Two hundred Repossessors stood ankle-deep in the streambed under Miss Alba's noodle shop, lanterns strapped to their waists like luminous parasites. Their armor was a patchwork of old tattered suits and rusted metal plating. Their morphing weapons were loud and obnoxiously big. Gael walked through all of them without pause while Maeve, Cara, Evelyn, and Liorin followed close, beelining straight for the mouth of the pipe.

It was a monstrous tunnel rimmed in old brass and thick with chains as ever. Above it, a few lanterns burned low and red like mourning candles. At the center, haloed by flickering torchlight, stood Lorcawn and his Five Fingers—Fergal among them.

Naturally, Evelyn began fidgeting and squirming in the presence of so many Repossessors, but between her courier's overalls, thick sleeves and trousers, and full-face flower-patterned mask, nobody not in the know seemed to recognize her. Nobody would recognize her if she didn't unfold her wings, so Lorcawn certainly didn't as he dipped his head at Gael.

"Good morning to you, doctor," Lorcawn said. His voice dripped like resin, slow and thick. "I have been told you somehow managed to map out the Gulch pipelines and pinpointed the exact location of the central command chamber."

Behind Gael, Cara stepped forward without being told. The nature of her pride wouldn't let Gael take the credit for her hard work, so she handed the scroll to Lorcawn like she was giving over a severed hand, slowly and carefully.

The Palm took it. Didn't even look at her fingers at first. Then he did—his gaze catching on her face—and his dull golden eyes twisted into a sly smile.

"And who might you be?" he murmured. "Such pretty skin for a Bharnish. Such lovely limbs for an assistant."

Cara's voice stayed sharp and civil. "His older sister. Pleased to meet you."

Gael watched the exchange in silence. Watched the ugly gleam in Lorcawn's eyes flicker before vanishing into the lamplight. He felt his molars grind slightly in his jaw, but… he didn't finish his dark, violent thoughts.

Now, now, that's just how Lorcawn is.

Don't make a big fuss out of it if Cara ain't making a big fuss out of it.

So he only watched as the Palm's eyes moved without blinking, methodically reading the map in his hands.

Then, he gave a loud exhale through the brass tubes on his patchwork leather mass, and he turned his head slightly to Fergal beside him.

"You weren't lying," he hummed. "This is a legitimate map."

And without fanfare, he turned and stepped into the pipe.

No dramatic gestures. No barked command. With the map in one hand, he waved the other one over his shoulder—and the small army of Repossessors began to follow, the waters against the current with hundreds of bootfalls.

"Doctor," Lorcawn called over his shoulder once more. "You will be acting as our doctor for this one last mission, won't you?"

Gael tilted his head. That was the most un-request-like request if he'd ever heard one before, so he didn't bother replying. There was no point.

Instead, while the Repossessors streamed into the pipes one group at a time, he turned around to face the two little shadows still lingering behind him.

"The two of you don't gotta come, you know?" he said, looking between Evelyn and Liorin. "Frankly, I won't pay you for following us either way, so if you're scared of the dark, now's the time to go back."

Evelyn stared at him through her mask. Her fingers twitched slightly against her overalls. The girl looked like a bundle of nerves stuffed inside too many layers of cloth, but Liorin?

He looked up at Maeve instead, nodding firmly once.

"I go," he said, accent rough but certain.

Evelyn flinched. Her gaze darted to the boy. Then to Gael. Then to the black throat of the pipe, and all the men marching into it.

Her jaw clenched as well.

"I'm… I'm going too."

Gael grinned. "You don't have to just because he's going. What, you afraid?"

"I'm not scared," she shot back.

Oh, but she was.Still, he saw her pride—fragile, feverish, and star-bright–and he knew she was glancing at Liorin as Maeve rubbed his hair, the two of them holding hands as they stepped into the pipe after the Repossessors.

Maeve turned back around and looked up at Gael expectantly.

… These children.

Gael sighed to himself and whacked Evelyn on the head before thumbing the latch on his lantern. The thin flame inside hissed through the filters, and while he waded forward with Evelyn and Cara, his free hand dropped to the little cylinder hanging behind his belt, fingers idly checking the latch-lock seal.

As he did, the pipes swallowed them whole.

Minutes passed. Hours passed. Two hundred men trudged shoulder to shoulder, steel and lanterns and grit packed into a single artery. Lorcawn led the way, following Cara's map like insects down a vein, and they overcame every environmental obstacle with ease. They brought chains to descend vertical shafts carefully. They brought boards to cross fifty-meter-long gaps. They had more than enough lanterns beneath them to raise the temperature in the pipes to almost sweltering degrees.

And as they walked, the Gulchers watched.

Gael saw them. Of course he did with his night vision lenses. They were pale shapes crouched in sewage ducts, ribs like prayer hands pressed against the grates, and glassy eyes stared out from ventilation hollows, silent as trapped oil. Some moved in twitchy lurches. Others froze like gargoyles caught mid-thought.

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Maeve saw them too. He knew she did. Her umbrella twitched now and then in her hand, every rotation of its spine an acknowledgment, but the others—Lorcawn, the Five Fingers, and the rest of the black-coated soldiers—none of them noticed.

Or perhaps they did, and simply didn't care.

But Gael cared.

He made it a point to tilt his head each time. Slowly. Deliberately. A quarter turn of the neck. A very visible gesture. The type of thing that, when done with a Raven's mask, made something watching from the dark feel seen in all the wrong ways.

The Gulchers flinched every time.

He never raised his hand. Never reached for a weapon. He just stared at them until they blinked first and receded back into their holes, like scabs drawing tight over an old wound, because while this might be their territory, it wasn't worth fighting Lorcawn and the Five Fingers over it.

More than a few people on both sides would die if the Gulchers chose to fight them now.

Still, it was a little alarming that the Gulchers hadn't even bothered setting any traps for them, so when the pipes eventually opened up into the single largest subterranean ruin he'd ever seen, he was surprised that it was this easy to reach the place.

It was a cathedral to sewage and steam. No less than two dozen metal bridges crossed a dark chasm that had no visible bottom. On all sides of the vast chamber were rusting scaffolds, spiral stairs, and grated catwalks, while pipes ran across the walls and ceilings like arteries beneath flayed skin. In the center of it all stood an enormous moss-blackened tower barred by a valve gate, and the tower was where all the pipes converged and diverged from.

The central command chamber.

And not a single Gulcher in sight.

How generous.

Lorcawn tilted his head, his brass-tube mask creaking slightly as he scanned the breadth of the bridge.

Then, without looking at anyone in particular, he raised his hand once—fingers open.

"All men," he called. "Secure the perimeter. Occupy every bridge, platform, and stair. If the Gulchers want to reclaim this place, they'll need to fight for every step."

And the army obeyed. Gael watched the black-cloaked men peel off in flocks, scattering down side bridges and ascending winding stairs like ants. The sound of boots faded into the rustle of steam and water below.

It really was too easy, but Lorcawn didn't seem to care. He was already walking the main bridge towards the tower, tossing the map aside now that he had no use of it. The Five Fingers followed, and so Gael, with nothing better to do, also stepped after him.

Evelyn and Liorin made sure to keep close to him and Maeve, careful not to peek over the bridge's edge into the drop below. Even he wasn't sure where the bottom was. The mist that pooled down there had no depth.

As they reached the giant valve gate together, Gael approached it first, stepping toward the bronze alloy door. It was a monstrous door, at least a few meters thick and bolstered with a dozen interlocking gears and brass reinforcements. Ancient sewer engineering, clearly built before the city's surface ever started rotting.

He unslung a vial from his side, flicked it once, and held it up to the door's locking mechanism. Just a few drops of the acid, and he'd be able to—

Bang!

The Palm and his Fingers simply kicked forward, and the entire gate cracked off its hinges, collapsing backwards with a deafening metallic roar.

… Or we could just do that.

They're strong as hell, aren't they?

While he corked his acid, the Repossessors walked inside. He followed them in.

The central command chamber was dark but hot. It wasn't the kind of heat that came from lanterns or fire. Rather, it was the residual warmth of machines that'd long since stopped moving but remembered how to hum. Ancient piping wove in and out of the walls like intestines. Gears the size of wagon wheels sat rusted shut behind glass chambers. Dozens of levers and valves dotted the perimeter, and a central console rose at the far side of the room like a throne of bronze, riddled with notches and keyholes and slots.

Maeve let out a tiny breath, her head turning slowly.

"Impressive," she murmured.

"To you, maybe," Gael muttered back. "This is barely third-generation industrial. You should see the machines they hoist up in Vharnveil. One of those could swallow this place whole."

She scoffed quietly, but behind them, Lorcawn clapped his hands once and pointed at the door.

"You three," he said, glancing at Cara, Evelyn, and Liorin. "Out. Women and children shouldn't be where men work."

Gael's jaw twitched. He didn't say anything. Maeve, however, wasn't dismissed, and for good reason. The two of them were chained together, after all.

Still, as he watched Cara herd Evelyn and Liorin out of the chamber, he had half a mind to…

…

Nah.

Nevermind.

While Lorcawn and his Fingers paced the chamber for a moment, studying gauges with cursory nods and tugging at levers just to see what might screech or shift, it didn't take long before the Palm turned to Gael again.

"This is the central command chamber without a doubt," he said. "You can operate the machinery, can't you?"

Gael didn't answer immediately. He glanced across the array of rust-glazed machinery, eyeing the interlocked pipe matrices and half-lit gauges. Everything here pulsed with the memory of old industry—made by men long dead who'd once believed in systems and progress and other charming lies—but his gaze eventually settled on the central console, squatting like an altar at the far end of the chamber.

"I'm no engineer," he said absently, adjusting the strap of his mask, "but I can probably reroute the pressure flows if I have access to that main board over there, and to do that… it looks like I'll need a key."

Gael strode towards the panel as he spoke. He crouched slightly, peering into the mechanisms: a lockbox slot built flush into the brass casing, just large enough for a governor's key.

"Without the key, I don't think I'll have executive control over the chamber," he murmured. "Unless, of course, you already—"

Something small and solid whistled through the air behind him, and he caught it without looking.

It was a key with dried blood around the edges.

"We already got it off one of the Gulcher heads," Lorcawn said. "Now go on, doctor. Do your work."

Gael turned back to the control board, key in hand, the blood on it crackling slightly as it dried against the grooves of his glove. He slid it into the slot with a soft click. The console gave a small tremble, like some old thing recognizing its master's touch after decades of silence, and yet… he didn't turn it instantly.

His fingers hovered there, resting on the key's stem.

If he turned it, the whole system would be under the Repossessors' thumbs. Valves would open. Pressure would shift. Gulch water would flood or reroute as Lorcawn saw fit.

A violent gang was one thing, but the Repossessors…

Gael's knuckles tightened faintly on the key.

Then—above and outside—there came a sound.

A heavy, metallic slam.

Then another.

And another.

The room stilled. Boots scuffed. Chains rattled faintly. Then came the unmistakable sound of iron shattering stone: twelve distinct impacts, one after the other, like gods flinging anvils from the heavens.

Everyone turned toward the front gate they'd busted down, and Gael followed their gaze.

Through the threshold and out onto the bridge, figures dropped from above—massive silhouettes wreathed in rust and grime, slamming down into the ranks of Repossessors without a single word.

Rustwights.

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