One week searching. Seven days. One hundred sixty-eight hours. No trace of Mya.
Kael sat in their empty warehouse and stared at shadows. Sometimes he talked to them. About the search. About Sara vanishing the night he returned alone. About the silence that pressed against his eardrums like deep water.
"Checked the old park today." His voice echoed off empty walls. "The one where we found that merchant's purse. Remember? You made me give it back."
The shadows didn't answer. They never did. But they listened. Had to. Someone had to.
This... the warehouse felt too large now. Every corner held ghost memories. Tom's cough. Patches' stories. Sara's silent smiles. Mya's lessons.
Gone. All gone. Like they'd never existed except in his breaking mind.
First day, he'd searched their meeting spots. The fountain. The abandoned chapel. The rooftop where she'd taught him to read patterns. Nothing.
Second day, he'd risked asking other gangs. Dangerous. Alone meant prey. But desperation drove him.
"Red-haired girl? Yeah, saw Kiratashi dragging someone Monday night." Scarface Willem had laughed. "Probably feeding spirits by now."
Feeding spirits? No. Mya was too smart. Too quick. Too...
Too curious. Just like he'd been. And curiosity in Ashenmoor meant death.
By the fourth day, he'd accepted what his heart already knew. The camps had her. Or worse... had already processed her.
Expired. Such a clean word.
"Thirty-seven copper saved." He counted coins for the hundredth time. "Plus the silver from that drunk guard. Finally enough for the information broker."
But information for what? To confirm she was gone? To learn details that would haunt him worse than not knowing?
"You'd want me to know." He told the shadows. "Always said knowing beat wondering."
The warehouse creaked agreement. Or age. Hard to tell anymore.
He'd stopped sleeping there after Sara vanished. Too many corners where friends used to breathe. Now he moved nightly. Different abandoned buildings. Different shadows to talk to.
"Stealing's harder alone," he admitted to a new shadow. "No one watching your back. No one to share with. Just surviving to survive."
Why? The question came often now. Why keep going? For what purpose?
For Mya. For answers. For the birthmark that burned whenever he passed sealed houses. For the certainty that something vast and terrible moved beneath Ashenmoor's surface.
The information broker operated from the old sewers. Everyone knew but no one talked about it. You brought payment. You asked questions. You got answers. Simple.
Finding the entrance took three hours. Seven different tunnel intersections. Two almost-drownings in sewage overflow. But finally... a door. Iron-bound wood marked with the same three circles from the camp documents.
Coincidence? Nothing felt coincidental anymore.
He knocked. Pattern Mya had taught him. Two short, three long, one short.
"Enter and be welcome, seeker."
The chamber beyond defied sewer expectations. Silk hangings. Bright lanterns. Incense covering worse smells. And in the center...
The broker wasn't what Kael expected. Ancient. Blind. Sitting cross-legged on embroidered cushions. But his smile...
"Ah, questions about the vanished." The old man's voice held layers. "They all come eventually. The ones who refuse to forget."
"I need to know about the camps." Kael placed his payment on the low table. "About processed prisoners. About a girl named Mya."
"Straight to the painful points." The broker's fingers found the coins without looking. Counted by touch. "Full payment. Good. The truth you seek costs more than coin, but coin's a start."
"What else does it cost?"
"Innocence. Hope. Sometimes sanity." The broker's blind eyes fixed on him with unnerving accuracy. "Still want answers?"
Did he? No. But need outweighed want.
"Tell me."
"The camps serve multiple purposes." The broker settled back. "Containment for those who've seen too much. Food for spirits that grow too dangerous. Research subjects for Council experiments."
"Food for spirits?"
"Spirits feed on emotion. On life force. On the spark that makes us human." A gesture encompassed unseen horrors. "Prisoners generate fear. Despair. Hope that becomes despair. Perfect cultivation."
This... Kael's stomach churned. Those crates of people. Packed like produce. Shipped to feed monsters.
"The girl. Red hair. Taken seven nights past." The broker continued. "Sent to Camp Seven. Still alive as of yesterday. Scheduled for processing in..."
He paused. Tilted his head as if listening to whispers.
"Thirteen days. New moon. They always process on new moons."
Thirteen days. Mya had thirteen days. Relief and terror warred in his chest.
"Can she be rescued?"
"From Camp Seven?" The broker laughed. Not cruelly. Sadly. "Three days north. Forty Kiratashi guards. Spirits patrol the perimeter. No one has ever escaped. No one has ever successfully raided."
"But theoretically..."
"Theoretically, you'd need to be Kiratashi yourself. Or have their power. Or be invisible to spirits." The broker leaned forward. "Are you any of those things, boy?"
No. He was just a street thief with a birthmark and too many questions.
"There must be another way."
"Perhaps." The broker's smile turned cryptic. "But that knowledge costs more than coin. Much more."
"What price?"
"A service. A task. A thing retrieved." Blind eyes studied him. "North of here, past the ruins of Grenwald, lies an abandoned manor. Inside, a box. Brass and silver. Marked with symbols. Bring it to me."
"What's in it?"
"Questions about questions?" The broker tsked. "That costs extra."
A trap? Probably. But Mya had thirteen days. Twelve now. Time bled away with each heartbeat.
"I'll get your box."
"Excellent." The broker produced a map from nowhere. Handed it over. "Follow this exactly. Deviate and things worse than death await. The manor has... residents."
"Spirits?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps worse." The broker waved dismissal. "Return with the box. Then we discuss impossible rescues."
Outside, afternoon sun felt alien after the broker's chamber. Kael studied the map. Two days to Grenwald. Another to the manor. Four days total if nothing went wrong.
Everything would go wrong. It always did.
But Mya waited in Camp Seven. Waited for processing. For expiration. For someone to remember she'd existed.
"I'm coming," he told her shadow. It flickered agreement in the corner of his eye.
That night, he prepared. Stole travel food. Water skins. A better knife. Boots that actually fit. Each theft felt like armor against the journey ahead.
The warehouse called one last time. He entered, gathered Tom's old blanket. Mya's favorite cup. Sara's hand signs carved in wood. Patches' first successful steal, a brass button.
Memories. All he had left of them.
"Watch the place while I'm gone," he told the shadows. They stretched and nodded. Good shadows. Loyal shadows.
Dawn found him at Ashenmoor's north gate. The road stretched toward Grenwald's ruins. Toward a manor with residents. Toward a brass and silver box that might buy impossible knowledge.
His birthmark throbbed with each step. Warning? Encouragement? Did it matter?
Mya had twelve days. He had four to earn the right to try saving her. The math was simple. The execution...
Well. He'd learned to do impossible things. Survive parents' death. Live on streets. Watch friends die. One more impossibility couldn't be worse.
Could it?
The road unwound before him. Behind, Ashenmoor's shadows waved goodbye. Or farewell. In this life, the distinction blurred.
"Brass and silver box," he muttered. "From a manor with residents. To save a girl from spirit food camps. Tom would say I've gone mad."
But Tom was dead. And Mya wasn't. Not yet.
Not yet.
That had to count for something.