Grum looked around at the stunned crowd and roared, his voice like a furnace venting pressure.

  “What the fuck you standing around for? Grab the priests—not the fucking sisters—for the boys! I don’t need those harpies wailing over bruises again.”

  Then his soot-stained eyes landed on Kavari.

  “Bring one sister. For the lad’s friend.”

  He turned back to his crew.

  “And fix the fucking gate! If it breaks again, I’m flogging the lot of you! Twice!”

  Kael glanced at Kavari. His eyes said thank you.

  Hers sparkled with amusement. "Don’t worry. I’ll pay you back for this.”

  Before he could respond, Grum’s thick arm wrapped around Kael’s head and yanked him into a bruising neck hold.

  “Now that was a proper stunt!” the dwarf bellowed, half-laughing. “Brass balls, flame-forged, you’ve got. If half my men had stones like yours, we’d be ruling this rotten city by now!”

  He screamed that last part at his men, who jumped to life with nervous energy.

  Then, quieter—near Kael’s ear—Grum growled,

  “Course, I could tear your head off right now. Who’d stop me? Your lass?”

  Kael didn’t flinch.

  “Don’t you want to hear why I raised the ruckus?” he said calmly. “If you thought that was impressive… wait ‘til you hear what comes next.”

  Grum released him with a low, gravelly chuckle, stroking his scorched beard.

  “Hah! Fair enough. Follow. Keep up, now.”

  They moved deeper into The Drip—a maze of rusted walkways and steam-choked corridors. Grum pointed as they walked:

  “Don’t touch that—melt your soft little human fingers. Don’t bump that—it’ll pop, and you’ll be nothing but soot and regret.”

  Eventually, they stopped in front of a heavy, ornately etched dwarven door. It was a beast—solid steel layered with etched runes and hammered glyphs, likely older than the district itself. Kael eyed it with a pang of admiration.

  Gods, look at it. Can’t kick that in. You’d need a siege engine just to get the hinges to creak.

  Inside, Grum’s office was exactly what he’d expected—and somehow worse. Large, cluttered, and loaded with deadly curiosities: stacked mines, volatile grenados, strange glass canisters, and more than one humming device Kael didn’t recognize.

  One of them was ticking. Loudly.

  Kael’s eyes flicked to it.

  Grum paused.

  “Oh, right. That.” He wandered over and casually disarmed it with a twist and a thump. “Always forget about that one.”

  As he did Fizzbit—the soot-sprite—jumped onto his shoulder and watched Kael, ember eyes glowing faintly, like coals waiting to bite.

  Kael didn’t sit yet. He studied Grum, eyes narrowing. The cracked red alchemical lens fused to his skull caught the light, casting fractured rays across the cluttered desk.

  He knew what he’d told Kavari about the dwarf. That was the surface. What he saw now? Calculated chaos. Intellect wrapped in madness.

  This man didn’t care about money. Not really. And not power for its own sake, either.

  Grum Barrelburn was a visionary. The dangerous kind. The kind that burned cities to build something new from the ash.

  The rune brands on his beaters’ skin weren’t decoration. They were something older. Something Kael didn’t fully understand.

  But he would. He had to.

  Grum was a key piece in the board he was setting.

  A piece Kael couldn’t afford to lose.

  And one he suspected was already being played by someone else.

  The dwarf dropped into his oversized chair with a creaking sigh and looked at Kael with the kind of grin that promised fire.

  “So, lad,” he said, resting one scarred hand on a rune-burned lever beside the desk, “tell me why I shouldn’t turn you into smoke and legend.”

  “What do you know about me?” Kael asked as he sat down—and heard a faint click beneath the chair. Tricky bastard. But he kept his expression neutral.

  Grum studied him for a beat. “New blood. Took over the Iron District. Known for being calculated. Ruthless.” He scratched at his beard. “Started a slew of initiatives. Dragged that part of the city out of the gutter. People talk. Say they’re eating better. Working safer. Even the beast kin are moving in—your lot treats 'em fair, by the sound of it.”

  Grum’s eye narrowed behind the red alchemical lens. “Heard you’ve got a lion-type beast kin living with you…”

  Kael’s eyes chilled.

  Grum held up a calloused hand. “Relax. I’m not the sort to hurt young lasses. You came in fire and steel, and you’ve held it with an iron grip since.”

  Kael nodded once, accepting the words without comment.

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  “I’m going after the Copper Teeth,” he said plainly. “The main vaults, the secondaries, the warehouses. All of Coin Road. The Weeping Market, too. I want you and your lads with me.”

  Grum blinked. Then laughed—short and sharp—before going quiet, thoughtful. Kael let the silence stretch. It was a calculated risk. Grum had lived twice as long, and could spot a lie from a klick away. He could smell hesitation like smoke. Of course, the reverse was true.

  “This close to Fadefall?” Grum muttered, rubbing his chin. “Tricky. Lot of fire. Lot of blood. Heavy losses on both sides.”

  He tossed a charred nut to Fizzbit, who caught it mid-air with a hiss and crackle.

  “So what do you need me for?”

  Kael leaned forward.

  “You’re being framed.”

  Grum stilled.

  “You’ve got proof?”

  “Call it experience.” Kael’s tone was flat. “The Crown’s rail lines—every time they finish a segment, someone tears it up. Sabotage. Ambushes. And the guild contracts? Too rich for coincidence.”

  Grum’s eye narrowed. “Still not enough to go on.”

  Kael nodded. “The Sly Fox Syndicate. I hit one of theirs—Roman. Unofficial, unsanctioned. Should’ve brought heat. Instead, they paid me with Moonshade.”

  Grum stiffened. “Moonshade?”

  “A small fortune,” Kael confirmed.

  Grum sat back, face drawn tight in thought.

  “Cold Chain Syndicate,” he murmured.

  Kael nodded. “Pleasure and arcane dealers. Wrapped around the court's finger. The kind of people who smile while bleeding you.”

  “And?”

  “Caravans are being hit—destroyed, not looted. No survivors. Just torched convoys and dead traders. Not refugees. Only merchants. Targeted supply lines.”

  He paused. Let it sink in.

  “They had a mage with a bag full of cores. Enough juice to level half a district. And a war golem.”

  Grum’s eye flinched. The lines of his soot-stained face deepened as the pieces clicked into place. Fizzbit twitched, reacting to the tension, his ember-glow pulsing brighter on his shoulder.

  “The Sisters,” Kael added. “They’re withholding supplies for the elder and children’s vaults.”

  Grum looked up, truly shocked for the first time.

  “All of them?”

  “The entire Iron District,” Kael said grimly. “Half rations. Four days without resupply. That’s the average.”

  "That's diabolical," Grum muttered. "Targeting the seniors and children, too."

  Kael nodded once.

  Grum processed it in silence, and Kael waited. He knew that sharp mind was already working—assembling pieces like one of his infernal machines. Grum had spent a long time in command, had fought and killed for his beliefs. Probably half-mad by now—but smart. Smart enough to see the board for what it was.

  Finally, Grum tossed another treat to Fizzbit and idly rubbed the soot-sprite’s back, unconscious habit betraying a flicker of something more human.

  "So someone’s squeezing multiple factions. Sabotaging the royal rail lines. Starving districts. And at the same time..." He frowned. "They’re letting in Outland migrants by the thousands. Too many mouths. Not enough to feed ’em."

  He looked up, eyes hard behind the cracked red lens.

  "They’re bleeding us. Just before Fadefall. Why?"

  Kael shrugged. "Don’t know." Then, leaning forward.

  "Here’s what I do know—I don’t give a fuck about coin. I shut down the brothels. The gambling dens. I built kitchens. Shelters. It bled my coffers dry. I’m not after the Copper Teeth to get rich."

  His voice dropped. Tighter.

  "I want to counter whoever’s trying to gut this city before the Fadefall hits. So we all survive."

  Grum’s gaze turned icy. He leaned back slowly.

  "And if I don’t believe you?"

  Kael didn’t flinch.

  "Then I’ll stand up, set off whatever trap you’ve got rigged in this seat, and blow all three of us into fire and ash." Kael’s voice was calm. Unshaken.

  "Better to burn fast than bleed slow."

  Grum’s face split into a wide grin, then a booming laugh erupted from his chest. Fizzbit leapt from his shoulder with a startled squeak as the dwarf slapped his knee hard enough to rattle the bottles on the shelf behind him.

  “Stop, stop, lad—I’ll fall in love with you at this rate!” he bellowed. “You’ve got forge fire in your belly, and steel running through your spine. Remind me of the old days. Hot metal and hotter tempers.”

  With a satisfied grunt, he flicked a switch hidden behind his desk—another soft click echoed beneath Kael’s chair.

  “Besides,” Grum added, leaning over to gently scoop Fizzbit into his palm, “you think I’d rig that seat to blow with my sweet ember anywhere near it?” He cooed at the soot-sprite, who chirped and curled affectionately around his fingers. “This little bastard’s the only reason I still have a soul.”

  Then he reached under the desk and pulled out a squat, dust-coated bottle of dwarven liquor, the kind brewed in sealed vats and aged in volcanic stone.

  He popped the top with a hiss of vapor that made Kael’s eyes water from across the room.

  “One cup and one thimble,” Grum muttered, setting both down with reverence. He filled them—Kael’s thimble—and passed it over.

  “To new allies and old bastards. For the lasses who stayed, and the ones who didn’t,” Grum toasted.

  They drank.

  The liquid tore down Kael’s throat like molten metal scraped across raw flesh. He gasped, barely suppressing a cough. It felt like he’d swallowed a forge. Grum howled with laughter, pounding the desk with joy.

  “Oh, lad, I like you,” the dwarf said, wiping tears from his soot-streaked face. “I’m in. Fully. Tell me what you need—and I’ll see it done.”

  Kael laid it out in measured, deliberate steps.

  And as he left, he glanced back one last time—Grum already hunched over a pile of blueprints and bomb casings, eyes alight with a craftsman’s obsession, muttering calculations under his breath like a man possessed.

  Shock and excitement still danced across the dwarf’s face.

  The gears were turning.

  As Kael stepped out, Kavari slipped from a shadowed alcove and moved toward him with urgency. Her grip on his arm was firm, posture taut like a drawn bow.

  “Let’s leave. Now.”

  “What’s wrong?” Concern crept into Kael’s voice.

  “Fucking Sisters,” she muttered, her voice low and coiled with fury.

  That was enough.

  They moved quickly through the winding alleys, the city exhaling around them. Soot-scarves discarded into a passing bin, their shared silence said more than words. Above, Solanir dipped low, bleeding golden fire across the skyline, casting long shadows that stretched like memories behind them.

  By the time they reached the room, Kavari was already tugging off her gear, breath shallow, hands shaking as she muttered darkly in her native tongue—sharp-edged words shaped by frustration and exhaustion. She slipped into the emerald dress from earlier, the same one that once made her look untouchable. Now it looked like armor, soft but deliberate. She unbraided her hair with trembling fingers, trying—failing—to calm the storm inside her.

  Then she turned, slowly, and stepped toward Kael.

  With unexpected tenderness, she reached up and lowered his hood. Her hands brushed the sides of his face, then moved to his hair. Carefully, she undid the tie, running her fingers through the strands, mussing them with a gentle care that made his breath catch.

  “There,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “Now we look like we had a wild time.”

  He didn’t speak. He couldn’t. Her eyes shimmered—not with heat or seduction, but something quieter. Something real. She pulled him into a hug, tight and sudden, burying her face against his shoulder.

  For a moment, everything fell away.

  “It was fun,” she said into the fabric of his coat. “You’re mad, Kael. Truly mad. And I love it.”

  He held her, hands resting on her back, feeling the faint tremble in her shoulders. She didn’t need to pretend here. Neither of them did.

  “Thank you, Kavari,” he said quietly, letting the edge of his mask drop. “For trusting me. For following me. I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”

  She pulled back, brushing a hand across his chest like she was memorizing the moment. Then, in a breath, the lightness returned. The flicker of playfulness. The mask—not of seduction, but survival—slipped back on.

  As Kael turned toward the door, she was already beside him.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, arching a brow.

  “Hold me up,” she said, slipping her arm around his waist. “I can’t walk straight.”

  He exhaled through his nose, half-laugh, half-sigh, and adjusted to her weight.

  When the door opened, a couple stood outside, blinking in surprise. Kavari leaned into him with perfect ease, all loose limbs and breathless affection. A lover glowing after mischief. She smirked as she palmed the charm into her pocket like a magician finishing a trick.

  “Oh, right…” Kael muttered. “The payback.”

  “Yep,” she murmured into his ear, her voice velvet-smooth, her smile all heat and honesty.

  “I need my payment.”