Velkaris swallowed them the moment they came up out of the transit hub.
The streets ran thick with people of every kind, elves and dwarves and beastkin and humans, uniforms and rags and fine coats all pressed into the same current, criers bawling destinations over the din, vendors shoving mana-warmed food under the nose of anyone who slowed enough to become a target.
Flying carriages slid between the towers, floating bridges caught the light, and far above all of it the great white spire of the council rose like a blade stood on its end.
Nobody spared the two of them a second glance. That was the thing about a city this size. A boy with a Great Family's blood and a woman who was one of the last of a dead people could walk through the heart of it among a hundred thousand strangers, and every one of them had somewhere to be and no reason on earth to care who they were pushing past.
