Jack exhaled once and ran. The edge came faster than expected - his foot hit the last tile, pushed, and then there was nothing beneath him. Just distance. Just the drop.
He hit the far side hard, harder than he'd planned, his foot slipping on the landing as momentum carried him forward. Too far.
For a split second he thought he was going over the other side. His hand slammed down against the tiles, fingers scraping, searching - finding nothing - then something. Pain shot up his arm as he caught himself just short of the edge.
Still breathing. Still alive.
He pushed himself up and kept moving. The next drop was easier - lower, cleaner, a ladder fixed to the wall below. He took it quickly, missed the last two rungs and landed hard, knees bending to take the impact, then straightened and moved on.
The street here was busy enough. People moving. Carts rolling. Noise returning to something like normal.
Jack slowed - not suddenly, gradually. His shoulders loosening, his stride lengthening just enough to look natural.
He wiped a hand across his sleeve, smearing dust and grime into something less noticeable.
Another face in the crowd.
By the time the whistles reached this street, he was already gone. He didn't slow properly until he was sure.
Then he turned back the way they'd come.
***
As Jack slipped back into the crowd, relief hit him in a slow wave, the tension draining from his shoulders before his mind had fully caught up with his body. That had been close. He slowed his pace, letting the noise and movement swallow him, and did a quick check for injuries as he walked - his shoulder burned where he'd hit the tiles, and the rest of him ached in that dull familiar way that came after a bad landing, but nothing felt broken.
Good enough.
His thoughts turned immediately to Kate. He angled toward their usual rendezvous point, the adrenaline draining from his body with every step and leaving something tighter behind it.
Not fear. Not yet.
Just the sense that things hadn't gone as cleanly as they should have.
A voice cut through the noise behind him.
"Jack."
He almost kept going. Bootsteps quickened, then settled into pace beside him.
Coulter.
Jack didn't look at him straight away. Coulter wasn't one of Finnegan's main men, but he was close enough to matter — close enough that people shifted when he passed, close enough that ignoring him entirely wasn't a good plan. Jack's pace slowed, just a fraction.
"Nice work in the square this morning."
Jack glanced across briefly. "You were there?"
"Word travels." Coulter fell into step beside him without being invited. "You're getting a reputation."
A cart piled high with damp cloth blocked part of the street ahead and Jack stepped around it, forcing Coulter either to adjust or fall behind. He kept pace without effort.
"Better than getting forgotten."
"That depends who's doing the remembering."
They walked in silence for a few steps, the crowd thinning as the bridge came into view ahead.
"Finnegan heard," Coulter added.
There it was. Jack had been expecting it the moment he'd recognised the walk.
"Finnegan hears everything."
"He does. He wants a word."
"Finnegan always wants a word."
"This time he wants more than that."
Jack let out a quiet breath through his nose. "Of course he does."
Coulter glanced sideways. "It was a big score? Clean?"
Jack didn't answer straight away. It had been both. But Kate - the bruise - pulled at the edge of his attention, and he pushed it back.
"It was alright."
Coulter's gaze lingered longer than Jack liked. "That's not what I heard."
Jack stopped. Only for a second. Then turned just enough to face him. "Don't believe everything you hear."
The corner of Coulter's mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "Maybe."
Jack held his gaze a moment longer, then moved past him again, picking up his pace.
"Finnegan will want his share," Coulter said, falling back into step beside him.
"Finnegan didn't do the work."
"That's never stopped him before."
"Then he should try it sometime."
Coulter's hand came out, catching him lightly at the arm — not enough to stop him, enough to remind him. Jack's eyes dropped to the hand, then lifted again. Coulter held his gaze for a moment, then let go.
"Careful," he said. "That mouth of yours—"
"—is going to get me into trouble?" Jack finished. "So I've been told."
"Not all trouble looks the same."
Jack adjusted his sleeve where the hand had been. "Tell Finnegan he can wait."
Coulter shook his head slightly. "That's not how he sees it."
"That's not my problem."
This time Coulter didn't follow. "Sooner or later," he called after him, "it will be."
Jack didn't turn. The words hung in the air behind him as the bridge came into view ahead.
No sign of Kate.
He ducked underneath and waited, crouching back against the damp cold stone. He pulled an apple from his coat - not much to show for the morning's trouble - and rubbed it once on his sleeve before drawing the knife. He flipped it once, catching it by the worn grip, his thumb brushing the old pattern cut into the hilt.
A quick slice. Clean.
Why couldn't they ever meet somewhere warm?
Five minutes passed. Then ten.
Jack pushed himself upright. She wasn't coming.
He headed for the alternate meeting place.
***
The slums closed in around him as he entered - narrow streets, leaning buildings, the air thick with smoke and damp. Somewhere nearby fish soup simmered in a dented pot, the smell heavy and sour, and a child sat beside it stirring with a stick and licking it clean between turns. A stray dog nosed through a pile of rubbish without much hope, pausing just long enough to glance at him before returning to its work.
Frogger stood in the doorway of an abandoned building, chewing his nails, his eyes darting up and down the street in that restless way of his. When he spotted Jack he hurried over.
"Jack, what happened?"
"Have you seen Kate?" Jack cut in. "Where is she?"
Frogger shook his head quickly and launched into an explanation - the watch, the timing, the split - talking faster than the information required, filling the silence the way he always did when he was nervous. Jack watched him and waited for the part that mattered.
"I saw the merchant and the guards follow you," Frogger said. "Kate was on her own after the split. A couple of watch peeled off toward her alley, but she should've shaken them easy."
Jack nodded once. "If you see her, tell her I'm looking for her. I'm going to check if she made it back."
Frogger hesitated, then nodded. Jack was already moving before the nod finished.
This wasn't how it was meant to go. Something goes wrong, clean split, two routes, meet at the bridge - they'd run it enough times that neither of them had to think about it. As he picked up his pace a phrase surfaced, one the children in the slums learned early The gods don't care about your plans. Jack had never put much stock in that.
Play it right and you could bend the odds.
So what had he done wrong?
***
He pushed deeper into the slums, the streets narrowing as the buildings leaned in on either side, shutting out what little light remained. The air thickened as he moved, heavy with smoke and damp and the slow rot that never quite left this part of the city. A few people nodded as he passed - a man in a doorway, someone lifting a hand across the street. He acknowledged them without breaking stride, his attention already elsewhere.
Kate. The bruise. It didn't fit. She didn't get careless, didn't let people close enough to hurt her, and if anything she was better than him at talking her way out of trouble, easing tension before it ever had the chance to turn. So where had that come from?
He turned into the alley behind the candle factory and stopped. Empty. No movement, no sign of her. He listened for a moment, then stepped back out onto the main street.
***
His pace slowed without meaning to as he moved with the crowd, his attention shifting from the rhythm of movement around him to the faces within it. Scanning - automatically at first, the way he always did, looking for watchers and threats and anything out of place - but that wasn't really what he was looking for.
The last time he'd seen her surfaced without warning.
They'd been in a crowd like this one, close enough to speak without raising their voices, the noise of the street wrapping around them. She had slowed. Moved closer - close enough that he'd caught the faint scent of mint on her breath - and leaned in just slightly, in a way that wasn't like her, something uncertain in it, almost hesitant. Jack hadn't known what to do with that. For a moment it had felt like she was about to say something that mattered.
He had said something stupid. A joke. A smile. Kate had smiled too, and the moment had gone.
That night he'd lain awake turning it over piece by piece - what he should have said instead, what he should have done differently, what he might have missed. He exhaled slowly, his gaze still moving across the crowd.
There would be time to talk to her later. Once he found her.
***
Slope Street rose ahead of him, steep enough to slow most people, perched right on the edge of the slums without quite falling into them. Close enough to feel it. Far enough that people liked to pretend otherwise. Jack took the wide steps one at a time, his pace quickening as he climbed.
He glanced up. The smaller moon was already rising, faint and red against the evening sky.
Later than he'd thought.
The building came into view at the top - four storeys, worn down, leaning slightly backwards as if trying to distance itself from what was below it. Most of the shutters hung loose or broken, and whatever glass had once filled the windows was long gone. Still, it was a step up from storm drains and alleyways.
***
Through the arched entrance Jack crossed the courtyard, the constant hum of the water mill filling the space, steady and unchanging, rain beginning to fall in light drops through the open roof above. He took the stairs to the right, avoiding the collapsed set on the left, ducked beneath a maze of washing lines at the first landing - damp cloth brushing against his shoulder as he passed - and continued up to the second floor.
He paused at the cracked mirror nailed to the wall. Dirt streaked across his face and neck, his hair out of place from the run. He lifted a hand and wiped at it, smearing it more than cleaning it. As he did his hand drifted almost without thinking toward his pocket - fingers brushing the worn edge of the card there before dropping again.
Then something caught his eye in the reflection.
Across the courtyard. Light. Kate's room. Too bright.
That wasn't right. Kate always kept her room dark.
Jack turned - and his breath caught. There was a man inside, moving through the room with quiet precision, working through drawers and shelves and under the bed with the unhurried efficiency of someone doing a job they'd done before. Not looking for opportunity. Looking for something specific. The light behind him kept his face in shadow, and then the man paused, his head turning, and Jack followed the line of sight instinctively
Something cold slid through him.
Kate was walking along the corridor, heading straight for the room.
Jack snapped his gaze back to the window. The man moved - slipped behind the door, and was still.
Waiting.
Jack was already on his feet.
"KATE!"
His voice vanished into the grinding of the mill, swallowed before it could carry. He turned and sprinted along the balcony.