The tracker ticked. Once. Twice. The skin under it felt raw, as if it had been there much longer than a day.

  I kept my eyes up. We followed the scaffolds until the street narrowed into a catwalk over a canal. The water below was half-frozen, black as oil with veins of pale ice running through it.

  A raft floated by, little more than planks tied with wire, bearing three figures in patched coats. They had barrels on board, lids clamped, faint steam escaping.

  “Water,” Bǎo mused, peering down with her hand shading her eyes as though it was a fashion pose. “Or maybe soup. Or corpses. Moscow’s very into mystery branding.”

  One of the rafters looked up, caught her eye. My boots clanged against the metal rungs of the catwalk. Every sound echoed. I kept expecting to slip, to fall, to drown in that black soup.

  I tightened my grip on the railing until my knuckles cramped. My left side ached with the ghost of an arm that wasn’t there to steady me.

  “Relax, piggie,” Bǎo said, spinning her sword like a baton. “If you fall, I’ll fish you out. Or… I’ll sing at your funeral. Depends how busy I am.”

  She smiled like it was all a joke. Maybe it was, for her.

  The catwalk ended in a narrow street that twisted between collapsed buildings. Laundry lines stretched overhead, shirts stiff as boards, fluttering weakly in the wind. I thought they were rags at first, signals maybe, but then a woman leaned out of a shattered window and pulled one in, folding it neat.

  Life went on, even here.

  The drone overhead dipped lower. Its hum crawled inside my skull.

  “Bǎo,” I whispered. “It’s following us.”

  She blew it a kiss. “Good. They’ll get my best angle.”

  I almost laughed. Almost. We passed a wall painted with fresher chalk than the rest. A circle with a slash through it. Beneath it, a smear that might have been blood. My chest tightened.

  “Keep walking,” one of the soldiers muttered behind us. The first words any of them had spoken. His accent was thick. His rifle didn’t waver.

  I kept my eyes up.

  The glass of a shopfront, shattered, filthy, caught a reflection. A man in a dark peacoat, hands in pockets, head tilted like he was listening for something far away.

  The soldiers didn’t react. Bǎo twirled, as if on stage, scanning the windows. Her laugh was sharp, practiced.

  “You see a ghost, piggie?”

  I didn’t answer.

  We reached a plaza. A fountain lay cracked in the centre, filled with sludge, its statue decapitated. Children kicked a ball made of rags through the muck, shrieking with laughter. Their joy clashed with the broken city around them, a sound almost offensive in its brightness.

  I tried to smile, for them, but it wouldn’t come.

  I caught another glimpse, there, in the far side of the plaza. The same man. Peacoat, collar up, head tilted. Watching.

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  I grabbed Bǎo’s wrist, too tight. “He’s here.”

  She tilted her head to them, then smiled too wide. “Darling, you’re obsessed.”

  “It’s serious…” The words died. Because when I blinked, he wasn’t there.

  The day slid into dusk, and the city grew quieter.

  Neon buzzed to life in strips across scaffolds, painting everything sickly green and pink. The air smelled of burning plastic.

  The soldiers led us down another alley. Narrow. Too narrow.

  I realized too late that the vans from before had shifted position. The net was closing. My stomach plummeted.

  “Bǎo…”

  “I know,” she said, eyes sharp for once, no giggle in her voice. Her hand flexed on her sword-hilt. “Don’t be boring. Stay alive.”

  The vans’ doors opened. Six men spilled out, rifles levelled, their boots hitting the slush in perfect rhythm. They didn’t shout. They didn’t posture. Professionals.

  My pulse spiked. My one hand found my knife, pathetic thing that it was, and the tremor in my wrist betrayed me before I even drew it.

  Bǎo laughed. Of course she laughed. She stepped forward, dragging her great sword with theatrical slowness, the blade throwing back what little light there was.

  “Darling, if this is a mugging, at least make it fashionable.”

  I hissed, “Bǎo, this isn’t…”

  She didn’t listen. She pirouetted, blade flashing, forcing the front two soldiers back a step.

  “See?” she sang. “Already they’re terrified.”

  They weren’t. Their rifles never wavered. They waited.

  And then he stepped out. Kaspar.

  From behind the first van, peacoat collar up, hands still in his pockets. Calm. Patient. As though he’d been waiting for me to notice him all along.

  Bǎo’s smile cracked. “Doctor Kaspar Illich,” she spat, poison wrapped in sugar. “Ugh. You disgust me, scuttling around like a cockroach.”

  The mask was gone. His face was clean, sharp, framed by hair that caught no light. His eyes fixed on me, and it felt like being catalogued, not seen.

  “Doctor was a convenient hat,” he said softly. “This one fits better.”

  The soldiers tightened their cordon. The drone above dipped lower, its buzz a wasp in my skull. I summoned a sharp blade of wood in my hands anyway, arm shaking.

  “We… we did what you asked. We fought your monster. We proved ourselves. Please, this isn’t… fair.”

  Kaspar tilted his head. The faintest smile touched his lips. “You misunderstand, Mr. Tanaka. This was never about proof.”

  His gaze flicked to Bǎo, then back to me.

  “You’re not enemies. You’re leverage.”

  So, that’s what the chalk arrows were for.

  The word landed like a stone in my chest. Bǎo shrieked and lunged.

  Her blade cleaved through the air in a wide arc, sparks flying as she scraped asphalt. For a heartbeat, she was incandescent, terrifying, divine. She cut through the first, tearing their armoured plating.

  But Bǎo held back from the kill, and the soldiers were ready.

  One jabbed a shock-rod at her ribs. She twisted mid-air, barely dodging the arc of blue light.

  “Too slow, ugly!” she shouted, landing in a crouch.

  But she landed too close to me. She was covering my blind side.

  A second rod caught her from behind, right at the base of the neck.

  The crack of electricity snapped the air. Her scream turned into a laugh that died in her throat, then into silence as her body crumpled, twitching.

  “NO!” I said, charging forward.

  Kaspar caught my wrist mid-swing. His grip was surgical, firm, not cruel, like a craftsman handling fragile glass.

  “Mr. Tanaka,” he said gently, “please don’t make me ruin your face. The chairman prefers you recognizably human.”

  I struggled, useless. My chest hitched with sobs I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing. My lungs felt too small.

  “Let me go!”

  Kaspar’s gloved hand reached for me. “Surely, you didn’t expect to go without consequence for your actions.”

  His other hand rose, two fingers pressing with perfect precision at the nerve by my neck. “You two are disconnected from reality.”

  Pain flared, white and total. My body convulsed. The knife fell from numb fingers.

  The last thing I saw was Bǎo, face down in the slush, her jewelled sword half-buried like some cruel joke.

  My cheek hit slush, and the world dimmed.

  A man smiled at me, watching from a taxi.

  A black top hat, cinched with a gold stripe. He wore a crisp pink shirt beneath a dark green vest, the entire ensemble cinched tight with a roguish choker.

  My blood ran cold. It wasn't just a VIP. It wasn't an executive.

  It was Nicodemus Mann. The Number One Assassin. The Mayor of the Island. The King himself had come to watch the trap snap shut.

  I had lost before I even started.

  “Good work. Bring them over here,” Nicodemus said. His voice was soft, professional. “Sleep.”

  Kaspar smiled. “Welcome to the international stage.”

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