The rain didn't just fall in the Middle-Rings; it hummed. It struck the enchanted streetlamps and turned into a fine, glowing mist that clung to the carriage's curtains.
In the Aether-lens, the red spark wasn't just following us anymore. It was gaining.
Thump.
The roof of the carriage groaned. The wood creaked under a weight that shouldn't have been there. My construct-horse let out a mechanical hiss, its brass gears grinding as it sensed an unauthorized presence on the vehicle.
"Stay down," I growled toward the passenger's hatch.
"Is it the Hand?" the father's voice was a thin, trembling thread.
"Worse," I said, my eyes locked on the road ahead. "It's a Stalker."
In the lens, I saw a hand—long, thin, and wrapped in bandages of shifting shadow—reach over the edge of the roof. It wasn't reaching for me. It was reaching for the luggage rack where the Soul-Trace was hidden.
I didn't reach for my blade. In a chase, steel is for the desperate. I reached for the Kinetic Brake.
I slammed the lever forward. The iron-rimmed wheels locked instantly, sparking against the wet cobblestones with a scream of metal on stone. The carriage jerked violently, fishtailing to the left.
The shadow on the roof wasn't prepared for the sudden loss of momentum. With a snarl of displaced air, the Stalker was flung forward. He tumbled over the driver's box, a blur of charcoal-grey rags and glowing red goggles, hitting the street ten feet in front of the horse.
He didn't hit the ground like a man. He hit it like a cat, flipping in mid-air and digging his clawed fingertips into the stone to stop his slide.
"Ferryman," the Stalker hissed. His voice didn't come from his mouth; it vibrated out of the shadows around him. "That soul belongs to the Spire. Hand it over, and I might leave you enough skin to keep driving."
I didn't stop. I kicked the "Overdrive" pedal. The construct-horse's eyes flared a brilliant, angry orange. Its legs moved in a blurred frenzy, the carriage leaping forward to trample the assassin.
The Stalker didn't move. He simply dissolved.
He turned into a cloud of black ink a split second before the horse hit him. The carriage passed through the mist, the air turning ice-cold for a heartbeat.
Shadow-Blink. An A-Rank ability.
"He's behind us!" the passenger screamed.
I looked in the mirror. The Stalker had reappeared on the rear footboard of the carriage. He was tearing at the leather curtains with his bare hands, the shadows around his fingers sharpening into obsidian blades.
The vial—the child's soul—was chiming frantically now. The sound was high-pitched, a desperate rhythmic pulse that seemed to draw the Stalker closer like a moth to a flame.
My loneliness had taught me one thing: when you have no one to watch your back, you turn your surroundings into a weapon.
We were entering the Clock-District. The streets here were narrow, lined with massive, rotating gears that powered the city's public chronometers. The air was thick with the smell of grease and ticking metal.
"Hold on to something," I muttered.
I steered the carriage toward a massive, rotating brass gear that protruded from a workshop wall. There was barely six inches of clearance between the gear and the carriage's side.
The Stalker, still clinging to the side, realized the trap too late. He tried to blink again, but the heavy magnetic field of the clockwork gears interfered with his shadow-magic.
CRUNCH.
The rotating brass teeth caught the Stalker's shoulder. He let out a rasping shriek as he was scraped off the side of the carriage, his shadow-form flickering and breaking like a dying candle.
He fell into the darkness of the clock-pits, but I knew he wasn't dead. A-Rankers didn't die that easily.
I didn't slow down. My heart was thumping a slow, heavy rhythm against my ribs—the only sound in my world that wasn't mechanical.
"We're close," I said, my voice rasping. "The Dead-Zone is just past the next bridge. Once we're inside, he can't blink. He'll have to fight like a mortal."
"And you?" the father asked, peeking through the bars. "Can you fight like a mortal?"
I looked at my hand. It was steady, but the "fracture" in my mana-core was beginning to glow through my skin, a jagged line of white light.
"I've forgotten how to do anything else," I replied.
The bridge loomed ahead—a dark, stone structure that felt cold even in the rain. Beyond it, the lights of the city seemed to dim, as if the magic itself was afraid to enter.