The morning after Haru's binding felt smaller somehow — like the world had been folded once and then smoothed again with a careful hand. The dojo moved on habit: the scrape of poles in the yard, the kettle's thin whistle, Rein arranging sigils like prayer beads. But under that ordinary rhythm there was a thin thread of tension, like a guitar string tuned too tight.
Kaito woke with the taste of yesterday's bread in his mouth and a new kind of alertness at his ribs. Haru's relic had bought them time, but time had that sly way of turning into pressure the longer you watched it. He dressed quickly, fingers fumbling the red ribbon at his wrist, then tied Haru's old cloak around his shoulders because the fabric smelled like the man who'd given everything without asking.
"You look like a boy who's decided to be an adult for the day," Mira said when she handed him a cup of tea. Her hair was up in a careless knot; a stray curl brushed his cheek when she passed the cup and the motion made him heat up a little, then smile because the day had to keep moving.
"It's a full-time job," Kaito said. He took the tea, warmed his hands on the cup, and let the small quiet of the dojo do its steadying. Toma sat on the low step and ate slowly, the cheap rice making his face soften with a kind of ordinary gratitude that felt like a balm.
Rein came in with a folded sheet of charcoal marks and a tiny crease at the corner that meant he'd been worrying it more than he'd say. "We picked routes," he announced without irony. "The collectors are reorganizing. Shard pings have shifted toward the Lower Saltbridge tonight. If they try another bind, they'll use the currents and move the ledger by a smaller channel."
Kaito set his cup down. Saltbridge — that web of narrow channels where tide and merchant traffic tangled — fit the pattern too well. It was close enough that a boat could slip away under cover of market light and far enough that the Registry's patrols might miss the quiet hours.
"Then we go there tonight," Haru said, standing by the doorway, his voice the kind that had taught Kaito to steady his breath. There was a stillness in Haru now that felt like a man who had traded a private weight for a public one. He wore the relic's faint warmth against his chest like a reminder.
Kaito looked at Haru and something heavy and human tightened in his throat. "Are you—" he started, but the old man held up a hand.
"I'm fine," Haru said. "I can't stop the world from watching me. But I can teach you how to move when it watches. You, Rein, Mira — tonight, you intercept a courier. Find out what the collectors plan; intercept the fragment if you can. Toma will stay back. I'll be here if anything else breaks."
Kaito had expected to be told to stay safe; he had not expected to be trusted. The trust felt warm and dangerous both. He nodded because the nod was what he could do.
They left before dusk bent toward night. Rein's sigils were small landmarks along the lane; Mira's threads cut across likely eaves like soft tripwires. Haru watched them go, fingers lingering on a carved post the way an old man counts the grain of wood.
The Saltbridge smelled like salt and fried fish and the honest tang of merchants trying to sell anything that would move at dawn. Lanterns bobbed. Boats sighed against roped posts. Shards blinked from roofs in the distance, subtle as fireflies. Kaito felt the watch-thread at his wrist like a pulse: slow, then stirring.
They split as planned two narrow lanes from the bridge to the smaller slip where a courier had been reported — a lean man who moved like he could carry weight and secrets together. Rein's anchors were tiny moons in the air; Mira's thread hummed softly at her hip. Kaito slipped between stalls, heart a steady drum, and hummed the lullaby under his breath the way Haru had taught him to make it a wall instead of a weapon.
At the third stall, by a tar-splashed crate, they saw him: a courier no older than Toma, shoulders hunched under a small wrapped parcel, eyes darting like a hunted thing. He wore a simple patch — not the quill and coin of the grand collectors, but a scribbled sigil that suggested he worked for someone who worked for someone else. He was the kind of person who did tasks and counted nights, not futures.
Kaito felt something shift that was not fear so much as recognition. He had seen that face in reflections and puddles; it was the face of kids who learned to keep secrets for food. The lullaby in his chest nudged like a friend.
They closed in silently. Rein played his role perfectly: a shadow that looked like a merchant and not a threat. Mira's thread caught a rope and tugged it like a whisper. Kaito stepped forward and, for the first time, chose a different opening than they'd practiced.
Instead of calling out, Kaito knelt and offered the courier the corner of his bread.
The boy startled. For a heartbeat Kaito feared he'd been seen as a trick; instead, the courier's hand shook and he accepted the bread like a benediction.
"You lost?" Kaito asked softly.
The courier blinked as if he'd been given permission to be a child for a second. "Just delivering. Quick trip. Keep me in shadow, and nobody asks questions," he muttered.
Kaito swallowed. The lullaby thrummed warm against his ribs. He could have pulled the boy's parcel and run. He could have called Haru's name and made the raid visible and clean. He caught himself wanting the loud solution — to be a boy who smashed things and walked away. Instead, he remembered Haru's words: Mercy is a weapon, choose it carefully.
"Who for?" Mira asked, quiet but cutting.
The courier hesitated. Kaito's offered bread did something small: it relaxed the courier's shoulders enough that the boy's mouth loosened. "A keeper on the Salt pike," he said. "Name's Bannon. He takes parcels to the Shelf sometimes. Tonight he's running a test — a fragment, small, locked. If it rings, he pockets it and sails early."
Rein made a small noise that was almost pleasure: useful information. "Where?" he asked.
The courier pointed, finger trembling, toward the lowest slip where a boat with a faded red cloth was tied. "Two slips over. He'll go when the bell's quiet."
Kaito felt the urgency bloom like a tide. "We can take the fragment quietly," he said. It came out half plea, half plan. "We take it and break it. If it's unbound, it can't call."
Mira's eyes were steady. "Breaking a fragment can release echoes. We must be careful."
"Then we incapacitate, not destroy," Rein said. "We get proof, then disarm it."
They moved like a single thought. Haru's training showed itself in small motions: Rein cut lines of ink in the air that would snare a foot; Mira looped threads that would bind wrists, not bones; Kaito hummed the lullaby like a map and kept the courier in his sight.
At the slip, two men lifted the parcel into a boat and handed a small coin to the courier. Bannon — taller, older than the courier, with a scar like a comma across his cheek — smiled like a man who'd never learned to look away. He ought to have been suspicious of three youngsters moving like a breeze, but perhaps hunger had taught him confidence.
Kaito's heart hammered when Bannon tapped the parcel's binding. The parcel gave a faint hum — the kind that made teeth vibrate. Kaito felt the watch-thread at his wrist bite. He stepped close and spoke, low: "We can stand here arguing, or you can hand it to us and walk."
Bannon's laugh was the sound of a man who'd been in debt pockets too long. "You're bold," he said. He reached, and for a second Kaito thought he'd been seen through.
Then something small and almost improbable happened: the courier — the kid they'd fed — stepped forward and slammed his shoulder into Bannon's knee. The larger man stumbled, surprised. Rein's anchors snapped like nets around wrists. Mira's threads tangled the parcel into a neat cocoon.
There was a quick scuffle — hands, the slap of rope, a crate tipping. Kaito moved for the parcel, opened the wrap with practiced speed, and felt a cold shock at his palm: a sliver of glass no larger than his thumb, etched with symbols. It hummed, a tiny clear sound that made the air taste metallic.
Kaito looked at it and saw, for a blink, the ledger's voice like a line in a book. He could imagine how the fragment connected across channels and called names: a tiny seed that could grow into an opened door.
He could have smashed it. He could have hurled it into the canal and watched the current take it away. He remembered the lesson: some things break worse when you smash them. And mercy had another face: learned restraint.
Instead, Kaito used the lullaby. He cupped the fragment like something alive and hummed the single melody Haru taught him, the same fragment of lullaby that once calmed a sleeping child. The hum wrapped around the shard and the sliver cooled as if someone had set it on a soft cloth.
Mira's thread braided around his wrist and the shard, making a little cradle. Rein wrote a sigil in the air and the fragment's hum folded into a whisper. The parcel's voice dimmed until it was nothing but a memory.
"Take him," Haru's face appeared at the slip's lip as if he had been watching the whole thing. He grabbed Bannon's collar with a careful hand and bound him without cruelty. "We hand him to the registry," Haru said. "Let them do what the law will."
Bannon spat and cursed, but the threads and anchors were patient. The courier — the boy — stood and watched, cheeks wet in the corner. He did not look proud so much as unburdened.
"You could have smashed it," the courier said to Kaito, voice small. "Why—?"
"Because smashing kills the thing's memory fast," Kaito said, and his voice sounded steadier than he felt. "We want their maps, not their mercy. We want to know who they answer to."
Rein tucked the fragment into a lead-lined box the dojo kept for dangerous things. "We'll keep it until the Committee can examine it," he said. "If it's dangerous, we'll trace its threads. If it's not, we'll bury it deep."
They led Bannon away and left the courier under the awning where fishwives spread nets. Mira handed the boy Kaito's remaining piece of bread and the courier's smile was small and human.
On the walk home, the Saltbridge lights looked like scattered coins. Kaito glanced at the boxed shard and felt novelty and dread twist. They'd intercepted one small piece; that might be the only thing they needed to slow a bind — or it might be the reason someone four rooms away decided to move faster.
Back at the dojo, Haru set the fragment inside a locked chest and handed Kaito a cup of hot tea. For a moment they sat without words, the sort of silence that was dense and comfortable and honest.
"You did well," Haru said finally. "You chose a path that risks less harm and gathers more truth. That is good."
Kaito wanted to puff up and pretend he'd showed courage. Instead, he felt tired and small and oddly proud. "I don't want to be someone other people can buy," he said. It was the truth, blunt and simple.
Haru's smile was a thing like braided rope — strong and small. "None of us do," he said. "We protect names. We protect people."
Outside, somewhere on a rooftop, a shard blinked twice. The note someone had tucked into a ledger slipped from a pocket and the ink on its line dried to a different word:
ESCALATE.
Kaito felt the dull thud of it in his chest. It was a sound like a tide pulling at a harbor. He hugged his cup to his chest and hummed the lullaby until it felt like a fence around his ribs.
They'd bought more time tonight. They'd done it without burning a thing that mattered. That felt like small victory, and small victories were the kind of things that stacked into bigger ones.
He did not know what would come next. He only knew this: he would keep singing his lullaby, teach the shade to listen instead of take, and stand with the people who had given him bread and a place to sleep. He felt human in a way that had less to do with being brave and more to do with not letting the ledger make the decisions about his life.
When he turned out the lantern that night and let the dojo sleep, the watch-thread at his wrist hummed low and content. It would not stay quiet for long. The city had decided to escalate, but so had they — the quiet, stubborn kind of escalation that meant training harder, trusting more, and choosing mercy when it hurt.