For a heartbeat, he just stood there, frozen in place. The crowd's noise dimmed to a distant hum, swallowed by the sudden roar of something inside him. His chest tightened, lungs struggling for air as if the cold itself had thickened.
A dozen images flashed through his mind, his cracked basement walls, the brittle blanket that never quite kept out the cold, the landlord's son knocking for rent every week. But those were about to become just memories. Not something to expect.
Veyn's fingers curled into fists. He wanted to turn away, to pretend the smoke belonged to someone else. But his feet wouldn't obey. The knot in his stomach pulled tighter, dragging him forward like a chain.
The wind shifted. It stung his eyes as he failed to blink, tears he didn't want to admit began to form.
Every step toward Brindle Street felt like walking through a nightmare.
Veyn, now back to his house, or what was left of it, dropped to his knees in the snow and ash, eyes wide, face blank, staring at the smoldering remains of the only shelter he'd known for his whole life.
'...I'm the poor bastard?'
The windows were gone. The roof had caved. The old blanket, his makeshift pantry, his stolen books, everything must've been devoured by the flames or buried. Nothing left but stone and smoke. The only thing that hadn't burned was the bitter cold.
He sat there for a while, blinking into the haze, waiting for his brain to do that thing where it saved his life again. Any moment now. ...Right?'
Then he laughed.
"Great. Just great."
Another laugh bubbled out, sharper this time, dry, humorless. It came again, and again, building like a cracked record spinning too fast. Then it stopped.
Silence.
He stood motionless for a heartbeat, shoulders trembling. Then he exhaled, a long, shuddering breath that carried too much weight for lungs alone.
And then.
He screamed.
Not a cry for help. Not rage. It was the kind of sound that scraped the edges of the soul raw. A sound dragged from somewhere deep and broken, too wide for the throat that tried to contain it. It echoed through the street like something dying.
As He looked up at the grey sky, mouth parting like he was about to bargain with a deity. "Gods, demons, spirits, spectral rats… any of you taking requests?"
A gust of wind answered with a fine dusting of ash to the face.
He coughed, stood, and brushed himself off. "Okay. Okay, think. I need shelter. I need food. I need, honestly, I need a bath. I probably smell like a corpse."
Then it clicked. The man from the street. Bath Guy. He'd tried to offer Veyn a job. Or… maybe. He was holding flyers and had clean hair. That counted as an offer in Veyn's book. Possibly worth investigating.
But more importantly, Veyn's eyes narrowed, 'why would someone be advertising a job to a guy wanting a bath, instead of posting it and leaving?'
"Unless…"
Veyn froze. His mind raced. Free baths. Shared quarters. Noble house. Warm meals. A bed with actual legs. Servant work, those jobs come with lodging.
He blinked. Then grinned.
'Oh, you smug bastard. You were offering me a place to live.'
"Alright," Veyn muttered, already turning on his heel and trudging through the mix of slush and soot. 'If I were a well meaning idiot trying to hand out jobs to ungrateful street urchins… where would I hang flyers?'
He didn't need long to remember. He knew where the job boards were. All of them. After all, he'd spent years scanning them for food work, low risk scams, and places ripe for petty theft.
The man would be gone by now, obviously. But the flyer?
He quickened his pace, muttering under his breath the whole way.
'Please be there. Please be employment at a noble house with a spare bed, a working toilet, and cutlery I can pocket.'
By the time he reached the board, the snow was falling as it mingled with the ash. Veyn squinted at the papers.
'Doesn't even have to be the same flyer. Just anything that says room and meals. Hell, I'll take closet and crackers at this point.'
Then he saw it.
At the Request of Her Ladyship, Countess Evelyne Aldergrave
Domestic Positions Available at Aldergrave Manor
Located in the esteemed district of Greyhill, the House of Aldergrave seeks able bodied and respectable individuals...
"Greyhill, huh?" Veyn muttered, plucking the paper off the board and tucking it into his coat.
'Nobles. Fancy. Full of valuables. Probably forget what they own after a day or two. I'm listening.'
He looked up at the thickening snow, a grin tugging at his lips. A bath, a roof, a job with lodging, and a house full of things worth stealing?
'Sounds like the gods finally got bored of laughing at me.'