The feather above the door never bled before.
But tonight, it did.
A slow drip from brass to stone. Red as ink, thin as guilt. It pulsed with the same rhythm as Sykaion's heartbeat, as if the shop itself felt fear—not for what had come, but for what still hovered just out of sight.
Zeraphine pressed her palm to her shoulder. The wound was shallow, but it burned in ways no toxin could explain.
Killmark didn't leave poison.
He left reminders.
"He's not killing to end you," she said. "He's cutting at your meaning."
Sykaion nodded slowly, gaze locked on the feather.
"That means we've changed the currency."
Arlyss tightened her grip on her blade. "Then we change the terms."
They sealed the shop. Not with locks, but with belief. Sykaion marked four lines in chalk on the inside walls—versions of the Articles still forming, untested, half-myth.
Each one pulsed faintly.
> "No mercy is wasted."
"No truth is debtless."
"No name is owned."
"No death is clean."
The System logged the phrases.
Not as law.
But as contagion.
Zeraphine sat near the window, scanning pattern drift. "He's still circling. Not physically. He's making your memory bleed."
Sykaion walked to her, his voice gentler than the wound deserved.
"Why did you give me your badge?"
Zeraphine blinked.
He had never asked before.
She didn't answer. Not right away.
Because the truth was heavier now.
"I thought if I gave it up, I could be someone who believed you could survive this."
He nodded.
Then turned to Arlyss.
"You stayed. Even now. Why?"
Arlyss didn't flinch.
"Because when the killing starts, I want to be between it and you."
No poetry. Just fire.
And it hit Sykaion deeper than he let show.
He walked back to the counter.
Laid his hand on the ledger.
And wrote something new.
Not an Article.
A witness entry:
> Today, I was loved by two women who think they'll have to bury me. And both are ready to bleed before I do.
The System blinked.
A message appeared:
> SENTIMENTAL ENTRY: REGISTERED
IMPACT: UNRESOLVED
THREAT RESPONSE: ESCALATING
The feather above the door cracked.
And in the alley, Killmark whispered one line to the night:
> "Now you owe me something I cannot take."