The fog loosened its grip as Erwin reached the inner market district.
Concord's heart pulsed here — slower than the upper wards, yet thick with life. The narrow street opened into a square framed by leaning tenements, their windows clouded with condensation. Steam curled from vented pipes, mingling with the chatter of merchants and the metallic clang of morning work.
Stalls lined both sides of the street — rows of brass trinkets, clockwork pens, tincture bottles, and paper charms sealed with Bureau-approved wax. The air was heavy with the scent of iron filings, damp parchment, and roasted chestnuts. Somewhere, a violin scraped a wavering tune that sounded older than the street itself.
Erwin walked through it all like a misplaced ghost. The soles of his boots left faint, dark prints on the cobbles, quickly blurred by puddled rain. He passed a mechanical scribe, a squat automaton of brass and glass, its fingers clattering across a scroll as it copied a sermon for a passing priest. The priest murmured thanks, pressing a coin into the machine's tray, never meeting its glassy eyes.
Above them, laundry flapped like faded banners. The tenements were built too close, their upper floors nearly touching. Conversations echoed between them, distorted into whispers — one might mistake them for the murmuring of unseen watchers.
To his left, a blind woman sold "dream slips" — squares of inked paper said to trap fragments of sleep. Her booth was small, lit by a single oil lamp. The flame flickered pale blue, yet the ink on her wares shimmered faintly gold.
"Scholar," she called softly, sensing him by the rhythm of his steps. "Your sleep carries stains. Buy a clean one before it sinks deeper."
Erwin hesitated, hand brushing his pocket. He looked at her: wrinkles carved deep by time, sightless eyes clouded with a sheen like frosted glass.
"What makes a dream clean?" he asked.
She smiled — toothless, patient. "Clean dreams forget themselves before dawn."
He placed a coin on her counter and took one slip. It was cool to the touch, marked with looping script that rearranged itself when tilted. He folded it neatly and slid it into his coat beside the memorandum, feeling an almost imperceptible tremor run through the pocket.
Further down the street, a procession moved — Bureau apprentices carrying sealed boxes under black cloth, accompanied by the dull toll of handbells. People stepped aside instinctively. Each box bore a sigil of containment, faintly visible when the cloth shifted. The crowd watched in silence until the last bell faded.
Erwin's eyes lingered on them, uneasy. That kind of procession was only used when recovering corrupted records — archives that had begun to write back.
The market noise resumed gradually, as if nothing had happened. The violinist changed his tune, the mechanical scribe resumed its chatter, and the blind woman lit another lamp.
Erwin exhaled.
He turned toward the river's direction again, past the end of the square where the cobbles turned uneven. Here, the buildings thinned — workshops with soot-dark chimneys, shuttered libraries, and faded Bureau emblems etched into stone. A crow perched atop a half-collapsed signpost, pecking at something that glimmered faintly like spilled ink.
Beyond that lay the bridge.
Mist gathered thickly there, swallowing detail, leaving only outlines and echoes.
Erwin adjusted his coat once more, his pace steady, eyes lowered as though following invisible handwriting across the street.
The sounds of the market faded behind him, replaced by the rhythmic drip of water from the bridge's underside — a slow, patient metronome counting down toward something unseen.
The fog breathed, and the city seemed to watch him go.