They had been waiting in the lobby for more than an hour.
Ivor sat on the bench between his parents, hands resting loosely on his knees, posture still. The administrative hall was quiet in the way the Shrouded always were. Not silent, just subdued. Footsteps passed now and then. Paper shifted. A clerk coughed somewhere behind a partition.
No one spoke.
Kael leaned forward slightly, elbows on his thighs, fingers interlaced. Rhea sat straighter, hands folded in her lap, eyes fixed on the floor ahead of them. Ivor watched the dust drift through the slanted light coming in from the high windows.
Eventually, the same clerk who had handled the registration stepped out from behind the desk.
"Ivor Vladiric," he called.
All three of them stood at once.
They followed the clerk through the corridor and out through the front doors. The light outside was dull, the sky still layered with low gray clouds.
A figure waited just beyond the gate.
An awakened.
He wore a black uniform cut close to the body, reinforced at the shoulders and forearms. The fabric absorbed light rather than reflecting it, matte and seamless, broken only by the faint silver stitching along the seams. A hood covered his head, shadowing his face completely.
Beneath him stood a collared wolf.
The beast was large, its fur a dark gray, muscles shifting under the skin as it breathed. Heavy cuffs circled its legs, etched faintly with runes. A thick collar rested around its neck, connected to the saddle by short chains. Its eyes were alert, intelligent, tracking everything around it.
The clerk stopped and cleared his throat. He produced a sealed scroll and handed it up to the man on the wolf.
"Transfer documentation," he said. "Registered. Cleared."
The hooded man took the scroll, broke the seal with one gloved finger, and skimmed it. He did not dismount.
"Good," he said. His voice was calm.
Then his head turned slightly toward Ivor.
"Come," he said.
Ivor stepped forward.
The wolf shifted immediately. Its head lowered, nose flaring as it leaned closer, sniffing the air around him. The chains rattled softly as it moved.
Ivor stopped where he was and did nothing.
No flinch. No step back. His expression remained unchanged, eyes steady, breath even. The wolf's gaze lingered on him for a moment longer than necessary, then it snorted quietly and pulled its head away.
The hooded man said nothing.
Behind him, Kael placed a hand briefly on Ivor's shoulder.
Rhea stepped forward and adjusted the strap of the cloth bag at Ivor's side, fingers lingering for half a second before she pulled away.
"Remember," she said quietly.
Ivor nodded once.
That was all.
He turned, stepped up, and swung himself onto the saddle behind the man without hesitation. The wolf tensed, then settled as the weight shifted.
The hooded man clicked his tongue once.
The wolf turned and began moving, paws striking stone in a steady rhythm as they passed through the gate and away from the administrative building.
As the wolf picked up speed, the Shrouded district slid past in muted fragments. Wooden houses leaned into one another, their walls patched and repatched, roofs bowed with age. Narrow streets streaked by beneath them, dark with old water and waste, the smell of rot and iron clinging low to the ground. Faces turned briefly as they passed, then lowered again. No one watched for long.
Ivor's gaze drifted toward the far lanes, toward the direction of the Labor Pen. His eyes lingered on the stretch of buildings where one section had once held a white bear. The memory came without warning. A smaller body then, wounded even then, watching him with wary eyes. He remembered kneeling, reaching out, and saying it without thinking, half amused, half gentle.
"Since you like to grunt so much, I'll call you Grunty."
The wolf surged faster.
The houses blurred into streaks of gray and brown. The streets vanished. Open ground replaced them, empty and scarred, the wind cutting cleaner now as the district fell away behind them. Ahead, a tall wall rose from the earth, dark stone fitted too precisely to belong to Shrouded.
The wolf slowed.
Then stopped.
They stopped before a massive gate set into the wall.
Ivor lifted his gaze.
The stone rose nearly fifty feet, stretching in both directions until it disappeared into the haze. It was thick, dark, and densely fitted, each block locked tightly against the next. Faint lines were carved into the surface, running deep through the masonry in deliberate patterns. At first glance, it was just a wall built to last.
Looking longer changed that.
The air near it felt heavier, resistant in a way that had nothing to do with wind or temperature. Ivor became aware of it slowly, a subtle pressure that made his shoulders tense and his breathing shallow. His eyes lingered on one section of the stone longer than the rest before he realized he had stopped breathing altogether.
His father's words surfaced without warning.
The walls weren't built only to keep people inside. They were meant to restrict mana itself, to stop it from flowing freely into places judged unworthy of it. An isolation enforced through stone and design. A boundary drawn not just around land, but around the lives contained within.
The wolf shifted beneath the rider.
Its ears flicked once, then again. Its pace slowed, muscles tightening under its hide as they neared the gate. It didn't snarl or resist, but the change was clear enough. The animal was wary of this place.
Ivor felt the same unease settle into his chest.
The pressure behind his eyes stirred faintly. His gaze moved across the gate, the guards stationed nearby, the carved lines in the stone. He couldn't have said what he was looking for, only that something about the structure demanded attention.
Two guards waited at the gate.
They asked no questions. One glanced at the hooded rider, then at Ivor, and gave a short nod.
The gate began to open.
Stone scraped against stone, slow and deliberate. The sound carried weight, as if the wall itself resisted being parted. Cool air slipped through the widening gap, cleaner than anything Ivor had felt in the Shrouded district, brushing against his face as the opening grew.
The wolf stepped forward.
As they passed through, Ivor felt it.
A boundary.
Nothing visible, nothing tangible, but unmistakable all the same. Something loosened its hold on him as he crossed. At the same time, something else seemed to take notice.
He didn't turn back.
The gate closed behind them with a final, heavy sound, sealing the Shrouded district away, at least for now.