The carriage was still visible.
Barely.
Arthur kept his eyes on it and walked faster, threading through the bodies moving between the market stalls, not running, never running, just a half-beat quicker than the crowd around them. Theodore matched him without being told. Their footsteps found the gaps between other people's footsteps and the carriage turned at the end of the block and they turned with it.
The shadow anchor was already moving.
Arthur had pushed it out the moment they left the Vorik block, threading it through the natural shadows the buildings threw across the cobblestones, letting it chase the carriage's wheels along the ground where nobody looked. It wasn't fast enough to keep pace directly. But it didn't need to be. It needed contact. One point of connection and the network would hold.
It found the shadow beneath the rear axle and merged.
