The rain didn't fall in the city; it haunted it. It was a cold, miserable drizzle that turned the neon signs of the central station into bleeding smears of light. Ren stood under the shadows of the massive stone arches, his body shivering so hard his teeth clicked.
His torn silk shirt—worth more than most people made in a month—was now a wet, grey rag. He looked like a ghost, but his eyes were fixed. He was breathing in the scent of wet pavement and diesel until he found it.
Cloves.
Sweet, spicy, and dangerous. The scent of the "Red X." The scent of Jace's secrets.
Ren followed the smoke. Standing by the row of rusted lockers in the "Red X" terminal was a man who looked like he had been carved out of the city's greyest concrete. He wore a long trench coat, a fedora pulled low, and a scar that ran from his ear to the corner of a mouth that hadn't smiled in a decade.
Ren stepped out of the shadows. He didn't wait for permission. He didn't ask for help. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the silver spoon, holding it up like a holy relic.
The man in the grey coat took a long drag of his cigarette, the ember glowing like a dying star. He looked at the spoon, then at the boy with the bruised face and the "Golden Boy" eyes.
"The piano player," the man rasped. His voice sounded like stones grinding together. "Jace said you were soft. He didn't say you were a fugitive."
"Where is the locker?" Ren asked, his voice steady even though his heart was a drum solo of terror.
The man, Klaus, blew a cloud of clove-scented smoke into Ren's face. "Locker 402. But the key isn't for a boy who looks like he's about to faint. Jace told me if you showed up alone, it meant he was dead or worse. He told me to give you the passport and put you on the 4:00 AM to Brussels."
"He's not dead," Ren snapped, stepping into Klaus's space. The "Ghost of Berlin" was starting to haunt his movements. "He's in a cellar. And my father is going to break his hands."
Klaus's eyes flickered. For a second, a shadow of something like respect crossed his face. He reached into his coat, pulled out a heavy brass key, and shoved it into Ren's hand.
Locker 402 groaned as it opened. Inside was a small, battered leather satchel. Ren grabbed it, his fingers trembling as he unzipped it.
There was a passport. A stack of crumpled Euros. And at the bottom, a single, bent Polaroid.
Ren pulled it out and felt his knees go weak. It was a photo of him. He was at the piano in the warehouse back in Berlin, his eyes closed, lost in a melody he thought no one was listening to. On the back, in Jace's messy, charcoal-stained handwriting, were six words that broke Ren's heart into a million pieces:
"The only music worth listening to."
Jace hadn't just been hiding Ren. He had been worshipping him. He had planned this escape weeks ago—not for them, but for Ren. Jace had always intended to be the sacrifice.
"The train leaves in twenty minutes, kid," Klaus said, leaning against the lockers. "Take the bag. Disappear. That's what drummers do for people like you. They play the rhythm so you can dance away."
Ren clutched the Polaroid to his chest. He looked at the massive station clock. 3:15 AM. In the cellar of the Laurent Estate, a security guard was probably reaching for Jace's hand right now. Break a finger for every note.
"No," Ren whispered.
"Excuse me?"
"I'm not going to Brussels." Ren turned to Klaus, his face pale and sharp under the flickering fluorescent lights. "Jace told me to find you because you know how to get into places where people aren't invited. You're the one who handled the Berlin heists."
Klaus laughed—a dry, hacking sound. "You want to break back into the Laurent Estate? That's not a heist, kid. That's a suicide pact. That place has more sensors than the national bank."
"I don't need to steal money," Ren said, his voice dropping an octave, becoming cold and calculated. "I need to steal the power. If the lights go out, the sensors go dark. If the sensors go dark, the 'Golden Boy' can become a ghost."
Ren reached into the satchel and pulled out the stack of Euros, shoving them into Klaus's hand.
"You told Jace I was soft," Ren said, his eyes burning with a dark, beautiful madness. "Show me how to shut down the Laurent grid. I'm not playing Mozart anymore. I'm playing a war."
Klaus stared at him for a long beat, then dropped his cigarette and crushed it under his boot. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, black device that looked like a detonator, but was actually a high-frequency jammer.
"Jace was wrong," Klaus muttered, a dark grin tugging at his scar. "You're not soft. You're just a different kind of loud."
Klaus handed Ren the jammer and a map of the estate's underground electrical vaults.
"You have one hour before the sun comes up," Klaus warned. "If you're not out by then, you both die in that cellar."
Ren didn't wait. He turned and ran back into the rain, the Polaroid tucked safely against his heart. He wasn't running away anymore. He was the noise. And he was coming to take his drummer back.