“Yeah,” Corrin said. “Probably.”
They sat in comfortable silence, sharing the stolen comfort of borrowed memories. Damian could feel Corrin's worry radiating from them like heat from a forge, but he didn't know how to address it. How could he explain the pulse beneath the city, the sense of being watched, the dreams that felt more real than waking?
Their peace was shattered by the sound of breaking glass and desperate sobbing. Someone was trying to force their way through the protective ward on his door, and the magical barrier was fighting back with sparks and the smell of burnt ozone.
Damian was on his feet before the second impact, moving toward the door by sound and instinct. “Corrin, get the emergency kit.”
He heard them moving behind him, gathering supplies with practiced urgency. The sobbing outside grew more desperate, punctuated by the wet sound of blood hitting stone.
Damian opened the door and was immediately hit by the sharp scent of blood, copper-bright and fresh. Someone was slumped against his threshold, breath hitching in quick, painful bursts. He reached out, hands finding the bony shoulder of a boy—thin, tense, trembling under his touch. The torn fabric was sticky with blood, and as Damian’s fingers traced along Brinn’s back, he found deep, ragged gashes, still weeping warmth. Brinn Kelloway—sixteen at most, if Damian judged by the voice and the quick, frantic muttering—one of Veil Row’s sharper thieves, and now he sounded terrified, murmuring broken words Damian couldn’t quite make out.
“Inside,” Damian said, helping the boy to his feet. “Corrin, clear the table.”
Brinn's weight was almost nothing against Damian’s arm, light and shivering, like supporting an injured bird. As he guided Brinn inside, Damian’s fingers skimmed over torn fabric and sticky warmth, finding deep, precise gashes along the boy’s back. The wounds were too clean to be accidental—sliced in deliberate lines, the edges raw and weeping. Damian traced the pattern gently, feeling each jagged line with practiced care. Someone had carved a message, and they'd used Brinn’s flesh as their parchment.
“Who did this?” Damian asked, guiding the boy to the examining table.
“Shadow man,” Brinn whispered, his voice thick with pain and terror. “Tall as a building, still as death. Eyes like holes in the world.”
Damian turned slightly toward Corrin, catching the subtle shift in their breathing—the kind of pause that meant Corrin was just as unsettled as he was. Trauma could cause all kinds of hallucinations, especially in someone young and frightened. But there was something in Brinn’s voice, a quality of absolute conviction that was hard to dismiss.
“Where did you see this shadow man?” Damian asked, beginning to clean the wounds.
“Everywhere.” Brinn's hands were shaking, his whole body vibrating with exhaustion and fear. “Rooftops, alleyways, watching from corners. Never moves, never blinks. Doesn't displace air when he walks.”
“People don't walk without displacing air,” Corrin said gently. “That's not how bodies work.”
“Wasn't a body,” Brinn insisted. “Was shaped like one, but wrong underneath. Like something wearing a person-suit that didn't quite fit.”
Damian began preparing his supplies for Paincraft, laying out the soul-needles. “What happened tonight?”
“Broke into Magistrate Voss's house. Easy job, supposed to be. But he was there, the shadow man. Waiting in the safe room like he knew I was coming. Didn't say nothing, just looked at me with those hole-eyes. Then the pain started.”
The wounds were unlike any Damian had ever felt. Too deep, too clean, cut by something sharper than any blade he’d encountered. They wept, carrying a chill that made his fingers go numb—a scent like winter mornings and old graves.
“This is going to hurt,” he warned, placing his hands on Brinn's shoulders.
He opened himself to the boy’s pain, letting it flood his veins like ice water. The familiar burn of torn flesh he expected—but beneath it lurked something ancient and alien, a chill that stole his breath and made his hands tremble.
Beneath the pain, that chill from the Baths flared—ancient, familiar, and all too present. Damian shivered, recalling the same sense of being watched from last night. Whatever haunted Brinn felt uncomfortably like what had begun haunting him.
Terror. Pure, primal terror, but not of death or pain. Terror of recognition, of being seen and known by something vast and patient and utterly alien. Terror of being chosen.
The sensation left Damian's hands numb and his chest tight. For a moment, he could swear he felt something looking back at him through Brinn's memories, something that knew his name and had been waiting for him to notice.
“There,” he said when the healing was done, his voice rougher than he'd intended. “You'll be sore for a few days, but no permanent damage.”
Brinn sat up slowly, shoulders tensing and relaxing as he tested their movement. The tight, shaking breaths he’d been taking eased, and Damian could feel the change in the boy—a tremor of exhaustion replacing the edge of panic in his voice. When Brinn spoke again, his words were softer, more uncertain. “The shadow man,” he whispered, voice rough with fatigue. “You believe me, don't you? You felt him too.”
Damian wanted to dismiss it as trauma or imagination, but something in the boy’s voice—and the wounds—made denial impossible. “Get some rest,” he said instead. “Stay away from Magistrate Voss's house.”
After Brinn left, Corrin questioned Damian about what he'd felt during the healing. The words came reluctantly, each one feeling like an admission of madness. The cold beneath the fear, the sense of being watched, the feeling that something had been looking back at him through Brinn's eyes.
“You think I'm losing my mind,” he said when he finished.
“I think you're tired,” Corrin replied carefully. “And I think this city is full of strange things that don't have rational explanations. Maybe we should be more careful.”
“Careful how?”
