The Guest Villas of the inner circle were gilded cages, smelling of lavender and old paper. Deacon stayed just long enough to ensure the Mark II Prototypes were secured under a double-watch of his own Oakhaven men. He didn't change into the heavy silks Julian had prepared. Instead, he kept on his reinforced leather duster, checking the hidden pocket where he kept his micrometer and a small, high-density coal-testing kit.
"You can't go down there dressed like that," Julian hissed, pacing the marble floor. "The 'Sinks' are where the city's waste ends up. It's a maze of unlicensed foundries and desperate men. If a Lord of the North is seen poking around the coal-heaps, it'll be a scandal before the moon rises."
"A scandal is a social problem, Julian. A coal shortage is a structural one," Deacon replied, checking the tension on his boots. "The Sun-Palace is burning white-ash wood for its hearths, but the rest of this city runs on anthracite. If the prices have tripled in a month, it's not because the mines ran dry. It's because someone is bottlenecking the distribution."
Deacon exited through the servants' entrance, slipping into the deepening shadows of the capital. Using his Logistical Insight, he didn't follow the main thoroughfares. He followed the soot. He traced the layer of fine, black dust that coated the gargoyles and the windowsills, moving deeper into the industrial underbelly of Solstice.
The "Sinks" were a stark contrast to the ivory towers above. Here, the buildings were lean-tos made of scavenged timber and rusted iron plates. The air was thick with the sulfurous tang of low-grade burning. Deacon found the main distribution hub—the Black-Gate Depot—and blended into the crowd of weary laborers and carters.
He knelt by a discarded heap of slag near the primary weighing station. Picking up a shard of unburnt coal, he pressed it between his thumb and forefinger, then held it up to a nearby torch.
Bituminous. Low carbon, high smoke, he noted. This isn't the high-grade anthracite the South is famous for. They're mixing in surface-peat to pad the weight.
"Hey! You there!" A rough voice barked.
A foreman in a leather apron, branded with the seal of the Silver Circle Alchemists, approached him. He carried a heavy cane tipped with lead. "That slag is Guild property. Move along unless you've got a chit for a delivery."
"Just admiring the quality," Deacon said, his voice flat and unimpressed. He stood up, towering over the foreman. "Or lack thereof. This load is forty percent shale. You're charging the city for heat, but you're selling them smoke."
The foreman's eyes shifted, a flash of defensive greed crossing his face. "The mines are haunted, traveler. The 'deep-rot' has taken the lower veins. We sell what we can get. Now, push off before I have the Censors haul you in for vagrancy."
Deacon didn't leave. He watched the weighing scales. He noticed a subtle mechanical bias in the counterweights—a deliberate calibration error that favored the Guild by nearly ten percent.
This was the "800-chapter" reality of the Empire. It wasn't just magic and dragons; it was systemic corruption built into the very tools of trade. The Silver Circle wasn't just a group of scholars; they were a monopoly that controlled the energy of the Capital. By manufacturing a "shortage," they were forcing the smaller independent foundries to sell their souls—and their patents—for a few crates of fuel.
"Julian was right about the scandal," Deacon murmured to himself as he retreated into the shadows. "But he was wrong about who should be afraid."
He spent the next three hours mapping the flow of the carts. He realized the coal wasn't disappearing; it was being diverted to a series of massive, unmarked warehouses in the River District. The Alchemists were stockpiling the high-grade fuel, waiting for the winter freeze to hit so they could sell it back to the Empress at a five-hundred-percent markup.
As he made his way back to the Villa, a shadow detached itself from a nearby alley. It moved with the practiced silence of a professional.
"You have a very dangerous habit of looking at things that don't belong to you, Lord Cassian," a feminine voice whispered.
Deacon didn't turn. He felt the cold press of a thin blade against the small of his back. "And you have a habit of wasting time. If you were going to kill me, you wouldn't have used my title."
The blade retreated. A woman stepped into the light of a flickering streetlamp. She wore the dark, functional gear of a scout, but her eyes held the sharp intelligence of a high-born.
"I am Tessa, of the Shadow-Vault," she said, sheathing her dagger. "The Empress doesn't like her guests wandering the Sinks. But she is curious why a Northern Lord knows the difference between anthracite and shale at a glance."
"Tell the Empress that the Silver Circle is choking her city," Deacon said, finally turning to face her. "And tell her that if she wants her foundries running by the end of the week, she needs an engineer, not a spy."
Tessa smiled—a cold, fleeting thing. "The Petition is in two hours, David. I suggest you clean the soot off your boots. The Alchemists won't be as polite as I am."