News travels fastest when it benefits the powerful.
By the time the undercity lights hummed themselves awake to another artificial dawn, the city above had already made its decision.
Not a whispered rumor.
Not a quiet internal document.
A proclamation.
Projected in shimmering sigils across government plazas.
Read aloud from church steps.
Posted on walls like a polite threat.
"The anomaly wish entity known as Aiden is hereby declared a destabilizing force.
His associates — codename 'Seris Valen,' 'Liora Argen,' and any unidentified accomplices — are to be apprehended alive for containment and compulsory integration into city security interest."
"Failure to report sightings will be treated as collaboration."
Alive.
Such a generous word, when spoken by institutions that break things to make them useful.
The demon informed them without ceremony.
He didn't sigh.
He didn't look worried.
He didn't even pause.
He merely glanced at the flickering message rune hovering in the air above his palm, blinked once, and stated:
"They have formally classified you as fugitives. You are now categorized as politically inconvenient. This will improve training urgency."
Aiden stared.
"That's it?"
"Yes," the demon replied. "That is the factual data. Emotional context is your responsibility."
Liora snorted weakly from her bedroll.
"Does anything bother you?"
"Yes," he replied calmly. "I find poorly structured legal language deeply offensive. Fortunately, this is refreshingly blunt."
He dismissed the rune.
"Lesson resumes in twenty minutes."
They were expendable problems now.
They had always been.
Now the city simply stopped pretending otherwise.
Liora eventually excused herself to the quieter edge of their makeshift shelter—what used to be part of an old municipal control room. Dust. Old pipework. Silence.
She meant to check her bandages.
Instead she found fabric she didn't remember.
A strip of clean cloth sewn into the lining of what remained of her old battle-torn jacket.
Her fingers froze.
She tugged it free.
A folded note slid out.
Her heart stuttered.
She knew that neat, elegant script.
"For the one who stood when a world wanted her to kneel."
Her breath hitched before she could stop it.
She read.
"You carry truth too easily. It hurts you. It will keep hurting you. That is what makes you dangerous in the best possible way."
"Should you ever wish to find me, do not look upward. Courts are for masks. Find me where stubborn people gather and refuse to break."
"I do not court affection lightly. Yet I find myself… intrigued."
"Heal. Live. Learn.
If we meet again, I fully expect to find you stronger than me in at least one way."
— Ardent"
Her hands trembled.
She did not smile.
She did not cry.
She simply breathed and let herself feel something warm and terrifying and deeply inconvenient.
She tucked the note close.
Not because she was sentimental.
Because it mattered.
Because he saw her.
And she wasn't sure if that terrified or comforted her more.
Meanwhile, Aiden and Seris found quiet without meaning to.
They sat near a half-dead undercity light fixture buzzing with tired electricity, both exhausted, both pretending not to lean too close.
He looked at her.
She looked back.
There was so much to say that neither of them said any of it.
Instead, Seris spoke first.
"You shouldn't have come for me," she said simply.
He smiled softly.
"I did anyway."
She exhaled sharply through her nose. Not frustration. Not amusement. Something gentler.
"You ruined three separate departments' strategic confidence," she added.
He shrugged.
"Good."
Silence.
The kind that rests rather than presses.
Then, quieter:
"You scared me," she admitted. "Not because you came… but because for one horrifying moment I realized you wouldn't stop."
He swallowed.
"I wouldn't," he admitted.
She nodded.
"Good."
Their shoulders brushed.
They didn't reach for each other.
They didn't kiss.
The world was too sharp, too loud, too broken for that.
But something softened.
Something steady placed itself between them.
Not yet love.
But undeniably something.
Something stubborn.
Something tender.
Something earned.
She leaned just enough for it to count.
He stayed just close enough to keep.
That was enough.
For now.
The demon returned, punctual as inevitability.
He did not ask how they felt.
He did not ask whether they were ready.
He simply clasped his hands behind his back and said:
"Your situation has escalated. Excellent. Growth thrives under threat. Shall we begin?"
Aiden exhaled.
Liora tucked a secret in her pocket.
Seris squared herself like a woman who refused to break again.
They were fugitives now.
They were hunted.
They were learning.
And somewhere above, the city slept uneasily,
because what it had labeled a problem
was beginning to become something much harder to control.