Back at her guild hall, Mira sat quietly in her chair, her arms folded and her posture stiff, as if holding back a storm within her chest. The room was still. The only sound was the ticking of the ornate brass clock on the far wall, echoing louder than usual in the silence.
Her sharp blue eyes stared at nothing in particular, lost in thought, frustration growing behind their calm facade.
How was she supposed to find those two?
This wasn't just some common criminal chase. She was tracking down two highly skilled men—deceptive, elusive, and smart enough to vanish the moment her back had turned. By now, they were likely already blended into the city, maybe even using magic or illusion to change their appearances. Even if she issued a warrant or distributed wanted posters, it might be too late. And she doubted those tools would work against such professionals.
She let out a breath through her nose, tapping her fingers against her arm.
Should she request aid from her parents?
The thought made her stomach twist.
No—definitely not.
They wouldn't take kindly to the fact that she was investigating someone who might be highblood. That alone carried the risk of igniting political tension, especially if the men turned out to have been noble. And even if her parents didn't care about that, they would certainly care about the fact that she—Mira, their daughter—had unwittingly helped the men escape.
She grimaced, recalling the moment she realized she'd been used. Tricked.
Maybe she could bait them—spread word through the right channels, perhaps offer a message only they would understand. Something clever. Something subtle.
But that was dangerous. Far too dangerous.
The city guard would start asking questions. Reports would reach her parents. Rumors would spread. And if that happened before she caught them, before she understood who they were and what they wanted, she'd be risking more than just embarrassment.
Even then, with all that risk—would it even work?
The capital was enormous. A maze of streets, alleys, and districts overflowing with travelers, traders, and adventurers from every corner of the world. You could hide for years here and never be found.
She sighed, finally slumping back in her chair.
If only she knew what they were after. Why they were here. That would be her starting point. But their ship—if it could even be called that—offered no answers. No flags. No seals. No identifying marks. Just a worn name carved into the hull with all the care of someone carving their initials into a tavern table.
Useless.
She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes for a brief moment, forcing her thoughts to settle. But the irritation lingered. The anger at being outplayed. The pressure of finding them before someone else did. The gnawing uncertainty of what kind of danger they might bring if left unchecked.
Mira opened her eyes again—ice blue, cold and focused—and whispered to herself:
"I will find you."
*****
Kyle had one very important place to visit before any piece of his grand scheme could take shape.
His ship.
It wasn't much to look at by noble standards, but to him it was more than wood and sail. It was home. A loyal beast that had carried him and Emil through storms, skirmishes, and more than a few half-legal ventures across distant seas. And now, trapped and impounded in a foreign dock, it held more than sentiment.
it held everything he needed to run Business.
His kind of business ofcouse.
He couldn't help but grin at the thought.
So much to gain. So much at stake.
And it all started with getting back what was his.
A rather difficult thought, if you looked from afar—or better yet, were unaware of what kind of man he actually was.
Kyle had never been the type to rely on brute strength. That was Emil's domain. What Kyle had instead was something quieter, and considerably more dangerous: preparation dressed up as luck.
The rings alone told a story. The Raven Ring, elegant enough to pass as jewelry at a nobleman's table, could sink a needle into skin so finely that the victim would only notice when the edges of their vision began to swim—nausea blooming, shapes bending, reality softening just long enough for Kyle to be three streets away. The Illusion Ring, currently earning its keep, had reshaped the color of his eyes, the shade of his hair, the subtle geography of his face. Not a full mask—more like a suggestion. Enough to make memory unreliable. The Chameleon Ring worked differently, not changing how he looked but how he felt to a room. Unremarkable. Expected. The kind of presence that belonged wherever it stood and warranted no second glance.
Then there were the louder tools, for when subtlety ran out. The Flame Ember Ring gave him six small explosions—useful for doors that wouldn't open politely, guards that needed scattering, or moments when the cleanest exit required a little creative demolition. The Water Arcane Ring let him nudge the sea to his will, redirect a canal flow, burst a pipe, turn cobblestones treacherous. On an island this saturated with water, it was worth more than it looked.
Beneath his shirt, the Void Pendant held the rest: daggers, smoke pellets, ink vials, sealed scrolls—a thief's entire workshop folded into a charm the size of a walnut.
The Lucky Star was stranger. A trinket that hummed with something he'd never been able to name. A drop of blood and it would bless him for a day—small mercies, improbable escapes, the falling crate that missed, the card that shouldn't have landed face up. He'd long since stopped questioning it.
And then there was his left eye.
Embedded years ago with what scholars called the Eye of Misfortune, it was the advantage he'd never quite been able to explain without sounding either blessed or cursed. Touch an object, study a path, weigh a decision—and the eye would answer. A deep red pulse meant disaster waiting. A dim quiet glow meant the way was clear. It read possibilities, not certainties, and it had been wrong before. But it had saved his life enough times that he treated its warnings like gospel.
To all of that, add something no relic could manufacture.
Kyle was observant—unnaturally so, some might say. A single glance at a place and he could dissect its geography like a surgeon: escape routes, blind spots, choke points, guard rotations, hidden alleys, poorly fastened crates, weakened scaffolding. His mind mapped every environment with an instinctual precision honed by years of cons, heists, and near-death scrapes. Faces, accents, walking styles, weight distributions, the particular way a man's coat creased when he was carrying something concealed—none of it escaped him. It was unnerving to most who noticed. To Kyle, it was simply how the world spoke to him.
Especially now.
With the Illusion Ring humming quietly on his finger, his appearance had been altered once more—shriveled skin, a stooped spine, a crooked cane, the feeble gait of an elderly beggar woman. Limping slowly along the worn stone path toward Dock E, he dissolved into the dusk shadows and the general detritus of the port's outer edge. He wasn't there to move yet.
He was there to see.
And what he saw soured his stomach.
Unlike earlier that day, the dock wasn't patrolled. It was swarming. At least thirty guards moved along the platforms in staggered rotations, all of them tense, all of them armed. Four were stationed directly in front of his ship, postured like sentinels carved from stone. And though he couldn't see inside the vessel, he could feel the presence of more onboard. The air practically crackled with suspicion and tight-lipped frustration.
Then he noticed the lookout tower.
At its top stood two figures. One of them—a hulking, unmistakable silhouette—was the same behemoth who had been with the lady at the docks that morning. The same one who had stared daggers into him like he owed a personal debt. Beside him stood the chief docking officer. That bastard who was to eager to snatch their hard earnings.
Kyle instinctively brushed his fingers beneath his left eye.
The Eye of Misfortune pulsed deep red immediately, almost angrily. The behemoth's aura flared like a bonfire in his vision—a glowing omen that needed no translation. One rash move and the entire plan would implode. Caught. Disarmed. Possibly dead.
He forced himself still and dropped heavily onto a nearby bench, sinking back into character. Wrinkled hands trembled theatrically against the cane. A wheeze. A pained, shuffling adjustment. The portrait of an old woman whose bones had outlasted her ambitions.
Inside, his thoughts were moving fast.
Two options. Both reeking of danger.
The first: circle the dockyard's edge and go in through the water—approach the ship from beneath. He'd had a good mental picture of its outlay that path was possible, though not pleasant. The waters around the dock weren't clean.
Claudia's notes spoke of submerged defense constructs and not to mention those fish head moving in it's depths like blood-sniffing eels. He wasn't eager to test them. Not today.Not unprepared.
The second: take the direct route. Fast, bold, possibly brilliant. But there were too many unknowns stacked against him. How many guards were already inside the ship? How alert were they? Had traps been set? Would that brute descend from the tower before he even reached the ramp?
He gritted his teeth and slouched deeper into his disguise, the weight of the moment pressing down on his shoulders like ballast.
He would need more than illusion and relics for this one.
He would need flawless timing.
And just the right distraction.