The transition from the open, rotting wounds of East Borough to the stifling order of Cherwood felt like a slow suffocation. Mr. Egmont's shop was a cathedral of brass and glass, smelling of clock oil, dust, and the faint, bitter scent of stagnant tea. Victor's life was now measured in the steady tick-tock of a hundred mechanical hearts, each one a mockery of the frantic, uneven pulse he had carried since waking up in the sludge.
His primary duty was the "heavy" work—hauling coal from the damp cellar to feed the small forge Egmont used for soldering, and polishing the glass displays until they were invisible. It was repetitive, soul-crushing labor for a man of his previous stature, but Victor performed it with a terrifying, silent efficiency.
Every surface is a lens, Victor thought, his blue eyes tracking the reflection of a customer in the polished brass of a grandfather clock. If I am invisible to them, they are transparent to me.
He was currently buffing a silver pocket watch, his fingers raw from the abrasive cleaning paste. He looked like a ghost in a suit of rags. His Intis coat was gone, hidden beneath a coarse, gray wool apron provided by Egmont. The Anakin-like sharpness of his face had become even more pronounced; with the grime washed away, he possessed a gaunt, haunting beauty that made the shop's middle-class patrons uncomfortable.
He didn't speak unless spoken to, but he listened. A Hunter must know the sounds of the forest before he can track the beast.
"It's the fog, I tell you," a customer whispered—a thin man in a frayed frock coat, leaning over the counter toward Egmont. "My neighbor, a clerk in the tax office, saw it. A man walking through the walls in the South Borough. Vanished like smoke. The Nighthawks were there within the hour."
Egmont didn't look up from his jeweler's loupe. "Old wives' tales, Mr. Gable. The fog plays tricks on the eyes. It's the coal smoke and the lack of decent gin."
"It's not gin!" Gable hissed, his voice trembling. "There are things moving in the shadows. Things that don't belong to the Queen's law."
Victor's hand paused on the silver watch. This was the first time he had heard the name Nighthawks spoken aloud in the real world. In the East Borough, they were a myth used to scare thieves. Here, in Cherwood, they were a whispered dread.
He didn't join the conversation. Instead, he observed Gable. He noticed the man's twitching fingers, the way he kept glancing at the door, and the faint, unmistakable smell of ozone clinging to his coat.
He's not just scared, Victor analyzed, his Hunter instincts sharpening the edges of his perception. He's been exposed to something. That ozone smell... it doesn't belong in a tax office.
"Mr. Gable," Victor said, his voice a low, melodic baritone that made both men jump. It was the first time he had spoken more than two words all morning. "Your pocket watch. The hairspring is magnetized. That's why it's running ten minutes fast every hour."
Egmont peered over his glasses. Gable blinked, confused. "Magnetized? I haven't been near any magnets."
"Perhaps not," Victor said, stepping forward and handing the watch back. His gaze was steady, piercing through Gable's nervous facade. "But you've been near something that generates a field. A lightning strike? Or perhaps something... artificial?"
Gable turned pale. He snatched the watch and practically ran out of the shop, the bell above the door chiming a frantic goodbye.
Egmont looked at Victor for a long time. "You have a dangerous tongue, boy. And ears that hear too much. Keep to the coal and the glass, or you'll find yourself back in the mud."
"I was merely being helpful, Mr. Egmont," Victor replied, a faint, cynical smile touching his lips.
He returned to the cellar to haul another bucket of coal. The physical labor was beginning to change him. The Hunter potion was feasting on the meager black bread and the repetitive strain, hardening his muscles into lean cords. He was no longer a soft aristocrat. He was becoming a weapon forged in the dark.
As he reached the bottom of the cellar stairs, he felt a strange, cold sensation in his pocket. He reached in and touched the bronze medal. It was silent, but for a split second, he felt a "resonance"—not a vibration, but a sudden, sharp clarity of vision. He saw the cracks in the stone walls, the scuttling of a spider in the corner, and the exact weight of the coal in his bucket down to the ounce.
It's coming, he thought, his breath hitching.
But he forced himself to stay grounded. He was still a scavenger. He had no money, no weapons, and he was sleeping on a pile of rags in an attic. He couldn't afford to be curious about men who smelled of ozone or walls that people walked through.
He sat on a coal crate in the darkness, the ticking from upstairs muffled by the floorboards. He realized that his elocution was evolving. It wasn't just about lying anymore; it was about the strategic release of truth to unsettle the "prey." He had provoked Gable, not for malice, but to see the reaction. To test his own eyes.
The Hunter doesn't just wait for the animal to appear, Victor mused. He throws a stone into the brush to see what runs out.
He stood up, hoisted the heavy bucket onto his shoulder, and began to climb. He had eight more hours of polishing glass before he could rest. And somewhere in the yellow fog outside, the world of Beyonders was stirring, oblivious to the scavenger in the clockmaker's cellar who was learning to track the scent of Godhood.