The city moves around us like a beast in restless sleep.
Lira and I don't speak much as we walk. Some truths are too fresh to be touched. Some decisions need silence to take root.
We find a quiet place—an old stone cellar beneath a butcher's that's long gone. The door still locks from the inside. That's enough.
---
She lights a stub of candle.
I unroll a stolen map of Stonefold's underways, threading it out on the table between us. Arrows. Symbols. Ranks.
"Who do you trust?" I ask her.
She taps three names. Not with certainty. With hope.
"Maybe them. Maybe none. The higher you climb in Threadless, the colder it gets."
"Then we start from the bottom," I say. "The ones who still bleed when they get cut."
---
Lira leans back, arms crossed, watching me. Not with suspicion.
With wonder.
"You're changing," she says.
I glance down at the ring.
It pulses again—faint. Not glowing. Just… *aware*.
"I think I finally know why it chose me," I whisper. "Not for what I am. But for what I *refuse* to become."
---
We plan in the dark.
Not just about who to confront—but *how*. No open revolt. Not yet. Influence first. Proof next. And maybe—maybe—a confrontation at the top.
There's someone called Vannor, Lira says. A strategist. Ruthless. He moves the pieces but doesn't dirty his hands.
He'll be the one who notices first if we pull the wrong thread.
He'll be the one we eventually need to face.
But not yet.
---
By the time the candle dies, we have a plan.
Small. Risky. Just enough to poke the lion and see if it roars.
Lira drapes her coat over her shoulders and glances at me.
"If we fail," she says, "they'll kill us."
"Then we don't fail," I say.
She nods once.
We step out into the chill air of the alley.
Not as ghosts. Not as weapons.
But as *mirrors*—reflecting the Threadless back at itself, and daring it to flinch.