.

  But he couldn't feel his legs.

  The fire in his shoulder had turned to ice, a creeping cold that was stealing his lungs, inch by inch.

  Get up.

  He couldn't.

  Get up, August.

  He thought of the workshop. The warmth. The smell of metal and soap. He thought of the bird carved into the brass.

  He dug his fingers into the mud and groaned, a sound that matched the dying tower.

  He dragged himself forward one inch, then another.

  He had to get back. He had to get back to the door.

  He looked at the distant lights of the city. They blurred. Swam.

  Fever.

  He took a breath. It tasted of copper.

  He crawled.