The Neutral Zone didn't have streets; it had "Veins." They were narrow, winding passages carved through the colossal, rusted skeletons of the old filtration plant. Above us, the "Low-Basin" ceiling dripped with a slow, rhythmic plink-plink of condensed grease and grey water.
The air here was thick—not with the clean ozone of the Spires, but with the smell of cheap tobacco, roasting rat-meat, and the heavy, humid heat of ten thousand bodies crammed into a space built for none.
"Kaelen," Elara whispered, her porcelain joints making a dry, rasping sound with every step. Her golden light had dimmed to a faint, sunset orange. "The people here... their eyes. They aren't like the ones in the Sinks."
I didn't stop. I leaned my weight onto my right side, my left arm tucked into my coat like a broken wing. "In the Sinks, people are afraid of the Watch. Here, they're afraid of the man standing next to them. It's a different kind of survival."
The father, whose silk robes were now little more than soot-stained rags, was shaking so hard I could hear his teeth chattering. "We... we need a doctor. Or a mechanic. Someone to fix her... and you."
"We need a hole to crawl into," I snapped, my eyes scanning the shadows of the "Market-Pipe" ahead.
I saw them before they saw us. Three men leaning against a pile of rusted pressure-valves. They wore "Filter-Masks" made of bone and scrap metal, and their arms were covered in the blue, jagged tattoos of the Silt-Sharks—the gang that controlled the water-flow in the Basin.
One of them was holding a crumpled piece of parchment. He looked at it, then looked at my iron-notched blade.
"Ten thousand silver," the man muttered, his voice muffled by the bone-mask. "The Ferryman and his porcelain doll. The bounty-scryers weren't lying."
The Market-Pipe went silent. The traders—selling everything from salvaged gears to fermented moss—stopped their shouting. A hundred pairs of eyes locked onto Elara's sapphire-blue gaze.
"Keep walking," I whispered to her.
"They want the Key, Kaelen," she said, her head tilting with a mechanical click. "I can feel their hunger. It's... louder than the Leeches."
The Silt-Sharks stepped into our path. The leader, a man with a prosthetic jaw made of jagged iron, pulled a heavy, serrated cleaver from his belt.
"The Neutral Zone has a toll, Ferryman," Iron-Jaw growled. "And today, the price is the girl. Hand her over, and we might let you bleed out in an alley instead of hanging you from the Spires' bridge."
I didn't reach for my sword. My right hand was too shaky, and my left was useless. I looked at the ceiling—at a massive, vibrating steam-pipe that fed the upper shanties.
"I'm tired," I said, my voice sounding like gravel. "I've driven three districts, fought a Stalker, and outrun the Watch. I don't have the energy to kill you, Shark."
Iron-Jaw laughed—a wet, rattling sound. "Then die easy."
He lunged.
I didn't move. Elara did.
She didn't use a pulse of light this time. She stepped forward, her porcelain hand moving with the speed of a spring-loaded trap. She caught the Shark's wrist before the cleaver could fall.
CRACK.
The sound of bone snapping echoed through the pipe. Iron-Jaw let out a choked scream as Elara twisted his arm with a strength that defied her fragile appearance.
"He is the Ferryman," she said, her sapphire eyes turning a cold, electric white. "And I am the one who pays the fare. Do not touch him again."
The other two Sharks hesitated, their eyes wide. They were used to fighting desperate men, not clockwork nightmares that could break a man's arm with a three-fingered grip.
"Get... her!" Iron-Jaw wheezed, clutching his shattered wrist.
I saw the second Shark reach for a hidden flint-pistol.
Before he could level it, a heavy, black iron bolt hissed through the air, pinning the man's sleeve to the rusted wall behind him.
"That's enough," a new voice boomed—a woman's voice, deep and resonant.
From the shadows of an overhead catwalk, a figure descended on a pulley. She wore a heavy leather duster and carried a double-barreled crossbow that looked like it was made from a ship's cannon. Her face was a map of scars, and her eyes were a piercing, intelligent green.
"The Silt-Sharks are getting greedy," she said, landing softly in the soot. "Trying to claim a Spire-bounty on my turf? That's a fast way to find the bottom of the sump."
The Sharks scrambled backward, dragging their leader with them. "This isn't over, Cora!" Iron-Jaw spat, before disappearing into the dark of the pipe.
The woman, Cora, turned to me. She didn't look at the father. She didn't even look at the porcelain girl. She looked at the notched blade at my hip.
"Kaelen," she said, a ghost of a smile touching her scarred lips. "I thought you died in the War. You still owe me five silver for that bottle of Rot-Gut in the trenches."
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Cora. I'm a bit short on change right now."
"I can see that," she said, her eyes drifting to my blackened arm. "And I can see you've brought the most expensive cargo in the world into my house. Come on. Before the Sharks bring the rest of the school."