Late at night, after his parents had fallen asleep, Rowan Mercer slipped quietly from his bed.
Moments later, he stood high above Backlund, the city spread beneath him like a sea of flickering lights.
"A. Locate him."
Rowan closed his eyes.
With a name, partial background from Audrey Hall, and an overwhelming difference in existential weight, divination was trivial.
The answer surfaced instantly.
A face.
A location.
Fire flared.
Rowan vanished and reappeared above an unremarkable townhouse in the Queen's District.
"Sight beyond sight."
A translucent eye formed in the air.
The interior of the building unfolded before him.
Dozens of people.
A clandestine gathering.
An underground exchange.
Backlund, as the capital of the kingdom and one of the most prosperous cities in the world, attracted countless independent practitioners. Where such people gathered, black markets inevitably followed.
These meetings were usually organized by a respected figure, accessible only through trusted introductions, and held at fixed times and places. Goods ranged from formulas and rare materials to artifacts and intelligence.
Most authorities tolerated them, as long as lines were not crossed.
Mr. A was the organizer of one such gathering.
Audrey had learned of him through two independent practitioners she had once hired to investigate Zilingus. Those same two were also candidates she intended to recommend to the Tarot Club.
Rowan focused on the masked figure presiding over the hall.
"Path of the Hanged Man… mid-tier controller."
His gaze sharpened.
From what Rowan knew, practitioners of this path almost never remained unaffiliated.
By the time they reached deeper stages, corruption inevitably pushed them toward the Iron Front.
Which meant…
A ninety-nine percent chance this man was one of their emissaries.
"To be safe, I'll confirm in person."
Fire flickered again.
Rowan appeared inside the hall.
The room went dead silent.
Every eye locked onto the small child who had materialized out of thin air.
Rowan ignored them.
He looked straight at the masked host.
"Are you Mr. A?"
The man's eyes narrowed.
"I am. And you are?"
"I suspect you're an emissary of the Iron Front," Rowan said calmly. "Come with me to the church."
The hall erupted.
"He's Iron Front?"
"You're joking…"
"That's a death cult!"
Panic spread instantly.
Anyone with basic knowledge understood what the Iron Front represented.
Massacres.
Human sacrifices.
Madmen wearing human skin.
If the host truly belonged to them, everyone in this room had been sitting beside a ticking bomb.
The masked man laughed.
A cracked, unstable sound.
"So they finally noticed me," he said. "In that case… I'll just add your soul to my collection."
Darkness surged toward Rowan.
A psychic pressure attempted to drag his consciousness into a nightmare.
It failed.
Without hesitation, the man conjured a blazing blue spear and hurled it forward.
Rowan watched it calmly.
Then opened his mouth.
The spear vanished into him.
Swallowed whole.
The room froze.
Rowan exhaled.
A colossal lance of fire, several times thicker than the original, formed in front of him.
"Here. Take it back."
The projectile screamed toward Mr. A.
His face drained of color.
Even with monstrous regeneration, being hit by that would mean total annihilation.
"Distort!"
Space twisted.
The flaming lance veered sharply aside, slamming into the far wall and detonating in an explosion of fire.
The building shuddered.
Smoke rolled outward.
Mr. A staggered backward, breathing hard.
Rowan took a single step forward.
The hunt had officially begun.