The city learned Karst's name quickly.
It forgot his victims even faster.
Within three days, his crew had scattered, his warehouses were sealed with Temple sigils, and the rumors had already begun to change him into a warning story.
"He confessed everything," someone said in the market.
"Seer tore his mind apart," another replied.
"Serves him right," a third muttered. "He was a monster."
Zayn listened as he walked, the words washing over him like rain.
"People are always eager to call the dead monsters," he thought. "It makes them feel safer about the living they still choose to tolerate."
He turned into South Weir's lesser streets, where the buildings leaned closer and the smell of the river was replaced by cabbage and smoke. Mera's boarding house sat as it always had: tired, solid, indifferent.
Inside, the common room was busy. Mera moved between the stove and the table. The ink-stained clerk argued quietly with a woman in a shop apron about license fees. The bandaged-throat boarder sipped tea, eyes tracking everything.
Renn sat alone at the corner table, staring at a cup he hadn't drunk from.
"You look like someone just told you the Loom's on fire," Zayn said, sliding into the opposite chair.
Renn snorted. "If the Loom caught fire, the Temple would sell tickets," he replied. "No. Hask sent a message. Work's shut down for a week. Investigations, audits, new locks. No coin."
"No Karst either," Zayn said. "Vacuum above, vacuum below."
Renn's mouth twisted. "And into that vacuum," he said, "something worse will step."
Zayn toyed with his spoon.
"'Worse' is a perspective," he thought. "For prey, every new predator seems worse than the last. For a predator, every rival is an opportunity."
Aloud, he said, "What else did Hask say?"
Renn hesitated. "The Temple's asking the Council to formally move Hunger into restricted status," he said. "If that passes, any unlicensed use will be treated as spiritual assault. Harsh sentences. Null confinement."
Zayn's eyes narrowed. "And the Council?"
"Debating," Renn said. "Which means calculating how to turn the change into votes and favors."
Zayn leaned back.
"So," he said, "those who already hoard the cure for emptiness will tighten their grip. Those who are drowning will be asked to drown more quietly."
The bandaged woman's voice drifted from the other table. "I heard they're opening new 'redemption clinics' by the Weir," she rasped. "For 'voluntary surrender of dangerous Threads'."
"Voluntary," the clerk sneered. "With Wardens at the door and Seers in the halls."
Mera ladled stew into bowls with more force than necessary. "They don't want to heal anyone," she said. "They want clean paper. Problems locked away where no one has to see."
Zayn tilted his head, watching her.
"You speak from experience," he said.
Mera's jaw set. For a moment, he saw the faint white ring around her wrist again, where metal had once bitten into skin.
"I've cleaned enough vomit out of Null wards," she said. "And watched enough 'redeemed' come back quieter but not saner. That's experience enough."
Zayn filed that away.
Null wards. "Redemption" clinics. Hunger on the verge of becoming a crime in itself.
It was all so familiar.
"In the old world," he thought, "they called it mercy when they lobotomized a conscience. Here, they wrap the knife in paperwork and call it treatment."
He smiled faintly.
"In a place like this," he told himself, "there is no shortage of hypocrisy to sharpen myself against."
Later, when the others had drifted out on errands and shifts, Mera stopped Zayn as he stood to leave.
"Come with me," she said.
Zayn raised an eyebrow. "So suddenly direct?"
"I don't like debts I don't understand," she said. "And thanks to yesterday, I have one."
He followed her upstairs, past his own door, to the end of the hall. A narrow stair climbed further to a small, low-ceilinged attic. Dust motes drifted in the slanting light from a single roof window.
Mera shut the door behind them.
"Nice," Zayn said. "If you plan to stab me, this is an excellent choice. Good acoustics, no witnesses."
"Don't tempt me," she replied.
She moved to a chest against the wall, pulled it open, and took out a small, wrapped bundle. Carefully, she unrolled the cloth.
Inside, on a strip of leather, lay a cuff.
It was made of dull metal etched with faint, looping patterns. Even from a distance, Zayn could feel it: a deadness, a flatness, like Null stone diluted and carefully caged. The air around it was too quiet.
"A binding cuff," he said.
"Old model," Mera said. "Temple issue, from before the Council started pretending they'd stopped using them."
Zayn's gaze flicked to her wrist.
"You kept yours," he said.
"I stole it back," she said. "After I walked out of the ward and made it three streets before an acolyte realized the paperwork was missing a signature."
She looked at him hard.
"You erased something from that girl," she said. "Sera."
Zayn's fingers curled. "You noticed."
Mera snorted. "I did laundry in Null blocks for three years," she said. "I know what a missing piece feels like in a person. She looked at you in the street this morning like you were a wall. Last week she watched you and Renn like she was counting your breaths."
Zayn considered lying. He didn't bother.
"I removed a moment she could not survive," he said. "Or, more accurately, a moment that would have killed you and me first, and then chewed on her slowly in a cell while the Temple congratulated itself on its justice."
"Listen to him," Mera said dryly. "Even his monstrosity comes wrapped in good intentions."
"Good intentions?" Zayn thought, amused. "No. Correct calculations. If I spared her, it was because dead tools cannot be reused."
"And?" he asked aloud. "Do you object?"
Mera's eyes were tired.
"Object?" she said. "I object to the entire world, Zayn. I object to being born in a place that treats Threads like either miracles or crimes depending on who's holding the pen. But I have no power. You, on the other hand…"
She nudged the cuff toward him.
"…clearly do," she finished.
Zayn did not touch it.
"What exactly are you offering?" he asked.
Mera crossed her arms. "You don't trust anyone," she said. "Good. Neither do I. So let's skip the lies."
She met his gaze.
"South Weir is changing," she said. "Karst is gone. His rivals are sniffing at the empty ground. The Temple is tightening the leash on Hunger. The Council is pretending to be surprised. People like Renn are going to get swallowed."
"And people like you?" Zayn asked.
"I'll survive until I don't," she said. "But I'm tired of patching wounds after the knife has done its work."
She nodded at the cuff.
"That can mute a Thread," she said. "Not fully Null, but enough that most inspections skim past without feeling the true shape. The Temple used them to keep 'difficult' patients docile between sessions. They pretended it was for safety. Really, it was so Seers wouldn't have to look at the damage they'd done."
Zayn watched the dull metal.
"If you want to hide," Mera said, "this will help. If you want to walk into places that would flay you for existing, this will keep their blades blunt. If you put it on, you'll owe me."
"And if I don't?" Zayn asked.
"Then one day," she said, "a Seer will dig too deep, realize what you are, and drag you into a room with walls thicker than you can erase."
Silence settled, heavy as dust.
Zayn stepped closer to the cuff.
Up close, he could see the fine scratches where it had been forced open and closed more than once. He could almost feel memories clinging to it like grease: hands trembling as it snapped shut, whispers, prayers, curses.
"Do you want me to be invisible," he asked softly, "or easier to point?"
Mera's mouth twitched. "Both," she said. "You scare me, Zayn. That's not a sin. It's a survival instinct. But you also scare the people I hate. That's a resource."
He smiled.
"There it is," he thought. "Honesty, at last. She doesn't want a hero. She wants a weapon whose aim she thinks she can predict."
He reached out and picked up the cuff.
The metal was cold. His Thread recoiled from the deadness, then pushed experimentally against it, testing its limits.
"Will it hurt?" he asked.
"Only if you fight it," Mera said. "Like most things."
He turned the cuff in his hands.
"The wise man," he thought, "chooses his chains. Better a shackle you can unlock than a noose you never see tightening."
He slid it onto his wrist.
The effect was immediate.
The hum of his Domain muted, as if layers of cloth had been wrapped around it. The world's Threads still vibrated—Echo, Rust, Hunger—but the responsive echo from his own power dulled. The room felt narrower, his senses slightly blunted.
He did not like it.
"This is what they call redemption," he thought. "Blunt yourself until you feel less dangerous, and they will stop being afraid. Of course, by then, you have become what they preferred: harmless."
He flexed his hand.
The cuff bit lightly into his skin.
Beneath the metal, his Thread coiled, sullen but intact.
"I can still use it," he said.
"Carefully," Mera said. "Think of it as a veil, not a wall. Seers will feel something, but it will slide past instead of catching. Wardens' Null bands will still shut you down if you step too close."
Zayn nodded.
"Why me?" he asked. "You could have sold this to any number of people. Temple resisters, syndicate lieutenants, frightened parents with Thread-heavy children."
Mera's eyes were very dark.
"Because you," she said quietly, "don't pretend you're good. The ones who call themselves righteous are the ones I don't trust with this. They would wear it and believe the Loom excused them. You will wear it and understand that you are simply buying time."
Zayn considered her.
"A woman who would rather arm a monster than a hypocrite," he thought. "Interesting."
Aloud, he said, "Time is useful. If you expect gratitude, you will be disappointed. If you expect utility, you will be satisfied."
"Good," Mera said. "Keep thinking like that."
She moved to the roof window and pushed it open a crack. The city's sounds drifted in—voices, cart wheels, distant temple bells.
"They're talking about a new Seer at the Temple," she said. "One of the High Loomists' favourites. They say he came from a mountain court. Knows the old rites. Sees 'deeper' than most."
Zayn's pulse ticked once, sharply.
A mountain court.
He pictured a thin man in dark robes, ink on his fingers, eyes tired but bright. He pictured pale stone and cold wind.
"Name?" he asked.
"Didn't catch it," Mera said. "Priests were too busy gushing about how he'd cleanse the city's Threads. You know how they get when they smell a new instrument of fear."
Zayn smiled without humor.
"A Seer from the mountains," he thought. "From the world I fell out of, or one like it. The Loom enjoys its little jokes."
He looked down at the cuff on his wrist.
"I'll need to see him," he said.
"That's madness," Mera said. "If he's from anywhere near where you came from, he's the last person you should be near."
"Perhaps," Zayn said. "But if someone is walking around this city with knowledge of the mountain's ways, I can't afford to ignore him. He may see me. Or he may see something worse behind me. I prefer to choose the circumstances of our meeting."
Mera muttered something impolite about suicidal Threads.
Zayn's lips curved.
"In my first life," he thought, "I waited for the Loom to judge me. It sent friends with a vote and a mountain. In this one, I will meet its envoys on my own feet, with my own blade in hand—even if that blade is wrapped in velvet."
He turned to go.
At the door, Mera spoke again.
"Zayn," she said.
He paused.
"There's something else," she said. "An inspection at the Temple's lower clinics. Officially for Thread-burn. Unofficially… they're testing new methods. People go in with Frayed Threads and come out… wrong."
"Wrong?" Zayn asked.
"Empty in the eyes," she said. "Like someone took a broom to their soul and swept too hard. If your new friend from the mountains is tied to that, you're walking into more than a conversation."
Zayn's smile thinned.
"Brutality wrapped in healing robes," he thought. "How quaintly familiar."
"I appreciate the warning," he said. "Truly."
"Do you?" Mera asked.
"Yes," he said. "It lets me plan how much I will have to pretend to be afraid."
He left the attic.
On the stairs down, he flexed his wrist again, feeling the cuff's quiet pressure.
Below, in the common room, Renn looked up as Zayn descended.
"What did she want?" Renn asked.
"To make sure I live long enough to be someone else's problem," Zayn said.
He grabbed his coat.
"Where are you going?" Renn asked.
"To the Temple," Zayn said. "To meet a man who might know what it feels like to stand on the edge of a mountain and watch people you trusted decide which way you fall."
Renn stared. "You're insane."
"Possibly," Zayn said. "But useful."
He stepped out into the street.
The city loomed around him, all wet stone and tangled wires and Threads humming beneath the surface. The Central Weir pulsed. Temple bells began a slow, solemn toll from upriver.
Zayn walked toward them, each step a quiet insult to the fate that had once thrown him off a cliff.
"In this life," he thought, "I will not wait for judgment. I will walk into the court myself and decide who leaves it whole."
The cuff on his wrist cooled, as if responding to some distant Null pulse.
Far ahead, over the rooftops, a banner snapped in the damp wind above the High Loomist Temple. For a moment, in the shifting fog, Zayn thought he saw the outline of a familiar sigil from another world—a mountain stylised into the Loom's web.
He blinked.
The fog shifted.
The sigil was gone.
But as he watched, a figure stepped out onto one of the Temple's high balconies: small at this distance, yet distinct. A man in plain robes, hands folded behind his back, head turned toward the Weir.
Even from here, Zayn could feel it.
Someone was looking for knots in the tapestry.
And somewhere deep in the Loom, a Thread that had once belonged to Elric Veyne thrummed in answer.
Zayn smiled, teeth very white in the grey light.
"Come find me, then," he thought. "Let's see which of us remembers how to fall better."
He took another step toward the Temple—
—and the air in front of him warped, Threads twanging like snapped strings, as a body dropped from a rooftop two buildings ahead and hit the street with a sickening, wet crack.
The corpse was wearing a Temple acolyte's robe.
Its eyes were burned clean of colour.
And around its wrists, both cuffs hung open, as if something inside had broken its way out.