Prologue

"I remember his name. Or the sound of it, at least. Like a knife sliding out of its sheath.”

Fragment 22, The Book of Memories

Ω

Screaming, yet silence devoured them wholly.
Stone drank the echoes; the chamber was heavy.
Walls wept with iron; the torches were choking.
Under the floor, something vast was awakening.

Not beast, not a god, but a weight made of memory.
Chains were not iron, but syllables spoken.
Downward the floor held them, oaths pulling downward.
None could arise from the circle unbroken.

One tore his nails till the blood of him splattered.
One begged in tongues that no mortal should utter.
One only wept, and no witness could tell it—
tears born of terror, or tears born of mercy.

Darkness grew teeth, and the silence grew sharper.
Not with the fire, nor claws of a creature.
Breath was unmade and the skin was unthreaded.
Memory eaten, their bodies lay hollow.

Never as martyrs, nor heroes remembered.
Names were unmade, and the torches were ashen.

Chapter I - The Hunt Begins

“Every step you take in the dark is borrowed. Sooner or later, the debt comes due.”

Fragment 2, The Book of Memories

Ω

The tunnels pressed in like ribs cracked and broken, the stone bowing close as though the world itself bore a wound. Water dripped from valves and seams in slow, patient drops, stitching ripples into the black pools underfoot. The air reeked of iron and rot, of fires that had burned and guttered long ago. Cold threaded through their bones and settled deep, until every step dragged heavy.

Three figures moved through the dark, and the stone knew them. It always knew.

“Run,” Garrick said, and the word struck the air with such force the walls carried it forward. He had been running all his life—running from debts, from blood, from choices that never let him stop. His lungs burned, but he pushed harder. He always did.

Torchlight swung behind, orange and ravenous, flames snapping like creatures on the hunt. Voices followed. The Salt Rats, laughing, chanting names. These names did not belong to the three, but they were close enough to make their hearts falter.

The Rats did not only hunt bodies. They hunted identities. A name was coin, power bound in syllables. Lose your name, and you lost yourself. That was what Garrick feared most—not death, but erasure.

Calder ran second. Her coat flared ragged, brushing the damp walls. Her eyes darted, catching reflections; water on stone, polished rust, the gleam of pipes. She did not trust what they showed her, but she could not stop looking. In every reflection she counted herself, making sure there was only one. Her gaze flicked to Iren, smallest of them, stumbling with every step. Calder’s hand shot out, steadying his elbow as he lost traction on a patch of algae.

“Left,” Garrick ordered, voice iron.
Calder faltered. “If the sluice is open—”
“Left.”

They obeyed. The air cooled, thick with rust. From deep in the stone came a knocking, slow as a heartbeat. Iren flinched. His ribs ached in answer. His lungs were weak, each breath hard-won. When his palm brushed the wall, it hummed beneath his skin, as if alive. Words seemed pressed within, centuries of them, waiting.

“The walls remember,” he had whispered once. Garrick scowled at him, silencing him with those piercing eyes, but Iren still believed.

Behind them, the Rats grew louder. "Debts. Names for debts." Their chant filled the dark. Garrick could almost see their grins, their lips wet with hunger. He thought of his own debt, the fight unpaid, the body left behind. The ceiling dropped. They bent low. Pipes rattled above, spraying sharp streams. One sliced Garrick’s cheek, he didn't notice. Then the sluice: water pressed hard against the grate, the chain hanging heavy and slick.“It’ll drown us,” Calder whispered. “It’ll drown them first,” Garrick said, seizing it. They pulled. Metal screamed. Rust filled their throats. The Rats’ boots pounded closer, shrill with glee.

Iren pressed his palm to the wall. His lips moved, silent words threading into stone. The dark leaned close, listening. The gate surrendered. The flood came. The freezing water struck with teeth, dragging them down, turning their world on its head. The chain whipped Calder’s shoulder, tearing it open. She gasped in pain, and found herself choked with water that tasted of nails.

Hands seized her. Garrick’s grip, brutal and sure. Iren’s smaller hands, trembling but steady. Together they hauled her into air. Calder nodded in thanks, breath ragged, while she and Iren pressed against the tunnel wall to steady themselves.

Garrick moved along the stone with certainty, as though the tunnels belonged to him, even though he had never claimed them. His hand brushed something cold and jagged the edge of a rusted plate set into the wall. He pressed his shoulder against it and heaved. Metal groaned, and it gave.

“Through,” he called, his voice low, barely louder than the water’s roar. They climbed into the narrow hatch, one after the other. When the last of them had passed, the stone seemed to pull the hatch shut behind, sealing the flood away. TThe roar dulled to a muffled fury. The air here stank of dust and old grain. The dark was different in this place, not hungry, but older. They carried the river with them, its cold still clinging to their skin, its weight refusing to release their lungs.

Calder reached for Iren, needing proof that she was still flesh, still real. Her hand found his slender wrist. His pulse fluttered against her fingers, fragile as a moth’s wing. His voice followed, thin as breath. “Every word said here still lingers. The walls never forget.”

“Be quiet,” Garrick cut across, voice low and rough. “We keep moving. No light. Fire calls knives.”

The corridor beyond was older still. The stone had been laid with care. It remembered ordered feet, barrels rolling, a girl singing into the dark just to hear her own song returned sweeter. Now it carried three more, this time dripping and ragged.

Calder brushed her hand along a seam polished by shoulders long gone. She froze. Her reflection stared back, pale, stretched thin. Garrick and Iren hovered behind her. And behind them—something else. A mask, porcelain white, a crack down the cheek, its hand rising toward her shoulder.

She did not turn. If she turned, it would be real. She kept her eyes ahead. The air clung colder where the masked figure had stood.

The tunnel narrowed, ribs pressing close, until a ladder rose of iron. The rungs sweated slick beneath their hands, each one ringing hollow, as though it remembered every desperate climb. They rose slowly. The dark pressed against them, reluctant to let go. At the top, the carved stone ended abruptly, releasing them into silence.

 Ω

The brewhouse opened around them. Dust and grain soured the air. Hooks sagged bare from beams. Counters carved with knives bore scars that would not fade. Shutters leaked daylight like pale smoke, thin and mistrustful.

“Safe for a breath,” Garrick muttered, though his voice held no faith.

“This place remembers songs,” Iren whispered. The silence seemed to flinch around him.

Calder’s restless gaze caught on the counter. A sodden scrap clung there, nearly fused to the wood. She crossed to it, fingertips brushing the damp grain. For a moment she thought she felt the frustration of the Rats left behind in the tunnels, their hunger pressed into the paper. She peeled it free. Only one phrase survived: I remember… The rest was ruin. She folded it, and the words seemed to pulse with warmth in her palm.

They lingered. Garrick pressed his cheek to the shutter, listening for gulls and wheels. Iren sank onto a bench that groaned, eyes shut, shoulders trembling. Calder pressed the scrap tighter into her palm, as if it could anchor her. For a heartbeat, it almost felt safe.

“How many names do you think they’ve taken?” Calder asked.

“Too many,” Garrick said. “And they don’t give them back.”

“They don’t need ours,” Iren murmured. “They already have them.”

Calder’s head snapped. “How could they—”

“Because they always do,” Garrick cut in, voice sharp. “Don’t waste your breath.”

He pulled from the shutter, eyes hard, something had startled him. “We’re not staying. Up.”

They moved through the brewhouse’s rotting shell. Mildew thickened the air. Beams warped with damp surrounded them. Splinters jutted from knife-scored counters. Cobwebs sagged heavy, the spiders long gone. At the far wall, a ladder climbed into the loft, its rungs black with rot. Garrick tested it. The wood groaned, but held. They rose into a garret stale with feathers and droppings. Pigeons had ruled here once; now only dust. The rafters creaked. A gap yawned at the eaves, no shutter, no glass, only open night pressing close. Garrick shoved it wider.

The roof spilled them into a crooked city. Rows of slate teeth, spires snapped like bones, a cathedral’s broken finger clawing at the sky. Far off, the sea glittered, cold and careless. They moved across the ridge. Garrick sure-footed, as if rooftops had raised him. Iren trembling, knees unsteady. Calder scanning glass and chimney, eyes snagging on every reflection. They dropped to a lower roof. Then another. Garrick led, boots grinding slate to dust. Calder followed, the sodden scrap heavy in her pocket. Iren stumbled, catching the gutter.

At last, a courtyard below. A woman beating dust from a rug. She glanced up, scowled, and turned to walk away. Garrick dropped first. Calder followed, tall enough to land easy. She offered her hand to Iren, who took it, shaking. On the ground, the city pressed tighter. Lanes too narrow. Smoke thick. Cats slid through shadows. They cut east the only direction Garrick trusted.

Then Calder felt it. The scrap burned in her pocket. Not heat, but pressure. A hand against her ribs. Names crowded her skull, wrong syllables, heavy as chains. She staggered, hand to the wall.

“They know,” she whispered.

Garrick turned. “What?”

“They’re here.”

Ω

The Rats came from shadow. A boy first, smile sharp as glass. He raised a whistle and blew, thin and triumphant. Six men followed, sliding from alleys and doorways, knives gleaming patient. “Three o’ you, ain’t we lucky,” one jeered, grin split wide. “An’ we already got yer names, snug in our pockets.”

The lane drew tight. Smoke and sweat. Coal on the tongue. Garrick set his jaw. Calder pressed to brick, eyes darting to wet patches of wall. Iren whispered into stone.

The first Rat lunged.

Garrick caught the knife on his forearm. Steel ripped flesh, blood slicking his wrist. He drove his forehead into the boy’s face. Bone snapped. The boy's scream cracked high, echoing. Garrick thought, Good. Let them hear it. He tore the blade from the boy’s grip and forced it back through, up under his ribs. The body folded. Another Rat seized Calder, twisting her wounded arm until fresh fire tore through her shoulder. Rust and blood filled her mouth. She spat into his face, kneed him hard. He buckled, but hands caught her again, rough and cold. A knife glinted. Every reflection in the bricks showed her cut, broken, throat open. Not yet. Not again.

Iren was pressed flat to the wall. His lungs burned; each breath a knife. A Rat leaned close, breath foul. “Say yer name, go on,” he hissed. “Quick way, if you’ve got the guts.” Iren shook his head, mute. His palms pressed harder. The wall thrummed. Voices tangled in him, too many to count. He whispered back, desperate. The Rat raised his knife. Garrick’s roar split the lane. He tore the blade free from the corpse he had just downed, and barreled to Iren's side in three strides. Steel slashed deep into the man pinning Iren. Hot spray marked Garrick’s cheek. He spat blood, his, theirs, it didn’t matter. In that moment he was scar and muscle and debt made flesh.

Calder fought with blood-slick hands. Her Rat toyed with her, drawing his knife across her collarbone, shallow but burning. She seized his wrist, forcing the blade aside but her grip slipped, slicing her hand, blood joining his. She smeared it across his eyes, blinding him long enough to smash her forehead into his face. The crunch jolted her skull. He folded, gagging. “Another was on her before she could breathe, soot on his face, teeth bared. Knife flashing. Calder staggered, gasping, every brick’s reflection showing her doubled and bleeding where she was not.

Iren was still pressed against the wall, and his whisper deepened, sinking into mortar. The stone answered. Dust rained. Bricks groaned. The wall split with a crack like thunder. Masonry collapsed, burying two Rats in a storm of red dust and shattered bone. The sound was deafening, like the city itself had screamed.

For a heartbeat, silence. Even the Rats froze. One whispered the word like prayer: “Listener.” Then they surged again. Hunger, not fear. One seized Iren by the hair, dragging him from the wall. Calder moved without thought and launched herself at the one holding Iren. Her knife—how had it come to her hand?—drove up under his ribs. She felt the tear of meat, the sudden give. He sagged against her. She shoved him away. Her stomach soured, acid rising like a curse.

Garrick was everywhere. Boots grinding slick stone. Blade tearing flesh. His own blood streaked him, but his grin was wolfish, teeth red. Each strike brutal, unthinking, a man made for violence and debt. The lane stank of iron and opened bodies. The Rats pulled back. Two still alive, mangled, grinning wide through smoke and blood.

“We got yer names,” one crooned, blade tapping. “Slice us up, lose us in the muck. Names don’t die, luv. They stick.”

Then they were gone, vanishing into shadow, leaving silence to choke the lane. Calder bent double, shoulder torn, breath ragged. Garrick stood heaving, knife dripping, eyes hollow. Iren knelt trembling, staring at the wall, afraid of what might answer if he touched it again. In Calder’s pocket, the scrap burned hotter. I remember. Words like teeth against her skin.

None of them spoke. The stones had no need; they remembered enough..