Marr
The rain hadn't stopped since morning. It hadn't been heavy — just a thin, persistent drizzle that clung to the city like a bad memory, slicking every cobblestone and darkening the soot-stained bricks of Ardenthall's older districts. Inspector Aldren Marr stood by the tall window in his cramped office, watching droplets race one another down the pane. They always converged somewhere near the bottom, as if they, too, were trying to escape.
The letter on his desk was still unopened.
It sat beside his cold mug of tea, the Ministry seal bright and waxy against the dull surface of the wood. He'd moved it three times since morning — from inbox to drawer, drawer to cabinet, cabinet back to desk. No matter where he put it, the thing always found its way into his line of sight, like an accusation.
Internal Affairs. Transfer Pending.
He didn't need to open it to know what it said. Too many corners cut, too many reports "lost," too many feathers ruffled among men who preferred their peace and silence to truth. Marr had been on the force twenty years — long enough to know that sometimes "promotion" was just a polite way of clearing the board.
A knock came at the door, followed by the creak of worn hinges. Sergeant Holst stepped in, cap under his arm and boots leaving damp prints on the floor.
"Sir," he said, nodding slightly. "We've found something at the victim's boarding room."
Marr turned from the window. "What kind of something?"
Holst crossed the room and placed a folded scrap of thick paper on the desk. Marr stared at it for a moment before opening it, the faint smell of mold clinging to its surface. Written in careful, almost elegant ink were four words:
The river remembers names.
Marr's jaw tightened. "Where was this?"
"Pinned under his mattress," Holst said. "No sign of forced entry. Landlord swears he lived alone. Place looked untouched otherwise."
"And this was Tomas Ewell's room?"
"Aye. Dockworker, thirty-two, no family. Lived light — a few clothes, a few pay slips. Nothing else worth mentioning."
Marr studied the paper again. The handwriting was precise, practiced. Whoever wrote it had education — or at least, the kind of discipline that didn't come from working a winch on the docks. He set the note aside and rubbed his temples.
"Three bodies, same mark. Now a message," Holst said after a moment. "Do you think they're connected?"
"Of course they're connected," Marr muttered. "The only question is how."
"Could be a sect. You know how the city is — plenty of river cults and doomsayers. Might be someone playing at prophecy."
"Or someone using prophecy to hide a blade." Marr's eyes drifted to the window again, where the sluggish black line of the Harrow Canal cut through the district like a wound. "The river's been carrying bodies long before this case. But this… this feels deliberate."
He didn't say the rest aloud — that the phrase, The river remembers names, felt less like a threat and more like a promise. And promises, in his experience, were far more dangerous.
---
Elira
The tavern on Windrow Street was called The Crooked Nail, though the sign had long since rusted and hung at an angle that made it nearly illegible. It was the kind of place where news traveled faster than the trams — the kind of place that smelled of wet wool, stale tobacco, and secrets.
Elira Vance slipped inside with her collar up and her satchel tucked close to her side. A handful of heads turned as she entered, the way they always did when someone new crossed the threshold. She ordered a pint of weak ale from the barkeep — more to have an excuse to linger than for the drink itself — and chose a corner table with a view of both exits.
The tavern was busy for a rain-soaked afternoon. Dockhands crowded around scarred tables, their conversations pitched low and heavy. A pair of merchants argued over tariffs near the hearth, while two women in threadbare shawls played a game of cards by the window. Elira listened to all of it — half in search of leads, half because she found comfort in the rhythm of other people's lives.
"You the writer?"
The voice pulled her from her notes. She looked up to see a man standing by her table, his cap pulled low and his coat far too large for his narrow frame. He smelled faintly of engine oil and brackish water.
"That depends," Elira said carefully. "Who's asking?"
"Marlin," he said, sliding into the seat opposite without waiting for an invitation. "Used to run barges on the Harrow. Heard you're asking questions."
"Maybe."
"'Bout the bodies."
"Maybe," she repeated, though her heart had started to beat a little faster.
Marlin leaned forward, his eyes darting toward the door before he spoke again. "Riverfolk don't talk much, but they're scared. Men say they've seen things. Lights under the water. Figures walking the towpaths at night where no one should be."
"Figures?"
"Hooded," he said. "Long coats. Always carrying something heavy. And they always stop at the Blacklock arch."
Elira frowned. "What's at Blacklock?"
"Nothing anymore. Old ferry pier — collapsed before my father's time. But they stop there, all the same." He shifted uneasily in his seat. "Word is, if you're out there past midnight, the river starts whispering your name."
She wrote quickly, her pen scratching against the paper. "And you believe that?"
"Don't matter what I believe. What matters is, the bodies keep showing up. And none of us go near Blacklock after dark."
Before she could press him further, Marlin stood and pulled his coat tighter around himself. "That's all I got. Don't come looking for me again."
And then he was gone, swallowed by the tavern's smoke and clamor as if he'd never been there at all.
Elira stared at the empty chair long after he left, the name Blacklock arch circling her thoughts. Another thread — and this one pulled taut toward something far deeper than a handful of anonymous corpses.
---
Ilven
The rain had turned the monastery gardens into a patchwork of reflective pools, each one trembling gently under the weight of falling drops. Brother Ilven walked the cloisters alone, the soft echo of his sandals against the stone his only companion. The prayer bells had long since faded, and most of the brothers were at supper. He had no appetite.
His thoughts drifted again and again to the scroll — the one the abbot had taken and locked away. The Path of the Nameless Star. The symbol burned behind his eyes even when he closed them: a circle split by uneven lines, like a broken compass. And the words…
He forgets none. He forgives none.
They felt less like scripture and more like prophecy.
A knock at the outer gate interrupted his thoughts. Brother Calden — young, earnest, and far too curious for his own good — appeared at the end of the hall, his robe damp from the rain.
"Brother Ilven," he called. "Someone asks for you."
"For me?" Ilven frowned. "Who?"
Calden hesitated. "A woman. Says she's here for confession. But…" His voice lowered conspiratorially. "She doesn't look the confessing type."
Ilven followed him through the cloister and out into the rain. The figure waiting beyond the iron bars wore a hooded cloak too fine for a pilgrim and boots that had never seen a monastery's dirt paths. She watched him approach with an unsettling stillness.
"Brother Ilven?" she asked, her voice calm and clear.
"I am he," Ilven said cautiously.
"I need to speak with you. It concerns the Nameless Star."
The name hit him like a physical blow. He glanced toward the chapel windows — no other brothers were near.
"You shouldn't speak that name here," he murmured.
"And yet," she replied, "you've been thinking of nothing else since dawn."
Ilven studied her face beneath the hood. She was not young, but not old either — her eyes were sharp, calculating, like someone used to measuring the weight of words. This was no penitent.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Someone who remembers," she said. "Someone who knows the river does not flow as it once did." She slipped a small envelope through the gate. "Read this when you're alone. And be careful whom you trust."
Before he could respond, she was gone — swallowed by the rain, leaving no sound of footsteps on the slick stones.
Ilven stared down at the envelope in his hand. No seal. No mark. Just his name written in a delicate, slanted script. He slipped it into his robe and turned back toward the cloister, his heart pounding. Whatever this was, it was older — and larger — than anything the monastery had prepared him for.
---
Marr (Later That Night)
He hadn't planned to go to Blacklock Arch. At least, that was what Marr told himself as he left the station and followed the narrow cobblestone path that ran along the Harrow Canal. His official report was finished, the victim's belongings catalogued, the evidence tagged. But the words from the note wouldn't leave his head.
The river remembers names.
The city had grown quieter since the rain began to fade, the usual racket of trams and factory horns replaced by the muted drip of water from rooftops. Lamps lined the towpath at irregular intervals, casting sickly orange pools of light on the slick stones. Somewhere far off, a steam whistle wailed as a train pulled into the central station.
Blacklock Arch was less an arch than a ruin. The pier had collapsed decades ago, leaving behind a jagged horseshoe of stone that jutted out into the canal like a broken tooth. Weeds had claimed most of it, and graffiti scrawled in a dozen languages stained the walls. It was a forgotten place — which, Marr supposed, was exactly why someone might choose it.
He stood at the edge of the platform and listened.
The water lapped softly against the stones. A gull cried somewhere upstream. The city beyond the canal felt distant here, its noise dulled by distance and mist. And then — faint, deliberate — came the sound of something heavy being dragged across cobblestones.
Marr's hand went to the revolver at his hip as he turned toward the alley.
A figure moved through the fog. Tall. Hooded. Slow and deliberate in its gait. Something long and heavy — too long to be a sack, too rigid to be cargo — trailed behind it.
"Police!" Marr called out. "Stop where you are!"
The figure did not run. It simply stopped and turned.
The fog clung too thick to make out a face, but Marr felt a prickle at the back of his neck — the unmistakable sensation of being seen, and known. Whoever it was, they didn't just see him standing there.
They recognized him.
For a long, breathless moment, neither of them moved. Then the figure tilted its head slightly, as if listening to something Marr could not hear. Without a word, it turned and disappeared into the maze of alleys, the dragging sound fading with it.
Marr didn't follow. He wasn't sure if he was ready to.
The water at his feet rippled once, twice, then stilled. Somewhere beneath its surface, the canal seemed to whisper.
---
Elira (Later)
The newsroom was nearly empty when Elira returned. The printing presses below were still clattering, but most of the desks were abandoned, the day's work long since done. A few lamps burned low, casting golden halos across the ink-stained walls.
She spread her notes across her desk and stared at the mess: sketches of the canal, lists of victims' names, newspaper clippings about barge schedules and dock strikes. The phrases repeated like echoes across the pages: Ferryman's Ledger. Broken compass. The river remembers names.
There were too many coincidences for it to be nothing. Yet too many pieces missing for it to make sense.
The rain had stopped entirely by the time she left the office. The streets were slick and gleaming under the gaslights, and a faint mist still clung to the edges of the canal. Somewhere far off, a bell tolled midnight.
Elira pulled her coat tighter and walked faster. She had the sudden, inexplicable feeling that someone was walking behind her — that her name, too, might already be written somewhere she couldn't see.