"Condition one. I’m not taking you to my house. My house doesn’t exist for this. My house is where I sleep, not where I solve problems. I’m taking you to a different place I know that’s safe for tonight but not beyond tonight."

"Accepted."

"Condition two. I’m not introducing you to the person who’s going to receive you. I take you to the door. I knock. I make the minimum introduction. And I leave. If tomorrow the person asks you how you know me, you say you bought clothes from me. That’s all you know about me. Any deeper connection doesn’t exist in that conversation."

"Accepted."

"Condition three." Berran looked specifically at Liaraen. "My lady. Whatever your house is planning to do when this reaches your father’s ears. Discretion about who helped you in Greywall is important to several people. I am not among the people who need to be named in any report."

"Understood," Liaraen said. "Your name will not appear in any future conversation. On my word as Sael’thoryn."

"That’s enough." Berran nodded.

"Condition four. This is the last one, and it’s important." He looked at Nathan again.

"The person I’m taking you to is not a priest. Not a guard. Not someone from the Temple. She’s someone who operates outside official channels for reasons she has good reason to keep outside official channels. If you decide to trust her, you’ll get real help. If you decide not to trust her, she won’t harm you, but she also won’t help you beyond tonight. The decision of how deeply you share with her is yours."

"Is this person connected to the Passers?"

Berran went very still for a second.

"I didn’t teach you that word this morning, Hunter."

"I figured it out on the road."

"That’s worrying in itself."

"Is she connected or not?"

"Not directly. She knows of their existence. Has contacts. But she’s not one of them. Her affiliation is personal, and she’ll explain it to you if she decides it’s worth explaining. That information isn’t mine to give away."

"Alright."

"Do we accept the four conditions?"

"We accept."

Berran nodded. Finished closing the stall with three quick, efficient movements. Took a small bag from behind the counter and slung it over his shoulder. And looked at the street one last time.

"Follow me. Three steps distance. I go first. If I stop, you stop. If I turn, you turn without asking. If I see trouble and tell you to separate, you separate and meet where I indicate with a gesture, not words."

"Understood."

"Let’s go."

---

They walked through the commercial district streets as the sunlight finished descending behind the city walls. Soul Sense confirmed to Nathan that the four search teams had started moving in wider patterns, expanding the encirclement upon realizing the original center hadn’t produced a result. Berran walked with the specific naturalness of someone who knew the city better than the official map, choosing routes that seemed arbitrary but kept Nathan and Liaraen away from the streets where Soul Sense detected more activity.

At ten minutes, they left the commercial district.

At fifteen, they crossed the lower residential zone.

At twenty, they arrived at a narrow street Nathan hadn’t seen before, in a neighborhood that clearly didn’t appear on any tourist map of Greywall—with two-story houses pressed against each other and small windows with closed shutters.

Berran stopped in front of a dark wooden door with no sign. The building’s facade was identical to the others on the street. Nothing suggested that inside there was anything other than a family home.

Berran knocked three times. Pause. Two times. Pause. One time.

He waited.

A small window in the door opened. One eye assessed Berran for a second. Then it closed. The sound of multiple bolts being drawn back followed.

The door opened inward.

The person on the other side was a woman.

Medium height. Perhaps early forties, though it was hard to tell exactly. Long brown hair pulled back in a simple braid. Practical, dark, unadorned clothing. A small tattoo at the base of her neck that Nathan didn’t recognize but clearly didn’t belong to the official Pantheon.

And her eyes.

Her eyes were what stood out most. Hazel. But behind the color was a specific attentiveness—the kind of someone evaluating every detail of the people in front of her with the speed of a precision instrument.

"Berran," the woman said.

"Selene," Berran said. "I have a situation."

Selene looked at Nathan. Looked at Liaraen. Looked back at Nathan. And upon seeing the angle of his wrist, where the sleeve had shifted slightly during the journey, she saw the mark.

Her expression didn’t change.

But there was an internal pause that Nathan, with Soul Sense tuned to maximum, registered as a small change in the woman’s heart rate.

"Come in," Selene said.

"Not me," Berran said. "I’ve done my part. Tomorrow my stall opens at the usual time. If you need anything else, you know where to find me. Good night."

Berran turned and started walking back down the narrow street without waiting for a response.

Nathan looked at Selene.

Selene looked back.

"Hunter," she said. "Come in."

Nathan and Liaraen entered.

Selene closed the door behind them and began sliding the bolts one by one with the methodical precision of someone who had done this many times before.

"First," Selene said, without turning around as she slid the last bolt, "your Seal, Hunter Voss—I recognized it as soon as you came within my line of sight. Second, I know exactly who gave it to you and under what circumstances, which is going to make this conversation significantly faster than you probably expected. Third, and this is for you, my lady"—she turned to Liaraen—"your capture has been in my records for three days, which means my network has been actively looking for you, and Hunter Voss’s presence in your rescue is a coincidence I’m going to have to examine later because coincidences of this size aren’t coincidences."

Silence.

Nathan processed the three things Selene had just said.

And realized that in the last forty seconds, he’d gone from fleeing a city to entering a room with a woman who knew more about his own situation than he knew about hers.

"Who are you, exactly?" Nathan asked.

Selene finished sliding the last bolt.

Turned fully.

Looked at him with her hazel eyes focused with absolute precision.

"I’m the person the hooded man in the alley told you to look for if things got interesting. Though I doubt very much he said it using those words. And I doubt even more that he bothered to mention my name."

Pause.

"Welcome to the next phase of this, Hunter Voss. We have a lot to talk about."