Thomas has probably lost his composure.

Not loudly. Men like him don’t lose control by flipping tables or foaming at the mouth. They lose it by doing bad math too fast.

The Rank B aura behind me isn’t only anger. It’s compressed intent. The kind of pressure that says: if I settle this now, maybe I can scrub the room clean before it becomes a problem.

The bastard is shrewd.

If he kills me here, inside his own building, before I leave with the authorization, his odds of burying the evidence go up. An unknown visitor. A Crest that could be confiscated. A terrified Drowned with no credibility. Bought or frightened clerks. The Red Squid Slums has almost certainly swallowed crimes harder to digest than me.

But I didn’t put my hand on that door handle unprepared.

I bring my hand to my ear in the same instant, before Thomas crosses the line between threat and act.

"Prince Veric Azurea, I wish you a good morning. I’ve got something here that needs your attention and your help."

I channel OXI into the communicator and open the line on the magic speaker.

[OXI: 2,451 / 2,500]

The answer comes with a minimal delay, loaded with sleep, irritation, and poorly digested nobility.

"So courteous, this early? What the hell do you want, Sands?"

The aura behind me wavers.

It doesn’t vanish. Thomas is too old to spook like a rookie. But the pressure loses its first layer, like an assassin’s blade stopping a finger short of skin because it heard footsteps in the hall.

"I’m here with Thomas, a friend of your father’s," I say, keeping it light. "He practically begged me to call and ask how you’re all doing. Are Garen and Rhayne with you?"

"Of course they are, we’re at the castle. What is this? You sound off."

I can’t say it outright. If I say "Thomas is about to kill me," he’ll kill me before the sentence finishes. A Rank B doesn’t need much time. Just a decision.

"Nothing, all good. Tell Rhayne to take care, and to click her tongue three times if she ever needs help."

Silence.

An unintelligible whisper comes through the line. Too low for me to make out words, but I don’t need them. Rhayne will understand. Veric might take half a second longer, because he has a gift for being a genius and an idiot in alternating shifts.

Then Garen’s voice bursts through the other end, full of vitality.

"Hey, partner! Where are you?"

Bingo.

"Red Squid Slums," I answer. "Here with your friend Thomas."

"Ahhh, Thomas! Give him a hug for me. Come see me before the day’s out; we’ve got things to settle."

"Will do."

That’s all I needed.

Thomas’s aura dies for good.

Not because he’s calmed down. The opposite. But murdering someone minutes after the King says your name on speaker and confirms he knows your location is the kind of stupidity even a corrupt Baron won’t commit without absolute certainty he can survive the aftermath. And Thomas has no such certainty.

I cut the line. Only then do I turn around.

He’s standing in the middle of the hall, face aligned, posture impeccable, eyes full of an anger held so tight it looks like it physically hurts. His jaw locks hard enough to make a muscle jump near the bone.

"Something wrong?" I ask. "The King sends his regards, by the way."

He breathes in once.

Then he turns his back and disappears through a side door without a word.

Lia immediately moves to follow him.

"Stop," I say. "You’re coming with me."

She freezes.

"But he—"

"He won’t do anything." I tuck the authorization into my inventory. "And I need someone who knows this city."

Lia looks at the door Thomas vanished through. The fear on her face isn’t simple obedience. It’s habit, worn in by too long spent paying for decisions she never made.

"If I leave here with you..."

"He doesn’t lay a finger on you today." I touch the Crest lightly. "And if he tries tomorrow, I’ll know."

It isn’t a strong enough guarantee. I know that. So does she. But in the Red Squid Slums, an insufficient guarantee is still more than most people ever get.

He could simply kill her and dare anyone to care. Lia knows it too. She swallows hard and nods anyway, making her choice.

"There’s a place," she says. "Near the old dryers. Marden’s workshop. He repairs breathing filters, small pumps, OXI heaters, everything. The ducts there are awful. He’s requested maintenance six times."

"Documented?"

"Yes."

"Even better."

We leave the government building without hurrying. Lia walks beside me, a step behind at first, then half a step closer once she realizes I won’t drag her by the arm or use her as a political ornament.

Marden’s workshop is wedged between an industrial fabric laundry and a depot of rusted parts. The sign out front reads MARDEN & SONS, though the "& Sons" has been crossed out in black paint. Bad sign. Almost anything in Thirstfall that erases a family name comes with a story I don’t want to hear right now.

Lia pushes the door. A hoarse bell rings.

Inside, the smell is worse than the street. Heated metal, old oil, burned OXI, chemical mold. Shelves of dismantled filters cover the walls. At the back, a short man with broad shoulders, a graying beard, and soot-stained hands looks up from a pump opened across the bench.

"Lia?" He frowns. "What happened?"

"He came to see the ducts," she says.

His gaze drops to me. Then the Crest. Then back to my face with a clean, honest suspicion. I prefer that. Honest suspicion saves time. Rank C, a Diver.

"Dryden Sands," I say, showing the authorization. "Provisional inspection of the Red Squid Slums ventilation systems."

Marden takes the paper, reads it twice, and snorts.

"Now the government sends a pretty boy with a brooch?"

"No. The government gave me paper because it didn’t like the alternative I offered for the delays."

He looks at me a second longer, then laughs through his nose.

"Less bad than I expected."

"You requested maintenance six times?"

"Seven. The sixth was the last one they’d stamp." He points at a drawer. "I’ve got copies."

"Later. First, the ducts."

His expression changes. I can’t tell if it’s fear or just exhaustion.

"You don’t want to start there. It’s filthy work. Mask, gloves, scraper, a crew. Ten days minimum to do it right, and nobody does it right. Push it, and you’ll die in there."

"Today I do it differently."

Marden glances at Lia, maybe hunting for an explanation. She just lowers her eyes.

"Fine," he says. "But if you puke, puke in the bucket. Not on the floor."

He leads us to the back, opens a low hatch, and shows a narrow technical room. The main ducts run through it like the ribs of a sick beast, crusted with a dark scab that seems to breathe when the internal pressure shifts. The air is heavy enough to taste, bitter on the tip of my tongue.

Marden stays outside.

"I’ve breathed this for years," he says. "Don’t need to prove courage today. Close the door behind me."

He obeys too fast.

Now it’s just me, Lia, and the ducts.

She covers her mouth with her sleeve. "You shouldn’t touch that."

"Probably not."

I pull the papers I saved from the library out of my inventory, the runic script I worked up from Silver Flow’s notes, notes that don’t exist yet in this timeline. I bite my finger until it bleeds, and this time the system doesn’t flag the bleeding.

I draw symbols on the paper in my own blood and press them to the metal, thick with sticky OXI sludge.

Lia stares at the incomplete circles. "Is that a cleaning rune?"

"Something like it."

"Something like it cleans ducts?"

"In ten days, yes." I set the last anchor point. "Or in a few seconds, if nobody dies in the process."

She goes very still.

The crust on the duct cracks, as if it heard.

I rest two fingers on the rune, ready to ignite it.