The west stair smelled like wet plaster, sweat, and the copper edge of fresh blood.
Kael stood halfway up the landing with Ash at his heel and watched two city guards wrench the snareman's arms behind his back. One sleeve had ridden up in the struggle, showing a white cuff stitched with silver thread under the worker's gray coat.
House Vey colors.
Nobody on the landing missed it.
The assassin spat red onto the boards and smiled with half his mouth.
House Vey will own this Hall by winter.
Talia kicked him in the ribs before anyone could stop her.
He folded with a short grunt. The guards nearly dropped him.
The Pit Master looked at her. That was unnecessary.
She shrugged. Felt useful.
Below them, through the turn of the stairwell, the front doors of the Hall boomed open hard enough to shake dust from the cracks. A runner came pounding up from the lower floor, one hand on the rail, the other waving people aside.
Association carriage at the front steps, he gasped.
The landing changed at once.
The crowd that had lingered to gawk began peeling backward without being told. Bookies first, then junior clerks, then the men who always appeared whenever blood did and always vanished when questions started.
Clear the stair, the officiant said.
This time people listened.
Only Talia stayed where she was, leaning against the wall with her spear tucked under one arm and a bruise darkening along her jaw.
The Pit Master pointed at the crushed brass cylinder lying on the steps. Bag that. I want the marks copied before somebody swears it came from a market stall.
One of the guards stooped for it.
Ash watched all of it without blinking.
The smoke coming off him had thinned after the Pit, but Kael could still feel the hum of that new trait through the bond. Ash was calmer now. Not calm. Just no longer one spearpoint from doing something memorable.
A white panel flickered at the edge of Kael's sight.
MARK OF PREYFIRST USE CONFIRMED
He forced his gaze away.
The officiant noticed anyway. Can you still command him.
Kael looked down. Heel.
Ash pressed against his boot at once.
Good, said the officiant. Sit.
Ash remained standing.
Half the landing tensed.
Kael exhaled through his nose. Sit.
Ash lowered himself slowly, almost insultingly slowly, and rested one plated forepaw over the stair's edge.
The Pit Master grunted. That'll do.
The Association came up in a neat line a few breaths later.
Two escorts first, black coats, polished boots. Behind them a bald scribe carrying a traveling case, a woman in deep blue robes marked with silver seals at the cuff, and a narrow man in gray gloves who looked as though he had never once hurried for anything in his life.
The woman in blue took in the blood, the board, the bound man, Kael, then Ash.
Interesting, she said.
The Pit Master snorted. Everyone keeps saying that.
The gray-gloved man stopped in front of the prisoner. Turn out his pockets.
The guards found a folding knife, a coil of copper wire, three silver coins, and a sealed chit tucked inside the coat.
The bald scribe broke the seal and went very still.
The woman in blue held out her hand. He passed the chit to her. She read it once and folded it shut.
That is unfortunate for House Vey, she said.
The prisoner laughed through his busted lip. House Vey protects its interests.
Not this one, the woman replied.
She turned to Kael.
Name for the record.
Kael Veyr.
Class.
Beast Tamer.
Rank.
F.
The bald scribe's pen paused there. It always did.
And the beast.
Ash, Kael said.
The gray-gloved man looked down at him. Poor name.
Second person today.
The woman ignored that. We need a controlled response check and a brief assessment of bond stability.
No, said the officiant.
The landing went quiet again.
The boy fought a pit mauler under a rigged additional round, stopped active pursuit on this stair, and is still bleeding through one sleeve, she said. The beast is freshly grown. You can have your assessment after the bond settles, not while every idiot in the building is leaning over a rail for another show.
The woman in blue considered her, then nodded once. Reasonable.
The bald scribe cleared his throat. There remains the matter of temporary custody.
There does not, said the Pit Master.
There may.
There does not, he repeated.
The woman in blue lifted two fingers and both men stopped.
The contractor remains under Hall protection until sunset tomorrow. After that, the Association reviews the case based on compliance, public behavior, and risk. The beast remains with him until then.
Kael had not realized how tight his shoulders were until they eased.
The gray-gloved man looked back at the prisoner. And this attack.
House-linked, said the Pit Master.
Allegedly, the officiant added.
The prisoner smiled with one side of his face. Say allegedly after winter too.
No one answered him.
Then, as the guards started dragging him down the steps, the man twisted hard enough to wrench one arm halfway free and shouted toward Kael.
Ask him what happens when the second mark takes root.
Everything stopped.
Kael felt the bond jump.
Ash's head snapped toward him.
A panel flashed white in his sight so sharply it almost hurt.
MARK OF PREYSECOND SLOT LOCKEDCONDITION UNKNOWN
Cold crawled up the back of his neck.
The woman in blue saw his face change.
What did he mean.
Kael swallowed once. Don't know.
The gray-gloved man watched him the way a butcher watched livestock before deciding where the blade ought to go.
Before anyone pressed harder, Ash rose and stepped in front of Kael, small body angled toward the Association officials, smoke sliding off his shoulders in two thin dark ribbons.
Protective again, the woman said.
I'm getting tired of that word, Kael muttered.
Talia laughed from the wall. Apparently she still had not learned when to leave.
The officiant looked one breath from murder.
Instead she pointed at Kael. Back to your chamber. Now. No wandering. No private conversations. And no experimenting with anything that uses the word second.
Wasn't planning on growing another one before lunch.
Her stare suggested this answer had worsened her condition.
The Pit Master pointed at Talia. You. Either leave the Hall or share the escort and keep your hands to yourself.
Escort, Talia said at once. Better story.
So the procession back through the service corridor ended up stranger than before. Two guards in front. Kael and Ash in the middle. Talia beside him carrying her spear over one shoulder. The officiant and Pit Master behind them, still arguing in low voices about House Vey and public statements.
Talia glanced down at Ash as they walked. He always smoke like that.
Mostly when he's pleased with himself.
She nodded. Fair. I would be too.
At the chamber door the Pit Master stopped Kael with one heavy hand against the frame.
The board goes public to the whole district by noon, he said. Once it does, every fool with money, ambition, or a family problem starts circling. Don't open the door unless one of ours is on the other side.
Kael glanced at the guards. Yours seems flexible.
The old man grunted. Fair enough.
Talia leaned in just enough to look Ash in the face. If he grows a second mark, I want to watch from behind a wall.
Smartest thing you've said all morning, said the officiant.
When the door shut and the bolt dropped, the room felt smaller than before.
Kael sat on the edge of the cot and pressed both hands over his face for a moment. His ribs hurt. His shoulder hurt. His head felt packed with sand. Ash made one slow circuit of the room instead of taking the dark spot under the stool this time, then stopped in front of him.
You heard that too, Kael said quietly.
Ash's blue eye held on him. The violet one looked brighter in the dim room.
Second mark.
Kael leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
This book got expensive fast, he muttered.
Ash sneezed smoke onto his shin.
Then the panel rose again.
MARK OF PREYSECOND SLOT CONDITION: BLOOD OF A HUNTER
Kael read the line once.
Then again.
He had no idea what it meant.
The answer, unfortunately, arrived almost at once.
Something slammed into the corridor outside, hard enough to shake the door in its frame. A voice shouted. Another voice cut off halfway through a curse. Then boots hammered the floor, running, too many and too fast.
Kael was already on his feet when the bolt rattled.
The Pit Master's voice hit the other side of the wood.
Boy. Open up.
Kael slid the bolt free.
The old man shouldered in, breathing harder than before, scarred face gone flat in that particular way that meant the bad news was real.
What now, Kael asked.
The Pit Master looked from him to Ash and back again.
The board's drawn a crowd in South Mill already, he said. And one of your neighbors just came to the Hall saying men in House Vey colors are waiting outside your building for someone named Deren.