Ilia surfaced from the tunnel just before dawn, her coat slick with sweat despite the morning chill. The fragment pulsed faintly in her pocket — warm, irregular, aware.
The city above felt… off. She couldn't say how, but the air carried a new weight, like something had leaned closer. The rain had stopped, and Calligro was holding its breath.
She took back alleys. Avoided windows. Reached the meeting point by the old brass mill, where a rusted sign still creaked in the wind: Refinement Builds Character.
No one was there.
She waited fifteen minutes before circling the building and rapping twice, then once, on the back door. No answer.
Then a low voice spoke beside her: "Where's Vex?"
Ilia turned fast, but not fast enough — Rien was already there, half-shadow, half-smirk. "Easy," he said. "You're jumpy."
"You weren't supposed to split from him."
"He wasn't supposed to get followed." Rien tilted his head. "You have it, don't you?"
Ilia didn't answer. She only met his eyes.
Rien sighed. "Come on. We can't go back to the cellar. There's been… a shift."
"A shift?" she asked, already moving.
"Someone leaked. Someone got paid. Don't know who, don't know what they said — but the Order showed up. Quietly. With knives."
Ilia cursed under her breath. "And Vex?"
"Gone before they arrived," Rien said. "But he left this." He handed her a folded note, smudged with oil. On it: a symbol drawn in dark ink — a stylized hourglass crossed by a vertical slash.
Ilia's blood ran cold. "The Split Circle."
Rien nodded. "He thinks they're involved now."
"Then we're not safe anywhere."
"No," Rien said, glancing at her pocket. "But that's not helping."
Ilia pulled out the fragment. Its surface had changed. It now bore faint, shifting symbols — none of which had been there before. Worse, her palm itched where it had touched her.
"It's syncing with you," Rien said, his voice quieter now. "That's what they do."
"How do you know?"
"I've seen someone else carry one. Once." He looked away. "Didn't end well."
They walked in silence toward the drop house — a crooked building by the ink river with no real door and far too many locks. Inside, they lit no lights. Rien poured bitter coffee into chipped cups.
"What do they want with me?" Ilia finally asked. "The Order, the Circle — all of them. Why me?"
Rien didn't answer for a while. Then:
"Because they thought the last one died."
Ilia stared.
"You're not the first," he said, voice low. "Just the only one left."