They walked until the third ring road fell behind them.
The outer ring of the capital sat denser than Alasta. Streets narrowed between higher walls. People moved with the constant undercurrent of those who measured every new face against the latest rumor.
The residual weight of the baron's gray expression and the clean cut in the canal traveled with them.
Lara's hand stayed near Atlas's wrist. Eli kept the blade within easy reach. Clara marked the turns that still answered to the older accounts in the ledger.
They did not use the three safe rooms on the map that first night.
Instead they took a quiet loft above a tanner's yard on the edge of the ring. They paid in clean coin and locked the door from the inside. The space smelled of hide and lye. It was enough. Clothes came off. The circle formed on the narrow pallet and the floorboards beside it.
