Calder Reach was a town built for people who wanted to disappear.
Its streets were wooden walkways strung between stilts, and its markets floated on rafts that shifted with the tide. No one asked questions at the docks. Boats came and went at all hours, and the crowds were thick enough that Nathan could finally pull his hood low and walk without feeling every eye on his back.
Mira kept close. Every few minutes she glanced at him, a quick, searching look, as if checking that he was still there.
"I'm fine," she said, the third time he caught her.
"I didn't say anything."
"You were thinking it."
They bought hot fish pies from a raft stall and ate them on a bench beside a canal. Mira had her card out, flipping it through her fingers, working out a contract for the next day. Nathan watched the crowd, and that was how he noticed the old man.
He sat three benches down, a thin, stooped figure in a patched gray coat, a wooden cup held between his hands. His hair was white and his skin had the dry look of old parchment. People flowed around him like water around a stone. A woman with a laden basket walked straight toward his bench, caught herself, and veered away without seeming to know why. A boy nearly stepped on his foot.
No one looked at him. Not once.
"Mira." Nathan kept his voice low. "Do you see that man?"
"Which?"
"The old one. By the lamp post."
Mira followed his gaze and frowned. "I don't see anyone."
"Right there."
"Nathan, there's no one—" She stopped. She blinked, and for a moment her eyes seemed to slide across the bench and fix on something just past it. "There's a cup," she said slowly. "Floating?"
The old man turned his head, and for the first time in what must have been a very long time, his eyes met someone else's.
They were pale blue and startlingly clear.
"Ah," he said, and his voice was dry as leaves. "At last."
---
His name was Ossian, or so he said. He had to say it twice before Nathan could hold onto it.
They followed him down a narrow gangway to a tiny hut built on pilings over the water. Inside there was a cot, a table, a single shelf of books, and hundreds of scraps of paper pinned to every wall, each covered in handwriting that was clearly the same hand. *Your name is Ossian. You are sixty-eight years old. You like pickled onions. You have a sister named Berra who died in the spring.*
"I write them every morning," he said, noticing Nathan's stare. "Otherwise I would forget myself. Funny. I've forgotten so much that remembering takes more effort than living."
"You're a Destroyer," Nathan said.
"I was." The old man lowered himself onto the cot. "I am what remains of one. When you walk the path long enough, the world stops keeping you. People forget your face, your voice. After a while they can't see you at all. I have lived this way for nineteen years."
Mira was gripping the table's edge. She could see him now, but only barely, and she kept looking away as if his outline hurt her eyes. "Why can *Nathan* see you?"
"Because the hollow recognizes the hollow." Ossian smiled faintly. "And you can see me, girl, because he's near. His blood anchors you. If he leaves, you'll lose me again."
"How many are left?" Nathan asked. "Of us."
"Of Desteroys?" The old man's expression softened. "You may be the last, child. The ones who survived Hollow Sky were hunted down by the Great Houses and the Ash Chorus over three centuries, one at a time. I lived by staying small. By using as little of the hollow as I could, for as long as I could."
"Small," Nathan repeated. "You mean, don't use it?"
"I mean use it like a needle, not a sword." Ossian leaned forward. "Every time you reach for the hollow, you spend a piece of yourself in proportion to what you take from the world. The wall in your valley, the hound in the courtyard, those cost you dearly. The chains on the dock cost less, I think, because you were careful. The smaller the thing, the smaller the price. A man could live for decades if he only ever erased dust."
"That's the secret?"
"It's the *only* secret. The rest is stories the Great Houses tell to make themselves look brave."
Nathan swallowed. "My ancestor's letter says the family carved the Destroyers' names into stone so they'd be remembered. But someone scratched them out."
Ossian went very still.
"Did the letter say who?"
"The next page was torn out."
"Of course it was." The old man closed his eyes. "Child, listen carefully. The page was taken by House Solenne. It sits in their archive in the capital, in a locked vault beneath the Hall of Records. If you want the truth about Hollow Sky, that is where it lives. But be warned. Solenne are healers by reputation. They write the law, and they wrote the story of that night. They will not give it up."
"Why are you telling us this?"
"Because I am dying, and I would like someone to remember me."
He smiled, and for a moment he looked impossibly gentle.
"Listen. Seren Vael was here three days ago. She asked about me, and I let her find me. She is the only one in nineteen years who has ever seen me clearly." His voice dropped. "She is not your enemy, Nathan. But she is not your friend, either. Remember that."
A bell rang in the distance, harsh and fast. Mira's head snapped up. Boots pounded across the wooden walkways outside, a dozen at least, and a voice called out the Veyron name.
Ossian rose. He pressed a folded scrap of paper into Nathan's hand.
"Go out the back. Do not look behind you."
"You can't—"
"Yes, I can." His eyes were very bright. "Small, remember? But this is the last thing I ever need to do."
He lifted one thin hand, and the hut filled with a vast, silent cold.
---
Nathan and Mira burst out of the rear window and ran along the walkway, hearts hammering. They didn't stop until the noise was far behind them, and when they finally slid to a halt behind a stack of fishing crates, Nathan opened his fist.
The paper was blank except for one line in small, careful handwriting.
*Thank you for seeing me.*
He stared at it, frowning. He knew someone had written it. He knew someone had saved them.
But when he tried to remember who, there was only a quiet, gentle emptiness, and a hut on pilings in a town he had just arrived in, with no one inside.