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Han had been admiring himself in the carriage window for six streets.
Not openly, because apparently even he had some survival instinct, but often enough that Chan had caught him in the dark glass of the carriage. A glance at the collar. A slight turn of his chin. A minute adjustment to the fall of the borrowed coat, which was dark green, gold-threaded at the cuffs, and expensive in a way that suggested its original owner had never once had to climb anything faster than a social ladder.
Chan watched him do it again and folded his arms. “You’re enjoying this.”
Han widened his eyes at his own reflection with immediate, theatrical innocence. “I’m preparing.”
“You just winked.”
“It’s not my fault I look this good.”
Chan looked away from the window before his expression betrayed exactly how close he was to throwing Han out of the carriage before they reached the mayor’s townhouse.
Outside, Darsil slid past in lamplit layers, all pale stone and blue shutters near the council district, all narrow alleys and damp canal stink beneath it. The upper streets had dressed themselves for Mayor Vey’s charity dinner with garlands, lanterns, and enough polished glass to reflect every coin he had not spent on the people he claimed to be helping. Somewhere inside Vey’s house was the private ledger that proved where those coins had gone instead.
Chan shifted in his seat and rolled one shoulder against the seam of the jacket. Armour restricted him too, but armour had purpose. This was only cloth, tight across his back and useless at his throat, pretending discomfort was refinement.
“This does nothing.”
“It does plenty,” Han said. “It makes you look less threatening.”
“That is not a function.”
“It is tonight.” Han smoothed his own cuff. “Social armour.”
“This would not stop a knife.”
“No, but it might stop a conversation before someone asks why you look like you’re deciding which wall to put them through.”
Chan’s eyes narrowed.
Han smiled. “That’s why you’re not the noble.”
Chan dropped his hands and glared at the back of Han’s head. “I’m older than you.”
Han adjusted his hair in the window’s reflection. “You are. But if we put you in noble clothes, every guard in that house will watch you like you’re about to give orders.”
“I could give orders.”
“There’s no question. You would,” Han said. “And then someone would ask you something specific and you’d have to lie.”
Chan’s jaw tightened.
“And you can’t,” Han finished, almost gently. “Not without your face giving you away.”
“My face does not give things away.”
“Your face gives everything away,” Han said. “Then your mouth confirms it.”
Chan exhaled through his nose and glanced down at his own clothes; a plain black jacket and trousers. The sort of fit worn by a personal attendant or guard, someone meant to stand close, watch closely, and speak only when necessary.
“I object to this.”
But Chan knew Han was right. Han could talk them through the mayor’s front door. Han could become someone rich enough to be underestimated and charming enough to be forgiven. Chan could not. He’d also already learned that Han’s plans tended to work in the same way fires provided warmth, which was to say usefully, briefly, and with consequences. So Chan would watch the room, count the guards, and make sure Han’s clever mouth did not get the rest of him killed.
Chan settled back, resigned now to an evening of standing behind Han and pretending not to have opinions. He reached across the carriage and poked Han hard in the chest. “I am reminding you now. No magic.”
Han recoiled as though Chan had driven a blade through his ribs, one hand flying to the offended spot. “Violence against nobility. In a carriage. On a public road.”
“Ji.”
“I may never recover.”
“No Charm. No Suggestion. Nothing that leaves a trace.”
Han sank back against the seat with a wounded little huff, still rubbing his chest through the ridiculous green coat. “I know.”
“They have arbiters on the guest list, and Vey is paranoid enough to check for spellwork after the supper. If anyone remembers feeling strange around you, we are done.”
Han’s gaze flicked back to the window, his reflection briefly more subdued beneath the gold-threaded collar. “I said I know.”
Chan studied him. “That includes servants.”
Han’s fingers stilled at his cuff. For once, he did not answer quickly. He did not turn the warning into some bright, useless thing and toss it back across the carriage.
“I wasn’t going to,” Han said at last.
Chan held his gaze in the window.
Han’s mouth tipped, faint and defensive. “Using magic on people who can’t afford to refuse a noble feels like cheating twice.”
Ahead, Mayor Vey’s townhouse rose bright and polished above the street, every window burning gold, every lantern carefully placed to make generosity look expensive.
Han drew one breath and became Lord Tavian Marclay’s charming, useless cousin between the inhale and the exhale.
Chan straightened, jaw tight, collar tighter, and reached for the carriage door.
Han waited until the handle turned. Until the latch clicked. Until the street noise spilled in and Lord Tavian Marclay’s attendant had no choice but to exist.
Then Han leaned close, a smile fixed in place for anyone watching from outside, and murmured, “Remember, your face talks.”
Chan’s hand tightened on the door. For one dangerous second, Han saw the exact moment Chan considered shutting it again on his fingers. Then Chan stepped down into the lanternlight, expression blank with visible effort.
“My face,” he said quietly, offering Han a hand down like a proper attendant, “is being very polite.”
The dinner had gone disgustingly well.
Chan had spent two hours standing behind Han’s chair, silent as furniture, while Han became exactly the kind of person Chan disliked most: rich, charming, useless, and adored for it. He laughed at jokes that deserved burial. He complimented wine with enough false confidence that three different guests pretended they could taste whatever he claimed to taste. He flirted with Lord Venner’s eldest son until the poor man forgot the name of his own estate, then turned around and made Lady Vessara blush so hard she dropped a sugared pear into her lap.
By the second course, half the table loved him. By the fourth, the other half were pretending they had loved him first.
Chan stood behind him with a pitcher in one hand and an expression so carefully blank his jaw ached.
The worst part was that Han was good. It wasn’t just luck, not merely that he looked pretty in borrowed gold and dark green. He knew when to lean forward and when to look away. He knew which men liked to be challenged, which women liked to be underestimated before they won, which old lords wanted to be asked about their youth, and which young ones wanted to pretend they had invented scandal. He spoke as if every person at the table had become, for that moment, the only interesting thing in Darsil.
It was unbearable.
It was useful.
It was also, unfortunately, funny. Especially because the servants hated every single guest.
Chan discovered this halfway through the fish course, when the older attendant beside him leaned close without moving his mouth and murmured, “If Lord Peller says ‘delicate balance’ one more time, I’m pouring him the bottle that’s been breathing since Tuesday and listening while he praises the finish.”
Chan had nearly dropped the pitcher.
By the time dessert arrived, Chan had learned more about Darsil’s ruling class from the servants’ contempt than he had from any informant they had paid. He also learned that Mayor Vey only laughed with his teeth when he was lying.
Mayor Vey had laughed with his teeth six times.
When the last plates were cleared, servants moved in with quiet efficiency, clearing the table while footmen opened the tall doors to the adjoining rooms. Beyond them, lamplight spilled from the parlour, where low music had already begun and chairs were arranged for conversation. Guests rose in a rustle of silk and polite laughter, drifting toward the next performance.
Han rose from the table with one hand pressed lightly to his stomach and the expression of a man suffering nobly beneath the burden of digestion.
Lady Vessara touched Han’s sleeve. “Are you unwell, Lord Marclay?”
Han gave her a soft, rueful smile. “Only in the way of men who pretend they can survive rich food out of politeness.”
She laughed. Of course she laughed.
“Shall I send someone with you?”
“That would be very kind,” Han said, then let his gaze drift, apparently by accident, toward the side doors where the household staff were moving between the dining room and hall. “Though I hate to steal anyone important.”
Chan nearly closed his eyes. There it was. The hook dressed as courtesy.
A young servant near the door looked up. She had been carrying wine during dinner. Chan remembered her because she had saved Lord Peller from spilling an entire glass over himself, then smiled as if his complaint had not made her imagine his death in detail. Brown hair tucked beneath a white cap. Grey livery. Keys at her waist, mostly hidden by her apron.
Han had noticed the keys too. Of course he had.
Mayor Vey waved one hand, already losing interest. “Mira, show Lord Marclay to the washroom before joining the others.”
The servant dipped a curtsy. “Yes, sir.”
Han bowed to the table with just enough apology to seem well-bred and just enough helplessness to be forgiven. Chan followed a step behind him and no one looked twice. That, he was beginning to realise, was the advantage of being dressed to disappear. Servants, attendants, guards; the household accepted them as part of the furniture until someone needed blaming.
Mira led them out of the dining room and into a quieter wing, where the laughter from the guests thinned behind closed doors and the music became a polished murmur beneath the walls. The washroom, apparently, was far enough from the dining room to preserve the polite fiction that rich people never needed one.
“You handled that spill well,” Han said. “I thought Lord Peller was going to declare war over his sleeve.”
Mira glanced back. “It was only wine.”
“It was his favourite wine,” Han said solemnly. “I’m fairly certain he loves it more than his heirs.”
Mira’s steps faltered, and her eyes flicked toward him, startled by the directness of it. “You shouldn’t say things like that.”
“True things?”
“Things about your betters,” she said, voice dropping. “Not here. The walls have ears.”
Han glanced at the polished panelling. “Then I’ll be sure to flatter the walls next.” His smile softened, though something in it sharpened too. “And Lord Peller is a man with wet sleeves and too much money. Don’t promote him beyond that.”
“My Lord.”
“That too,” Han said, lowering his voice as he moved a little closer. “You shouldn’t call me that.”
“It’s proper.”
“It’s generous,” he corrected. “I’m a fourth cousin sent because the important ones all had better excuses. I’m charming at best and a useful decoration at worst.”
Mira looked at him, surprised. “That isn’t true.”
Han’s eyebrows lifted. “Which part?”
She hesitated.
His smile grew, slow and wicked. “The charming part, or the decorative part?”
Mira looked away too quickly. “The part where you said you don’t matter.”
“Very kind,” Han said. “And very evasive.”
“I’m being proper.”
Han glanced back toward the distant murmur of the parlour. “I’ve spent all evening tolerating people praising themselves for feeding the poor with one hand while counting the silver with the other. I think proper may be overrated.”
Her eyes cut toward him, startled again. She had seen him at the table, laughing easily, leaning close, making each guest feel interesting enough to forgive themselves.
Han’s smile tipped, lighter at the edges, as he watched her realise the laughter had been easy, but not honest. “I’m very good at pretending. It’s my only real accomplishment.”
Mira looked at him sidelong. “Are you pretending now?”
Han’s smile softened. “Less than I was in there.”
She glanced back despite herself. “You are very good at being charming.”
“Careful,” Han said, smile brightening again. “That sounded almost improper.”
Mira’s gaze dropped at once, heat rising to her cheeks. “I didn’t mean...” She faltered, then shook her head. “I only meant...”
“That I’m charming?” Han offered, far too helpfully.
Her mouth pressed shut, but the answer was already written across her face.
His smile softened for half a breath before he made it bright again. “The cook at home says my only useful skill is knowing when to get out of her way.”
Mira kept her gaze lowered for another step, the embarrassment still warm in her cheeks, but curiosity tugged harder than propriety. “You spend time in the kitchens?”
“Of course. She feeds me and tells me when I’m being foolish. It’s an excellent arrangement.”
“That’s not how most lords behave.”
“I’m not most lords,” Han said.
“That’s true,” she admitted, quieter.
“The cook would say I’m being foolish right now.”
Mira looked over despite herself. “Why?”
Han’s expression turned bashful at the edges. “Because I’m trying very hard to impress the only honest person I’ve met all evening.”
Mira’s mouth twitched despite herself. “That’s a dangerous thing to assume.”
“Competent, then. And pretty,” he added, lightly enough to let her dismiss it if she wanted. “But I was trying not to lead with that.”
Mira looked away, but not before her smile escaped. “That is foolish.”
“I know,” Han said. “Cook would be merciless.”
They reached the washroom. Mira unlocked the door, then stepped aside with the lamp raised.
Han paused at the threshold. “You’ve been very kind.”
“It’s my job.”
“That sounds like something people say when they’re not allowed to admit they’re kind.”
Mira looked away again, but the smile had already ruined her attempt at composure.
Han leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, close enough that she had to tilt the lamp aside to keep the flame from his sleeve. Not touching her. Just near enough. Her eyes flicked to him despite herself as he reached as though to adjust his cuff, expression turning sheepish.
“I should stop keeping you.”
“You should,” Mira said, though she had not moved away.
Han smiled, softer now, and leaned just close enough to lower his voice. “I can find my way back. I’d hate to be the reason the most competent person I’ve met tonight is missed.”
“That would be unfortunate.”
“For me,” he said lightly.
Her mouth curved despite herself.
Han’s hand dropped from his cuff as he straightened, his fingers passing briefly near her waist in a movement that looked, from the outside, like the careless drift of someone lingering too close. He did not touch her so much as nearly do it, letting the moment hang between them with his smile still soft and his eyes lowered. Mira shifted back half a step, flustered rather than alarmed, and Han let her have the space at once.
He gave her one last smile, bright enough to be remembered for all the wrong reasons, then stepped back into the washroom.
Chan did not follow. He remained by the door, hands folded, eyes lowered, every inch the silent attendant waiting to be summoned. Mira lingered for half a heartbeat, then seemed to remember herself and turned back down the corridor, lamp glow shrinking with her footsteps. He waited until she rounded the corner. Then he slipped inside and shut the door behind him.
Han stood with his back to the basin, breathing too quickly through his nose, one hand pressed against his chest. The entire key chain dangled from his other hand.
Chan stared.
Han looked down at the keys as though they had betrayed him by being plural.
“You stole all of them?”
“I panicked.”
“You panicked your way into stealing every key in the house?”
“I was panicking the whole time,” Han whispered, mildly offended. “You just didn’t notice because I was doing it beautifully.”
Chan stared at him for another second, then his eyes narrowed. “You used Charm.”
Han looked up sharply. “I did not.”
“Ji.”
“I didn’t,” Han said, firmer now. “No Charm. No Suggestion. No magic.”
Chan held his gaze.
Han’s mouth tipped, wounded in a completely different direction. “Some of us can be charming without cheating,” he said, the words edging toward a whine. “She was interested.”
Chan’s expression made it clear he considered that the least believable part of the evening.
“She was a servant,” Chan said. “You were a noble guest. That’s not exactly free ground.”
Han’s defensiveness faltered. “I know.”
They both did. That was why Han was wearing the coat. They had chosen charm instead of force, lies instead of blades, and the cleanest version of a dirty job they could manage.
“I didn’t push,” Han said after a moment. “I kept it light. I gave her room to walk away.”
Chan held his gaze for another second, then looked pointedly at the keys.
Han clutched them closer. “The theft was separate.”
“The theft was attached to her waist.”
“I didn’t hold her,” Han said quickly as his ears turned pink. “I only stepped close, and she moved the lamp, and my hand went to her waist for the keys.”
“Ji.”
“Not to her waist,” Han said, flushing deeper. “Near her waist. Past her waist. The keys were the objective.”
“I’m glad you clarified.”
“It was much more respectful before I described it.” Han looked wounded. “You make one criminal gesture and suddenly everyone questions your manners. It was a very respectful theft.”
Chan closed his eyes.
“If you keep looking at me like that,” Han whispered, “I’m putting you through the window.”
Chan opened one eye and glanced at the narrow washroom window, high above the basin. “That window?”
“I didn’t say comfortably.”
They reached the east wing unseen, which Chan distrusted immediately.
Han shed his charm once they left the public rooms, becoming precise and alert. He counted turns under his breath, listened at corners as though the house were a song coming in faintly through the walls, and followed the small signs of use: scuffed floorboards, warmer lamp glass, the faint draft of doors recently opened. Twice he steered them down passages Chan would have missed entirely, narrow servant routes tucked behind panelling and storage alcoves, built for people expected to appear only when needed and vanish the moment they were not.
The servant stair ended at a narrow second-floor landing, exactly where their informant had promised it would. At the far end waited the study door: plain wood, no guard, nothing to suggest it belonged to the man whose accounts could ruin half the city.
Only then did Han stop. He tested the handle, found it locked, and selected a key from the stolen ring with far too much confidence.
Chan turned his back to the door at once, gaze moving down the corridor they had come from. The portrait hall remained empty, and the distant music from the parlour was no more than a faint murmur through the walls.
Behind him, the key turned.
“Don’t look so pleased,” Chan whispered.
“But this is going well.”
Inside was a study built from heavy wood and heavier self-importance. Dark shelves climbed the walls, packed with bound records and boxed correspondence. Cabinets lined one side of the room, each fitted with a small brass lock. A massive portrait of Mayor Vey hung opposite the window, painted large enough to make modesty look like a rumour. The desk sat at the centre of everything, broad and polished, its surface covered in papers arranged with the deliberate disorder of someone who wanted to look busy without ever losing control.
Chan swept the room while Han went for the desk. Surface first: papers, seals, drawer edges, anything easy to reach. He skimmed letters half-read, receipts stamped and filed, notes written in a careful, impersonal hand. Names, dates, shipments; nothing that meant anything to him, nothing that pointed anywhere useful.
Han tried the stolen keys on the desk drawers but none turned.
“Servant keys,” Chan murmured.
“I realised,” Han said, already slipping a hairpin from his borrowed collar.
He made an offended little sound when the lock resisted him, then bent closer, concentration narrowing into a frown. After three clumsy attempts and one whispered insult, the drawer gave.
Inside sat a black ledger, plain and heavy.
Han lifted it with immediate, terrible satisfaction. “See? Right room.”
Chan took it long enough to flip through the first pages. Columns of numbers. Names abbreviated into initials. Payments disguised as repairs, storage fees, civic improvements. Enough to prove the informant had been right, but not enough to prove where the money had gone.
Han’s satisfaction faded as he read over Chan’s shoulder. “That’s only half of it.”
Chan closed the ledger softly and tucked it under one arm. He checked the desk again, then swept the room a second time with stricter eyes. Papers. Drawers. Cabinets. Shelves. Then he stopped.
One section of the bookcase was off. Subtle. Easy to miss. But the ledgers on the second shelf sat a fraction too far forward, and the row above them tilted just enough to break the line.
Han looked up. “What?”
Chan pointed. “That shelf is misaligned.”
Han stared at him. “Now is not the time. We’re in the middle of—”
Chan didn’t wait for Han to finish. He reached out and ran his fingers along the ledgers. A latch shifted under his touch and a click sounded inside the wall.
The bookcase swung inward.
“Oh.”
Chan folded his arms. “Yes. Oh.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Han said as he moved into the hidden room.
Chan followed, voice even. “Next time I tell you something’s out of place in our quarters, you won’t argue.”
Han snorted. “That’s not the same thing.”
The hidden room was narrow with cabinets lining both walls from floor to ceiling, each one marked with a neat brass plate and a number. Han moved to the nearest cabinet and checked the brass plate. Accounts. Northern road. Bridge repairs. Grain subsidy. His gaze sharpened.
“There.”
Chan followed his line of sight. One cabinet stood at the end, smaller than the others and set lower into the wall. No label, just a lock, newer than the rest, with silver worked around the keyhole in a thin, careful ring.
Han opened the cabinet. Inside sat a second black ledger, identical to the first except for a thin red cord tied around its spine. Beneath it lay folded contracts, sealed receipts, and a list of names written in the same careful hand as the papers on the desk.
Han lifted the top page just enough to read it.
“This is it,” he said. “Routes. Names. The accounts he paid through. The guards. The warehouses.”
Chan reached past him and took the second ledger, flipping it open beside the first to make sure the two accounts completed each other.
For one glorious, impossible moment, the job was done.
Then the red cord snapped.
The silver ring around the lock flared white.
A bell began to scream through the walls.
Chan moved before Han could fully panic. The bookcase was already swinging shut, and Han was still staring at the flaring lock as though the alarm had personally offended him. Chan caught him by the back of the coat and hauled him toward the narrowing gap as the hidden room shuddered around them.
He shoved Han out first. Han stumbled into the study, clutching the first ledger tight to his chest. Chan lunged after him, the second ledger pinned under his arm, and barely cleared the gap before the shelf slammed shut behind them hard enough to shake the books.
For half a breath, they stood in the main study, both of them listening to the alarm scream behind the walls.
Then the ordinary study door locked with a heavy magical clunk. Han and Chan both went still. The sound had not come from the hidden room. Slowly, Han turned toward the study door. Then, even more slowly, he turned toward Chan.
Chan kept his gaze on the sealed bookcase, jaw set in the expression of a man hoping guilt could be postponed by careful attention to carpentry.
“You moved the ledger,” Han said, tone accusatory.
“I had to move the ledger to steal the ledger.” Chan finally looked at him.
Han stared back. It was not often he found himself on this side of the conversation. Usually, he was the one holding the broken thing, or the stolen thing, or the thing that had become a problem only after he touched it. Usually, Chan was the one going silent in that careful, terrible way that made disappointment feel more official than shouting.
Han lifted his eyebrows, pressed his mouth into a thin line, and gave Chan the full weight of it.
Chan’s eyes narrowed. Han held the expression for exactly as long as bravery allowed, enjoying it far more than the situation deserved.
Then the bell screamed again.
“Right,” Han said quickly. “Escaping.”
He rushed to the study door, found the key he had used before, and jammed it into the lock. It turned halfway, then stopped dead.
Han froze.
He tried again, harder this time, then pulled it out and stared at it as though the key might explain itself. The rest of the stolen ring clinked loudly in his shaking hand.
Chan stared at the keys. “Was that the right one?”
Han looked deeply offended. “Yes.”
“It didn’t open.”
“I noticed.”
“Then try the right one.”
“This is the right one,” Han hissed, waving the key at him. “The lock changed.”
Chan stared at him. Han stared back, pale, indignant, and completely unable to prove he was correct. Then the bell screamed again.
Han’s indignation collapsed into something much more useful and much less dignified. His eyes flicked from the useless key to the door then to the single tall window. He turned back, sheepish, the stolen key ring dangling from one hand.
“New problem,” he said.
Chan closed his eyes for half a breath. When he opened them, Han was already looking past him. Toward the window. Chan followed his gaze and then looked back at Han.
Han saw it immediately. The tightening around Chan’s mouth. The way his shoulders went still. The very clear, very silent don’t you dare written across his face.
Han swallowed. “I haven’t said anything,” he tried.
“You don’t have to,” Chan said flatly.
Han blinked at him.
Chan’s expression didn’t change. “You are thinking of a window-shaped exit.”
Han glanced at the door, where fists had started striking the other side, then back to the window. Panic was climbing up his throat fast enough to sharpen every word. “I can’t think of a better plan.”
Chan stared at him. “You must have some magic up your sleeve.”
Han hesitated just long enough to confirm everything Chan already knew. “I do.”
“No.”
“It handles the falling.”
Chan’s face went very still. “There should not be falling to handle.”
Han winced. “…Feather Fall.”
Han grabbed the second ledger from Chan’s hands and shoved it into the inside of his ridiculous green jacket with the first. The coat bulged badly at his ribs, gold embroidery straining around stolen evidence, but the ledgers were covered and his hands were free.
Chan’s voice went very flat. “Absolutely not.”
The bell screamed again. Footsteps pounded somewhere beyond the study door, muffled but getting closer.
Han nodded toward the window. “Break it.”
A fist struck the study door from the other side.
Chan sighed, long and suffering, like a man accepting his fate.
“Fine.”
He grabbed the nearest chair, swung it once to get the weight, and hurled it straight through the window. Glass exploded outward in a violent crash, shards scattering into the night as cold air rushed in hard enough to swallow the alarm for half a breath.
Someone shouted beyond the study door.
Chan stepped forward, grabbed Han by the sleeve, and hauled him toward the broken frame. “If this breaks both your legs…”
“It won’t.”
Han grinned, whispered the spell, and stepped backward into empty air, pulling Chan with him.
The world loosened, weight slipping sideways as the ground rose to meet them. Chan’s stomach lurched; Han let out a breathless laugh that sounded half terror, half delight. The fall caught them halfway down and they landed among the hedges with barely more force than a stumble.
Han gave Chan a hopeful smile. “See, safe landing.”
A thin line of blue-white light raced along the garden wall, quick as a struck match, and every iron lantern around the side garden flared to life at once. A second alarm screamed into the night. Not from the study this time but from outside.
Han’s smile died.
Chan looked toward the front of the house. Through the carved gaps in the hedge, he could see movement spilling across the drive. Guards were gathering, weapons half-drawn, faces turning toward the garden as the new alarm dragged their attention away from the study door and straight to the broken window.
Chan tightened his grip on Han’s hand and started running. “Run.”
They ran across the manicured garden in a graceless, destructive line.
Han hit the gravel path wrong and skidded, sending pale stones scattering across the clipped lawn. Chan caught his sleeve before he went down and dragged him onward through flowerbeds arranged in careful spirals, crushing bright blooms under borrowed shoes while the second alarm screamed behind them. A marble fountain flashed past. Han nearly collided with a stone nymph, apologised to it on instinct, then yelped when Chan hauled him through a gap in the hedges hard enough for leaves to whip across his face.
The low decorative wall beyond it was clearly meant to be admired, not climbed. Chan cleared it first. Han followed badly, one knee striking the stone, the rough edge ripping his trousers at the knee with an audible, tragic sound.
Chan did not slow. He hauled Han onward by the wrist while guards spilled around the side of the mayor’s townhouse in a bright scatter of lanterns and steel.
“Stop!” someone shouted.
Han clutched both ledgers tighter against his chest. “You first!”
“Don’t answer them,” Chan snapped.
“Force of habit.”
They cut between two neighbouring houses, both tall and pale and sleeping behind iron gates, then plunged into the service lanes beyond.
The noble district had been built for carriages, not escape. Too many open streets. Too many lanterns. Too many windows where wealthy people could look down and decide whether other people’s trouble qualified as entertainment. Chan dragged Han across one bright avenue, then another, down a narrow passage stacked with delivery crates, through a courtyard that smelled of damp stone and kitchen ash, over a low fence, and into a lane so tight their shoulders struck the walls.
Behind them, someone blew a whistle sharp enough to split the night.
Han stumbled, caught himself on a rain barrel, and kept running. His breath came ragged now, his ridiculous coat torn at the hem and bulging badly around the ledgers hidden inside it. “I think this is going well.”
Chan glanced back. The shouts were still there, but farther now, broken by corners and walls and the poorer streets opening ahead. “Stop saying that.”
“It keeps being true.”
“It keeps getting worse immediately after you say it.”
They crossed two more streets, ducked behind a delivery cart, and slipped through a gate Chan forced open with his shoulder. As they continued, the houses lost their gardens and crowded shoulder to shoulder, the polished stone of the upper district giving way to uneven cobbles, patched walls, hanging laundry, and the late-night smoke of cookfires banked low.
By the time the commons opened ahead of them, they had been chased through enough of Darsil that the town was beginning to fray around them, the crowded houses giving way to storage yards, shuttered workshops, and the broad, worn road that followed the canal out toward the fields. It was not quiet, because Darsil was too large and too restless to ever be quiet, but it was darker here, looser, less watched, with fewer lit windows above them and fewer doors that might open onto someone important enough to call for guards.
The commons itself was a rough square of trampled grass and stone paths between the lower markets and the edge of town, with carts abandoned for the night and a dry fountain crouched at its centre.
Chan did not stop until they reached the shadow of an old granary wall. Only then did he let go of Han’s wrist and lean back against the stone, chest rising hard beneath the borrowed jacket.
Han folded forward at once, one hand braced on his knee and the other pressed over the front of his coat as though someone might try to negotiate with him for custody of the ledgers. His hair had come loose, his coat was torn, and one gold-threaded cuff hung open at his wrist.
Chan forced himself to listen past the drag of his own lungs.
Distant shouting. Fainter whistles. The mayor’s alarm, muffled now by half the town and poorer streets. No footsteps close enough to matter.
For one brief, reckless moment, they had made it.
Han lifted his head with a grin beginning to form, exhausted and triumphant.
Then he went still.
Chan noticed.
Han’s face changed by inches. First confusion. Then calculation. Then horror arriving politely late to the appointment.
Chan straightened. “What?”
Han looked down at the ledgers pressed against his chest, then at the street behind them, then very briefly up toward the rooftops as though the answer might be hiding somewhere less personally humiliating.
Chan’s stomach sank. “What?”
Han swallowed. “Don’t be angry.”
Chan’s expression went very still. “Han Jisung.”
Han winced. Then, very quietly, with the expression of a man placing his own head on a chopping block, he said, “I prepared Knock this morning.”
Silence.
A cart rattled along the far side of the commons, its wheels clacking over loose stone.
Chan said, very carefully, “You prepared Knock.”
“Yes.”
“For the locked study,” Chan repeated, voice flattening further, “with a lock you could see.”
Han’s shoulders crept up.
“A lock that had either changed magically, barred itself, or both.”
“Yes.”
“The Knock spell that suppresses Arcane Locks for long enough for people to leave through the door like civilised criminals.”
Han looked deeply wounded by the accuracy.
Chan pointed back toward the distant bells. “And before you say it, yes, it makes a noise. It makes a very loud noise. We were already inside a house screaming at itself.”
For a moment, Han said nothing. Then, smaller, “It slipped my mind.”
Han was still watching him, all humour at the edges and uncertainty underneath, waiting to find out whether this would become anger or laughter or one of the heavier things that sometimes sat between them when a job went wrong and no one had died only because luck had been bullied into cooperation.
Chan looked at the torn coat, the stolen ledgers, the smear of dust across Han’s cheek, and the expression of a man who had flirted, stolen, panicked, jumped out a window, and only then remembered he had prepared a spell for locked doors.
The laugh caught him before he could stop it. It was short. Rough. More breath than sound, dragged out of him by exhaustion and disbelief and the impossible fondness of having chosen, for some reason, to keep Han at his side.
Han blinked. Then his mouth twitched. “Obviously,” he said, very carefully. “I’m deeply remorseful.”
That made it worse. Chan looked away, jaw tight, but the laugh was already there again, shaking once through his shoulders before he got it under control.
“Next time,” Chan said, voice dangerously even, “try remembering the spell for locked doors before the spell for throwing yourself out of windows.”
Han made a small, strangled sound that had no legal right to call itself agreement. “Noted.”
Three bells began ringing across the district. Chan turned his head toward the sound. The first bell was the mayor’s house. The second answered from the council watch. The third came from farther east, deeper and uglier, calling guards toward the lower streets.
Han looked toward the commons road, grin fading into something more practical and no less ridiculous.
Chan closed his eyes, but this time the exhale that left him was almost a laugh. “We’re not done running, are we?”
Han shifted both ledgers under one arm and gave him a strained, apologetic smile. “Only if you’ve become open-minded about prison.”