The empty warehouse echoed with absence. Kael had returned to find even the shadows gone, as if they'd given up waiting.
Should he search the usual spots again? The fountain where Mya taught him to spot marks? The chapel where they'd hidden from winter storms?
No. He'd checked everywhere. Seven days of searching had revealed only echoes and ghosts. Street children saw her dragged toward the industrial district. After that... smoke in the wind.
"Like she never existed," he said to no one.
But she had. The half-healed cut on his palm from their blood oath proved it. The muscle memory of her pickpocket lessons. The way his eyes still checked rooftops for her signal.
This... he couldn't accept she was simply gone. Not Mya. Too smart. Too quick. Too alive to just vanish.
The information broker operated from the old sewers. Everyone knew but no one talked. You brought payment. Asked questions. Got answers. Or got dead, depending.
Did he have enough? Kael counted again. Forty-three copper. Plus the silver from the guard's papers. The broker charged fifty silver for real information. He had enough. Barely.
Finding the entrance took three hours. Seven different tunnel intersections. Two near-drownings in overflow channels. The smell alone could kill. But finally... a door. Iron-bound oak marked with symbols that made his birthmark itch.
Was that the same symbol from the warehouse? From the sealed houses? Three interlocking circles with strange marks...
He knocked the pattern every street child learned. Two short, three long, one short.
"Enter and be enriched or impoverished," came a voice like grinding stone.
The chamber beyond mocked its sewer location. Silk hangings in deep purple. Lanterns casting golden light. Incense thick enough to taste. And in the center, cushions surrounding a low table where...
Ah. Not what he'd expected. The broker was ancient. Male? Female? Impossible to tell. Blind eyes like milk glass. Skin so wrinkled it seemed to fold into itself. But the smell of power rolled off them like heat from a forge.
"Young seeker." The voice held amusement. "Questions about the vanished, yes? They all come eventually. The ones who can't let go."
How did they know? But of course they knew. Information was their trade.
"My friend. Taken seven nights ago. Red hair. Called herself Mya." He placed his payment carefully. "I need to know where."
"Straight to pain. No foreplay. I appreciate directness." Gnarled fingers found the coins without sight. Counted by touch. "Full payment. Good. The truth you seek costs dear, but you've paid in coin. Whether you can pay in spirit remains to be seen."
"Just tell me."
"The black coats took her. As you already suspected." The broker settled back into cushions. "Processing camps exist. As you already discovered. Your friend asked too many questions. As you already knew."
"Is she alive?"
"As of this morning? Yes. Scheduled for processing in thirteen nights. New moon. They always feed on the new moon."
Feed. Not execute. Not kill. Feed.
"Feed to what?"
"Spirits, boy. Spirits that grow too dangerous for normal containment. The camps provide... sustenance. Emotion. Life force. Whatever you call the spark that makes us human."
The wagons of unconscious people. Crates marked fragile. All food for monsters. His stomach rebelled. He forced it calm.
"Which camp?"
"Seven. Three days north. In the ruins of what was once Grenneth Village." The broker smiled, revealing teeth too sharp for comfort. "Forty Kiratashi guard it. Spirits patrol the perimeter. No one has ever escaped. No one has ever successfully raided."
"But she's alive."
"For thirteen more days. Unless she's selected early. The spirits grow hungry between scheduled feedings."
Thirteen days. It seemed like forever. It seemed like nothing. How could he possibly...?
"Tell me how to save her."
"Save her?" The broker laughed. Not cruel. Not kind. Just... amused. "Boy, you'd need to be Kiratashi yourself. Or invisible to spirits. Or possess power beyond mortal ken. Are you any of these?"
No. He was a street thief with a birthmark and desperate hope. But...
"There must be a way."
"Must there?" The broker leaned forward. Studied him with those blind eyes. "Tell me, why does your birthmark burn in my presence?"
How did...? Kael's hand flew to his neck. The birthmark blazed like fresh branded.
"Interesting." The broker inhaled deeply. "You smell of old protection. Of promises made before birth. Of things I haven't encountered in... oh, decades at least."
"What does that mean?"
"It means, young seeker, that you might... might... have one impossible option." The broker stood with creaking joints. "But it requires becoming something else. Something more. Something that might save your friend but doom yourself."
"Tell me."
"North of here, past the border, an old man lives in caves. Garrett the Wise, some call him. Garrett the Mad, say others. He knows the old ways. The binding ways. The paths to power that the Council tries to hide."
"Binding ways?"
"How to become Kiratashi without their schools. Without their rules. Without their permission." The broker's smile was all edges. "But the price... ninety-nine of a hundred die trying. The hundredth often wishes they had."
One percent chance. Better than zero.
"How do I find him?"
"Follow the old mining road north. When you reach the split oak, go east. Look for caves marked with the warning hand. He'll find you. If you're meant to meet."
If he was meant to meet. Everything came down to fate these days.
"Why tell me this? What's your gain?"
"My gain?" The broker laughed again. "Boy, I trade in information. And you... you're going to generate so much interesting information. Whether you save your friend or die trying. Whether you become Kiratashi or become food. Every outcome profits me."
This... of course. Everyone had angles. Everyone played games. Even when offering help.
But Mya had twelve days now. Eleven tomorrow. Time bled away while he hesitated.
"One more question." He had to know. "The camps. How many people...?"
"Thousands. Tens of thousands. Every major city has several. Every spirit needs feeding. Every month, more vanish." The broker settled back. "The Kingdom survives because citizens don't see. Don't know. Don't ask. Your friend asked. Now she pays."
"And if everyone knew?"
"Then the Kingdom falls. Spirits run wild. Humanity dies screaming." The broker waved dismissal. "The camps are evil that prevents greater evil. Or so the Council claims. Who am I to judge? I just sell truth."
Truth. Such a heavy word for such a terrible thing.
Kael left through the iron door. The sewers seemed cleaner than that silk-draped chamber. At least sewage was honest about what it was.
Three days north to Garrett. Unknown time to convince him. Then somehow become Kiratashi? In time to raid a camp that had never been raided?
Impossible. But Mya waited. Counted days. Maybe remembered the friend who'd promised to watch her back.
"I'm trying," he told the empty air. "I'm coming."
The warehouse called one last time. He entered, gathered supplies. Stole better boots. A traveling cloak. Dried meat and hard bread. Each theft felt like armor against the journey ahead.
In their corner, he found one of Mya's hair ribbons. Red like her hair. Like the blood they'd shared swearing to protect each other. He tied it around his wrist.
"For luck," he told the shadows.
But shadows had no luck to give. Only echoes of what was lost.
Dawn found him walking north. The old mining road stretched ahead, rutted and weed-choked. Few traveled this way anymore. Too close to the borderlands where rumors said spirits roamed free.
Good. Fewer people meant fewer questions. And he'd had enough of questions that led to camps.
His birthmark throbbed with each step. Toward what? Salvation? Damnation? Did the distinction matter anymore?
Mya had eleven days. He had hope and a mad hermit's maybe-knowledge. The math was impossible.
But then, he'd specialized in impossible since blue light took everything.
One foot. Then another. Then another. The road unwound before him like fate itself.
Coming, Mya. Still coming.