No Class Found

Mav rounded the corner into the alley and stopped.

The boy stood alone at the far end of it, knife in hand.

For half a heartbeat, Mav only stared. His Read the Mark skill triggered on instinct. The familiar pressure settled behind his eyes, and the number came back clear.

Level Twenty-five.

Mav’s stomach dropped.

That wasn’t right.

Behind him, Bern and Kraw caught up, boots skidding over packed snow. Bern was breathing hard, shoulders heaving, still angry from the chase. They had been running these frozen streets for blocks, and the kid had led them away from three different traps as if he knew where every snare had been laid.

Bern didn’t care.

He was already moving.

Mav opened his mouth to call him back, but it was too late. Bern had been pissed since the chase started, and now there was a lone boy standing in front of him with a knife.

Bern swung hard. Full body. Wide arc. No holding back.

The kid stepped.

Mav almost missed it.

One instant Bern’s blade was cutting through the space where the kid had been. The next, the boy was inside Bern’s reach, too close for the longer weapon to matter.

The kid’s knife came up under Bern’s chin. Up and deep.

One clean motion.

Bern dropped without a sound.

Mav and Kraw stopped.

For a moment, the alley went very quiet. They exchanged a look.

The kid didn’t move toward them. Didn’t speak. Didn’t posture. He just stood over Bern’s body, knife held low and bloody, eyes cold in a way boys his age had no business being.

He was not afraid to kill. That was clear enough.

But he was still outnumbered.

Mav’s hand tightened on his blade. Without speaking, he and Kraw split. Kraw went left. Mav went right. Slow at first, careful now, boots crunching softly over the snow as they widened the angle between them.

The kid watched both of them.

Kraw moved first. He feinted high toward the boy’s head, then dropped low, blade coming up under the kid’s guard in a fast, ugly cut meant to open him from hip to ribs.

The kid wasn’t there when the blade arrived.

Mav saw a flicker. Something bent around the kid’s shape, there and gone before Mav could name it. Then the boy was a step to Kraw’s blind side.

Kraw tried to turn. Too late.

The kid’s knife found his throat.

Kraw staggered back, one hand flying up too late to stop the blood spilling between his fingers. He made a wet, gurgling sound, knees buckling beneath him before he slumped into the snow.

Mav took one step back.

The kid let him.

Didn’t pursue. Didn’t smile. Just stood there, breathing evenly, knife dripping red in his hand.

Boss doesn’t pay enough for this.

The numbers said leave. The boy had taken Bern in two seconds, then done something during Kraw’s attack that Mav couldn’t explain. Some unique skill.

Mav didn’t think he could take the kid in a fair fight. Luckily, he didn’t need to. His hand went to the belt pouch.

The flask inside was no bigger than his thumb. One of the special tools the boss had issued before the job, with very strict instructions. Use only if necessary.

The kid’s eyes tracked Mav’s hand.

Then he moved.

Fast.

Faster than he had moved against the other two.

He came straight for Mav, trying to close the distance before Mav could throw. Mav threw underhanded instead.

The kid’s knife came up, parrying like he expected a blade. The flask him square in the chest and shattered.

The explosion slammed through the alley.

Pressure punched outward hard enough to knock Mav back two steps even with his arm raised. Dust burst off the walls. Snow kicked up in a white cloud. His ears rang, the whole world reduced to a dull, whining hum.

For a moment, he couldn’t see. Then the haze cleared.

The kid was sprawled against the far wall.

A broken crate lay splintered beneath him. His head had snapped back against the stone hard enough to leave a dark mark there. His eyes were half-open, unfocused.

Not moving.

Blood ran from somewhere beneath his hair, trailing down along his temple.

Mav stepped forward, blade ready. He watched for a count of three.

Nothing.

The crew sigil on his necklace pulsed once against his chest. The girls were caught.

No time to confirm the kid was dead.

Mav turned and ran.

Bale and Kain were waiting two streets over.

The girl with the black hair was unconscious, slung over Bale’s shoulder. A bolt jutted from her leg, the shaft cut short but otherwise left in place.

Wise. Less bleeding that way.

The other one—the half-goblin girl—was awake but paralyzed, carried over Kain’s shoulder with a gag tied tight across her mouth. Her eyes were wide and terrified above the cloth.

“Where’s Bern and Kraw?” Bale asked.

“Dead.”

Kain’s eyes narrowed. Mav kept moving.

“The boy was a lot stronger than I expected.”

Bale swore under his breath. “We need to move. Now.”

They moved.

Away from Glasshold. Away from the checkpoint. Cutting through the outer district’s maze of alleys and narrow streets toward the rendezvous point.

Behind them, in the shadow of the alley wall, a boy with silver veins slipped after them.

Unnoticed.

---

---

Wisp pressed his back against the inn’s outer wall and watched Mar stagger.

Seven bolts stood from the half-giant’s armor. Two had punched through the shoulder where the plates overlapped. One was buried deep in his thigh, black fletching trembling every time he shifted his weight. Four more in his back and sides.

Mar was still standing.

Wisp’s jaw tightened.

Whatever class the guard had, it made him resistant to the paralytic. Not immune. Wisp could see the drag in his movements now, the heaviness in each step, the way his grip kept tightening and loosening around the haft of his axe.

But resistant was enough to be a problem.

Across the ruined common room, the goblin innkeeper moved like liquid steel. Garrik’s twin blades spun in tight, vicious arcs, faster than most eyes could track. One of Wisp’s crew was already dead at his feet. Another lay crumpled near the overturned table, clutching at a wound that had stopped him from screaming. A third backed toward the bar, panic plain in his eyes, his blade shaking in both hands.

Near the kitchen doorway, the big cook stood braced with a rolling pin in one hand and a heavy pot lid in the other. Blood ran from a cut above his brow, but he barely seemed to notice. Two of Wisp’s men flanked him, testing for an opening, but neither could get past his guard without risking the innkeeper’s blades or the half-giant’s axe.

The cook wasn’t fighting to win, just holding them.

Wisp stayed where he was.

He had known going in that Mar was the problem. He had planned around him – extra bodies, paralytic bolts, distance. He had not planned on the goblin being that fast, or the cook being that stubborn, or three of his people going down before the girls were even clear of the inn.

The plan did not require Wisp to fight here. He just needed the fighting to last long enough.

Mar roared something — half-command, half-fury — and lunged at the nearest crewman.

The axe came down in a brutal arc. The crewman dodged left. Mar followed through with the haft and caught him across the ribs. Bone cracked loud enough for Wisp to hear it over the chaos. The man dropped, gasping and folding around himself.

Mar didn't slow. The axe came up again, looking for the next target.

Then the sigil pulsed hot against Wisp's chest.

The girls were caught. Good.

Wisp's hand cut through the gesture before the pulse faded. Mana surged. Many Faces activated.

Twelve copies of him bloomed across the common room. Moving. Breathing. Wearing his face and posture.

Mar stopped mid-swing. His head snapped left, then right, trying to track which was real. Garrik's blades faltered for half a second.

Half a second was enough.

The real Wisp moved.

He slipped through the kitchen doorway between his own duplicates, passing close enough to the big cook to see the man’s eyes flick toward him too late. One of the copies darted in the opposite direction, drawing the cook’s pot lid with a ringing clang against empty air.

Wisp was already past him.

The last of his crew who could still move followed. One limped. One clutched his side. Neither looked back for the men they were leaving on the floor.

Two duplicates broke for the front door as decoys.

Two more fled up the stairs.

Behind Wisp, Garrik's blade found another target. A scream cut short.

Wisp didn’t look back.

He hit the street through the back alley. The duplicates scattered into the city, drawing eyes, drawing shouts, drawing bells.

What remained of his crew broke apart as planned, each heading east by a different route unless followed.

Down the road, city watch bells rang harder now. Boots struck cobblestone. Voices shouted orders through the cold.

Then Wisp felt it.

Power.

Something dense and vast and controlled, moving toward the inn like a storm front.

His Unseen Walk triggered on reflex. His form blurred then thinned, fading into the background.

Wisp turned east and ran.

Whatever was coming, he didn't want to be there when it arrived.

---

---

Bran lowered the rolling pin only after the last attacker fled through the doorway.

For a moment, he did not move.

The common room was wrecked. Cold air poured through the shattered windows, stirring spilled stew, broken glass, splintered wood, and the dark smears across the floorboards. The front door hung crooked from one hinge. A table lay overturned near the corner where the girls had been sitting.

Where the girls had been.

Bran’s grip tightened around the rolling pin.

Mar swayed near the bar, huge and stubbornly upright, seven bolts jutting from his armor like black thorns. His axe was still in his hand, but the head of it dragged low, nearly scraping the floor.

Garrik stood a few paces away, chest rising hard beneath his blood-spattered shirt. He wiped one blade on the coat of a dead attacker without taking his eyes off the broken doorway.

No one spoke.

The girls were gone.

So was Calen.

Bran moved.

He crossed the common room in four long strides, stepping over broken chairs and around bodies. Through the common room, past the overturned stools and the pot he had dropped somewhere during the fight. Up the back stairs two at a time, ducking his head beneath the low ceiling as he climbed toward the attic.

Doc’s radio equipment sat on the worktable beneath the slanted roof, all brass fittings, wire, crystal, and pieces Bran still didn’t understand no matter how many times Calen tried to explain them. His hands shook as he activated the device.

“Calen. Come in.”

Static hissed back at him.

Bran swallowed.

“Calen.”

Nothing.

Only the crackle of dead air.

He pressed his palm flat against the table and forced himself to breathe before he broke something. Then he switched channels.

“Doc. Respond.”

For one terrible second, there was only more static. Then the radio crackled.

“Bran? Everything okay?”

Bran closed his eyes for half a breath.

“No. Inn was attacked. Calen got Cass and Mira out and ran. They were heading for the checkpoint.” His voice steadied the longer he spoke, locking itself into the same calm he used when the kitchen caught fire or someone came in bleeding. “He’s not responding.”

Silence followed on the other end.

Then the channel clicked open again.

“How long ago?”

“Just now. Minutes.”

“Mar? Garrik?”

“Standing,” Bran said. He pictured Mar swaying under the weight of those bolts and tasted bile. “But hurt.”

Another pause.

Then Doc said, “I’ll find him, Bran.”

“Doc—”

“I’ll find him.”

The connection ended.

Bran stared at the radio for a moment, chest tight enough that breathing hurt. Then he set the receiver down carefully and went back downstairs.

He stepped through the shattered front doorway and out into the street.

People had gathered at a distance, nervous and whispering. Watchmen were beginning to arrive in scattered groups, boots pounding over snow and cobblestone. Somewhere farther down the road, bells rang sharp and urgent through the cold air.

Then the sky above the street rippled.

Bran looked up.

A figure descended through the distortion, robes dark against the fading light, magic radiating from him in waves that made the hair on Bran’s arms rise. The murmuring crowd went silent.

Even the nearest watchmen stopped where they stood. Someone whispered the word Archmagister.

He landed without a sound.

His eyes swept over the inn. The broken windows. The bodies. Garrik in the doorway with his blades still drawn. Then Mar.

Still standing.

Still with seven bolts in him.

A woman stepped from behind the robed man, her face already tight with fury. Reinforced robes moved around her like armor, and pale hair streaked silver-white at the ends framed a gaze that went straight past everyone else.

Straight to Mar.

She crossed the street without slowing, brushing past Bran without even seeing him. Her hand was already glowing before she reached the half-giant, light gathering around her fingers as she touched the bolt in his shoulder.

Elara appeared at Bran’s side. She didn’t speak at first. She only gripped his arm hard enough that he felt it through his sleeve, her fingers digging in as if she needed to prove he was solid.

After a moment, she asked, “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine.”

She looked him over anyway. He let her.

“The watch said they never made it to the checkpoint,” she said quietly. “They’re searching.”

Bran’s throat tightened.

He turned his gaze east, toward the cluttered narrow streets beyond the inn. Toward the rooftops and shadows and all the places a boy could disappear.

Calen, the kid who had flinched the first time Bran slid a full plate across the counter to him. The kid who ate seconds now. Who’d grown into something sharp and strange and brave while Bran was still trying to understand how to read him.

Bran’s hand curled around the rolling pin at his side.

“Wherever you are,” he said quietly, “I hope you’re okay.”

---

---

Calen pushed off the wall and moved.

The alley behind him was still ringing from the blast, every sound muffled beneath the dull whine in his ears. Blood ran warm along his temple, then cold where the wind touched it. His ribs ached with every breath, and his left arm didn’t want to lift right.

He cleared a low fence and felt the shoulder grind. Bit down on it, swallowed it, kept moving.

The kidnappers weren't running anymore. They'd settled into a steady pace, confident no one was following.

Calen kept his distance — a long stone's throw, working what cover the terrain offered. Outbuildings at the edge of the district, and the occasional low hill or random tree.

The radio crackled.

"Calen. Come in."

Bran's voice. Tight with worry.

Calen fumbled for the transmit button. Pressed it.

"I'm here,” he whispered into the receiver. “Following them."

Nothing. No response. Only static.

He tried again. "Bran. I'm tracking them. They’re leaving the city."

Static.

Calen pulled the radio closer and activated Resonance Veins.

The energy flow inside the casing lit up in his mind's eye — lines of power threading through copper and crystal. Most of it was intact. But the transmission circuit had a fracture near the output relay. Power flowed in, but nothing went out.

He could fix it. Twenty minutes. Maybe less if he had the right tools.

But twenty minutes meant losing them.

Calen’s eyes snapped back toward the road. The kidnappers were still moving — small shapes against the open ground, heading further out.

Carrying Cassira and Mira.

He lowered the radio and shoved it back into his coat.

His hand found the vial in his pocket — one of Ironha's healing pills, the ones she'd insisted he take before leaving Foroughfore. He swallowed it dry. It stuck for half a second before going down.

The pain in his ribs didn't vanish, but it dulled. Enough.

Owe you one, Ironha.

Calen drew a careful breath, then moved again.

The walls of Glasshold proper were behind him now. The last buildings of the outer district thinned into old farm fences, abandoned storage huts, and stretches of hard white ground where the road had been packed flat by wagons.

The kind of country that emptied out once you got far enough from the gates.

They were heading away from the city.

Away from the watch.

Away from anyone who might help.

Calen’s jaw tightened.

I’ll find a way to tell you, Bran. As soon as I can.

But right now—

One of the shadows on the road shifted.

The man at the rear adjusted the weight over his shoulder.

Cassira.

Calen kept moving.