Trafalgar did not doubt Zafira’s words for even a second.

He kept walking at the same pace, as if nothing had changed, and lowered his voice just enough for only her to hear.

"Turn left into the alley. I have an idea."

Zafira did not question it.

They continued forward beneath their cloaks, unhurried, giving away nothing. Something was following them. Both of them, perhaps. Or perhaps only him. That part remained unclear.

They turned into the alley.

Above them, the man shadowing their route moved at once. He crossed one rooftop in a low sprint, jumped the gap to the next building, and followed their turn from the high ground. Experienced enough to trust his footing without needing to see it twice.

By the time he reached the rooftops above the alley, he looked down.

The alley below was narrow, dirty, and half-abandoned. Broken crates were stacked near one wall, rats slipping in and out of the gaps like they owned the place. Damp stone, scattered trash, the stale smell of old rain and worse things left to rot.

And there was only one hooded figure in the whole stretch below.

One.

A single thread ran across the alley as well, stretched from one wall to the other, so fine it almost vanished unless the light caught it just wrong.

’Why is there only one?’

The question crossed his mind fast, sharp enough to make him stop.

He searched again, more carefully this time, scanning the alley for the second figure. Nothing. The empty corners stayed empty. The crates did not shift. The walls did not suddenly grow people out of their shadows.

Then something cold touched his neck.

Sharp, too.

He moved on instinct, only slightly, and that slight movement was enough. The edge bit into his pale skin and a thin line of blood slid free.

A voice spoke from behind him.

"Why are you following us?"

Trafalgar.

He stood directly at the man’s back, Maledicta pressed to his neck with enough weight to make the answer obvious.

The method had been simple. Zafira’s thread had stretched across the alley like a waiting step, and Trafalgar had used it exactly that way, driving off it hard and fast, rising before the stalker arrived, cutting behind him while his attention stayed fixed below.

Now they were alone on the rooftop.

The man let out a slow breath. "I wasn’t following anyone."

Trafalgar’s mouth hardened faintly. Such a stupid lie almost insulted him more than the pursuit itself.

He pressed Maledicta a little deeper.

The man went still.

"Fine," he said. "Fine. You win. I was following you. More specifically, you." A short pause followed. "I have something I need to do with you."

Trafalgar did not trust a single word coming out of him.

The stranger continued speaking, almost conversational now.

"You know, I’d been hired for a job, and it would’ve been much easier if we were alone." He gave the faintest laugh. "So you really did me a favor."

That was all the warning Trafalgar got.

The man twisted suddenly, slipping away from Maledicta’s edge with a turn too practiced to be desperation. His hand came up at once. He blew across his palm.

A burst of green powder exploded outward.

It hit the air like smoke and dust at once, blooming around Trafalgar in a foul cloud. He raised an arm over his mouth, but the reaction came a fraction late. The particles were already in him.

His body answered immediately.

His muscles lost something at once, like strength had been peeled off them in a thin invisible layer. His pulse shifted. Heat climbed strangely through his blood.

Poison.

Trafalgar drove force into his legs and shot backward, clearing the edge of the green cloud before it could wrap around him fully. Maledicta stayed raised in his hand.

His body had weakened.

Not enough to drop him or enough to put him on the ground.

Primordial Body carried the worst of it before it could finish its work, but the damage was there. He could feel it in the weight of his limbs, in the altered rhythm of his breathing, in the way the mana in his body had turned slightly rough.

The stranger stepped out of the poison cloud with an easy grin.

"I’ll admit, I didn’t expect that." His voice carried amusement now, open and ugly. "The information I got said you were at Flow Core. That dose should’ve left you face-down already." He rolled one shoulder. "Seems they undersold you. Good. That means I might actually enjoy this."

He was here to kill him.

Trafalgar stood firm, Maledicta angled in front of him while mana gathered along the blade in dark-blue veins.

Names crossed his mind in quick succession.

Seraphine.

Maeron.

Rivena.

None of them sat right.

At least not cleanly. If there had been real movement from inside House Morgain, Caelum would have noticed something. He always did. That did not make them impossible, but it made them less likely.

Another possibility surfaced.

A bounty.

His talent was public now. SSS. Too many people knew. Too many people had begun to understand what someone like him could become if allowed to keep growing. Cutting him down early would tempt the wrong sort of men.

Or perhaps it was something else entirely.

The poison kept working through him.

Trafalgar could feel it clearly now, not as pain exactly, but as interference. His arms were a little heavier than they should have been. The strength in his legs no longer rose as cleanly from the ground. Even the mana gathering around Maledicta had turned rough at the edges, as though the toxin wanted to dirty the flow before it reached the blade.

He clicked his tongue softly.

Annoying.

His grip tightened around the hilt. The rooftop beneath his boots, the distance between them, the wind coming off the port, the lingering shape of the poison cloud behind the assassin, he measured all of it in one breath.

If the man thought that was enough to tilt the fight, he was about to learn otherwise.

Below, Zafira saw the green gas spill up over the roofline and her expression changed at once.

’This is bad.’

She took a step back, measured the angle, the wall, the nearby windows, the threads she still had stretched through the alley.

’I need to get up there.’

Above her, poison drifted in the air.

And Trafalgar was already fighting.