The Vivid Dream arrived at six in the morning, shrouded in drizzle and steam.
It was a long, narrow-bodied passenger ship — all iron railings and faded blue trim — gliding up the gray river like a lost specter wandering in the afterlife. The dockworkers were already shouting as ropes were thrown and gates drawn; the crowd surged forward with impatient footsteps and soaked clothes, eyes searching for friends, relatives, goods.
Adrian stood beside the fishmonger's stall, its smell sharp and unpleasant. His gray coat was too thin for the weather and soaked at the cuffs. Rupert was fifty meters away atop the crane, scanning the crowd from above. Erika paced beneath the arches of the market hall, pretending to inspect fabrics. Helge was nearest to the ship, revolver hidden in a leather satchel.
They had rehearsed this, but none of them was prepared for the sight of Irvin limping down the gangplank, soaked in sweat and blood. He wore his university coat, but one sleeve was torn. He walked slowly, his weight shifted strangely, as though his ribs were broken, or at least injured in some other minor way. A thin line of something dark — blood, probably — traced down from his jaw to his collar, and yet his expression was still lucid, like always.
A few steps behind him, moving effortlessly through the crowd, came another man.
Adrian felt his stomach turn. He didn't know how, but he knew. That was the hunter.
Rupert saw him, too. From his perch, he leaned forward, elbows on the cold iron. He narrowed his eyes and drew the breath inward. It was the easiest way to do it: hold the air, hold the body, hold the mind and don't let it wander off on its own. Focus your power in your eyes,
then —
Emotion.
It struck him like gelid rain on bare skin. The man's feelings were not buried, not even cloacked. It was naked and palpable — focused hatred. There was no curiosity in him, no confusion, no doubt. He knew who he was following, and he meant to kill him.
Rupert swallowed hard and raised one hand — three fingers to the sky, the signal they'd agreed on.
The other three caught it.
The crowd was shifting again as passengers stepped onto the pier, merging with families and friends. The hunter was gaining on Irvin, step by step.
Adrian knew he had to improvise something. He took two steps forward, then shoved hard into the shoulder of a nearby sailor, tipping the stack of crates he was carrying directly into the path of the crowd.
The crash was thunderous. People swore. A child shrieked. In the chaos, Irvin stumbled sideways. Erika, who had guessed what Adrian was about to do, grabbed him by the arm. "Move!" she hissed. He didn't need to be told twice.
They ran.
Helge ducked through the alley first, signaling with a flick of his wrist. Rupert had already dropped from the crane and was sprinting after them. The dock noise melted behind them as they vanished into the tanner's passage, breath rising in quickly dissipating clouds, boots slamming slick cobblestone.
Adrian heard a voice cry out behind them in a language he didn't know. The voice was directed at the students, there was no mistaking it.
He didn't look back.
They turned into the apothecary's quarter — all cracked windows and dye-stained puddles — and pushed toward the second footbridge. Erika was panting hard. Irvin stumbled again, caught himself. They had to carry him by force to keep him from tripping every third step he took. Rupert was at his side now, holding him up.
Adrian shouted: "Shed! Go!"
They burst through the door seconds later, slamming it behind them.
The old hut was damp and nearly falling apart. Tools rusted in racks. One window had long been replaced with a sheet of cloth.
They collapsed onto crates, coughing, gasping.
Irvin leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.
"I missed you," he said. Then, softly: "Sorry, but we might all die."
The rain pattered on the roof like fingers on a table. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of old metal and rotting rope.
Rupert was the first to kneel beside Irvin. He carried his university-mandated medical provisions. He kept insisting having constant access to medicines was the best thing about his department.
"Leg, as I've written." Irvin said, lifting his coat and unbuckling the boot with a wince. "I think they caught me with something cursed, but I can't guess the exact catalyst they used."
Rupert's brow furrowed as he pulled the cloth aside. Erika turned away. Adrian, for once, had no comment.
Where there should have been blood, bone, swelling — there was only wrongness.
The skin was intact but discolored: grey and pale violet, like a bruise caught halfway through fading. The shape of the shin was subtly warped, the joint of the ankle twisting in a way that reminded Helge of driftwood ruined by the tide. Rupert's hands hovered over it, uncertain whether and where to touch. By gently feeling the injury he discovered it pulsed with a strange cold, as if it belonged to another climate entirely.
"This isn't medical," Rupert muttered. "This isn't even human. It's as if they managed to invoke northern winds... no, dammit, that's not it."
Irvin smiled faintly, as if entirely unconcerned. "Told you. I don't think any normal doctor would manage to save it."
"Does it hurt?" Erika asked, still not daring to look at the wound.
Irvin opened his mouth, then paused. "No," he said slowly, as if not quite sure. "Not anymore. But it doesn't feel like mine, either."
They sat in silence a moment longer. Then Adrian, restless as ever, broke it.
"Alright," he said. "You owe us an explanation. What the hell happened?"
Irvin reached into his satchel and drew out a cloth-wrapped object — small, rectangular, bound in black leather, a single star stylized in gold on the cover. The moment he set it down, the room felt heavier. The grimoire.
"I found it in a ruined chapel near the heart of the swamps," Irvin said. "Don't ask how I got the location, you wouldn't like the answer. The building was half-eaten by the earth, but someone had left it marked. Symbols inscribed in the stone, wax on the walls. And this was still on the altar. I don't know why they chose to leave it there. Honestly, the way those people think is a mystery to me." He touched the book's cover with something like reverence — or fear.
"And they are...?" Rupert asked.
"I don't know their name. But they were already there, clearly. I either got to the prize first or that was their base of operations."
Erika crossed her arms, a look of disbelief plain on her face for all to see. "You stole it from a cult, didn't you? You're a complete idiot."
"I borrowed it from people who wanted to use it for worse things than I ever could."
Adrian tilted his head. "Worse like…?"
Irvin shrugged. "Didn't stay to find out." The others sighed. He really had just stolen it without checking whether or not it belonged to someone who could pose a threat. His ridiculous attempt at justifying his action would have been humorous in other circumstances, but not now.
He reached for a folded piece of paper in his right pocket— a dock map, damp and torn — and spread it on a crate.
"Let me show you what I did find out."
He took a fountain pen from the same coat pocket and drew a thin line of ink across the page — east to west, stopping just short of the ferry terminal where he had arrived. Then he sat very still. His eyes darkened, the pupils narrowing as though to slits. The air grew still, and even damper than it already was. A thread of what appeared to be mist appeared in one corner of the shed.
The ink shimmered. The line bent.
It curled like something alive, coiling around the middle of the page. It paused there, pulsing faintly. Then the edges of the map began to yellow, the ink bleeding outward, veins of darkness spreading from the center like the roots of a plant drawn in reverse. It stopped again in two different points.
A whisper filled the shed — not words, not even a voice, more like the sound of wind on a silent night. Then the shimmer faded. Irvin blinked once, and the map returned to stillness.
"Tomorrow," he said, tapping the place where the ink had stopped the first time, "I'd be safest here. This house, on the hill. Today, it was the very place we're in right now. Yesterday, it was a locked basement in the distillery two streets over. Not that I could use that information in any meaningful way."
"You're divining?" Rupert breathed. "You're not just sensing luck, this is actual divination!"
"I can't control it," Irvin said, a faint smile curving his lips. "Not fully. I can just peek behind the curtain. See where danger lies and where the world shows the slightest glimmer of hope. I don't see why you're so surprised. Helge's water vision is divination too, you know."
Erika waved the objection aside. "Helge sees trough space, you're doing it with time. I can't even guess how you have enough mana to attempt something like that, let alone make it work. And with just ink and paper? That's so far beyond what any of us can't do it's not even funny."
Adrian laughed out loud. "You always were the clever one. This suits you."
Helge, who had said little since they'd arrived, finally spoke. "This isn't safe. That wound isn't just damage, it's a message. If they can do that — through water, is my personal guess — they might be watching even now."
"What do you mean?" Rupert asked, hesitantly.
"It's raining." Helge pointed out. He didn't need to add anything else.
Erika stood and smoothed her coat. "Then we shouldn't stay here. They'll check the campus eventually, if they have figured out you're a student, which we should assume they have. My house is clean — I doubt anyone even remembers I live there at this point. It was also the first spot that appeared on your map when you cast the spell."
Adrian raised an eyebrow. "Won't your steward raise questions?"
"You underestimate how boring of a person I am," Erika said. "I'll feed him a little white lie, he won't ask anything."
They helped Irvin to his feet. Rupert grabbed him under one of his arms to steady him. Helge scouted the street outside. In a few moments, Weyer's old alleys swallowed them up once more.
But something had changed. For the first time all five of them were together facing an enemy bigger than them— hunted, hiding, bearing power they barely understood.
The game, faking their way trough life, indulging in their childish fantasies of what they wished magic would have been, was over.
Something older had begun.