The rain in the upper districts was cold, but the rain in the Under-City was filthy.
As I descended the winding, rusted iron stairs that led away from the glowing boulevards of Oakhaven, the air changed. The smell of expensive perfumes and ozone was replaced by the stench of stagnant water, coal smoke, and the heavy, metallic scent of blood.
The Under-City was a labyrinth of damp stone and rotting timber, built directly into the foundations of the world above. Up there, the Marks were brilliant and proud. Down here, the light was dying.
I kept my hand clamped over the locket in my pocket. My knuckles were white. The "Dream Veins" I had seen earlier were thinner here, flickering like a dying candle. The people I passed didn't look like the Master Designers or the High Scholars of the surface. They were ghosts in human skin.
I saw a woman sitting in a doorway, her wrist glowing with a fractured, sickly green light. It pulsed unevenly, throwing distorted shadows against the wall. She was a 'Gardener' whose Mark had "cracked"—a tragedy in this world. Once your Mark broke, you were no longer a person; you were scrap.
"Spare a second?" she croaked, reaching out a withered hand. "Just a second of a dream? I've forgotten the smell of a rose..."
I pulled my tattered cloak tighter around my shoulders and hurried past. I had no "seconds" to give. I had no dreams at all.
"Hey! Watch it, Blank!"
A heavy shoulder slammed into mine, spinning me around. I stumbled, my boots slipping on a patch of black sludge. I looked up to see a group of three men. Their Marks were dim—dull browns and greys—but they were large and hungry.
"Look at this," the leader sneered, pointing at my bare wrists. "A fresh Blank. No Mark, no protection. And she's carrying something heavy in that pocket, isn't she?"
My heart plummeted. The locket.
"I have nothing," I whispered, my voice cracking. "Please. I'm just passing through."
"The Void-Tax says otherwise," the man grinned, revealing yellowed teeth. He reached for me, his dull brown Mark glowing with a weak, muddy light.
I backed away, my heels hitting the edge of a sheer drop into a lower drainage canal. My mind raced. The locket. Use the locket! But my thumb couldn't find the center. I was too panicked, too cold.
Suddenly, a blur of motion dropped from the rafters above.
Thwack!
A heavy wooden staff slammed into the leader's wrist, sending him howling to the ground. A figure landed gracefully between me and the thugs. He was thin, wearing a hooded vest made of stitched-together leather scraps, and his movements were terrifyingly fast.
"Move along, Grogan," the newcomer said. His voice was young, teasing, but sharp as a needle. "She's under the protection of the Warrens tonight."
The thugs looked at the staff, then at the boy's neck. A jagged, broken Blue Mark was etched into his collarbone. It didn't glow steadily; it sparked like a short-circuiting wire.
"The Shattered Blue," the leader spat, clutching his wrist. "Fine. Keep the trash. She'll be dead by morning anyway."
The thugs retreated into the fog, cursing under their breath.
The boy turned around. He pulled back his hood to reveal messy, chestnut hair and a pair of eyes that were far too observant for someone his age. He looked to be about nineteen, but the exhaustion in his face made him look older.
"You're a long way from the silver streets, little ghost," he said, leaning on his staff. He looked at my wrists, then at my face. "And you're surprisingly clean for a Blank. Usually, your kind is covered in more than just rain."
"Who are you?" I asked, my hand still clutching the locket through the fabric of my dress.
"Name's Jaxon," he said, giving a mock bow. "I'm the resident expert on things that are broken. Like my Mark, and like... whatever you're hiding in that pocket."
I stiffened. "I'm not hiding anything."
Jaxon laughed, a sharp, bright sound that felt out of place in the gloom. "Don't lie to a Blue, even a broken one. My Mark used to be 'Architectural Logic.' I can see the weight of things. That's no piece of bread in your pocket. It's dense. It's old. And it's radiating a silence so loud it's giving me a headache."
He stepped closer, his eyes narrowing. "You're the one they're talking about, aren't you? The girl who escaped the Emporium. The 'Ghost Key.'"
I took a step back, my eyes darting for an exit.
"Relax," Jaxon said, holding up his hands. "I don't care about Kael's gold or the Hunter's bounty. In the Under-City, we don't work for the 'Dreamers.' We survive in spite of them."
He looked up at the ceiling of the cavern, where the faint, distant lights of the upper city shined through the grates.
"You think you're cursed because you don't have a dream," he said, his voice dropping to a serious tone. "But up there, their dreams are their leashes. Down here? We might be starving, but no one tells us when to blink."
He turned and started walking deeper into the maze of pipes and shadows. "Come on. If you stay here, the 'Sniffers' will find you. I know a place where the magic is too thin for even a Crimson Mark to track."
I hesitated. I didn't know this boy. I didn't know if he was leading me into a trap or a sanctuary. But then I felt the locket. It was warm. Not the frantic pulsing from before, but a steady, welcoming heat.
It trusted him. Or, at least, it wanted me to follow him.
"Why are you helping me?" I called out.
Jaxon paused, looking back over his shoulder. The sparks from his broken Blue Mark cast a flickering light over his face.
"Because," he said with a crooked smile. "I've always wanted to see what happens when you throw a stone into a perfectly still pond. And you, Six... you're a very big stone."
I followed him. As we dived deeper into the heart of the Under-City, the light of Oakhaven faded until it was nothing but a memory.
I was a girl without a dream, walking into the dark with a boy who had a broken one. And for the first time, the "void" inside me didn't feel like a hole. It felt like a beginning.