East of Marrowgate, the dawn ca slow, a gradual unfreezing in which the river’s fog retreated inch by inch before the push of sunlight.
The glassworks crouched at the edge of the marsh: a humped, rambling structure of kiln-brick and patched-together timber, outbuildings like barnacles on its flanks.
The windows, so shattered, so warped with age, gave back only dim reflections, and the main door had long ago been replaced with a curtain of copper chains that tinkled a warning at every wind.
Nik led the way, shouldering through the beads with the self-assurance of a local.
Inside, heat pressed against them, heavy with the mory of old fires and newer debts.
Racks of warped glass, bottles, beads, tubes for who knew what, lined the walls, and scraps of failed experints glittered on every shelf. The air itself tasted faintly of lye and sothing dicinal.
A woman stood at the far workbench, arms plunged to the elbow in a bath of blue liquid. She did not turn as they entered, but the line of her back stiffened, and Apollo saw the glint of a dagger poised at her hip.
Her hair was braided in a style Apollo didn’t recognize, it was tight against the scalp, then loosed in a cascade of pale gold.
When she straightened, her eyes, a deep, improbable green, landed on Nik, then flicked once to Apollo.
"You’re late," she said. Her voice was clear, almost uninflected, as if she’d practiced neutral for so long it had beco her only true accent.
"We had company," Nik replied, sweeping a hand at the bruises on his chin. "And I brought a friend."
She ca closer, drying her arms on a towel that left fine streaks of blue along her wrists.
Apollo noticed the scars there, old and new, so deliberate, others a side effect of chemical ambition.
She was not beautiful, exactly, but she had the kind of face that left nothing to imagination: all angles, no pretense.
"Lyra," Nik said. "This is Lio. He’s the reason we’re both alive."
Lyra glanced at Apollo, then at the dog, who had wedged itself between his ankles as if forming a firewall. "You look like shit," she announced.
"I feel it," Apollo said. "But I’ve seen worse."
Lyra made a small, skeptical noise, then jerked her chin toward a battered set of steps leading to the upper floor.
"Up. Third door on the left. There’s food, and sothing to clean your hands. Don’t touch the white jars." She turned away, already re-imrsed in her project.
Nik led the way up, pausing only to grab a raw onion from the pantry and toss it to the dog.
"As I said, she’s got a soft spot for orphans and disaster cases," he stage-whispered.
"But never mistake her for a friend. Last man who did lost two fingers and a week’s mory."
Apollo nodded, taking in the space: the strange, clattering warmth of a house built for invention and paranoia; the tangle of glass, wire, and boiled leather on every surface.
The third door opened onto a small, sunless room with a cot, a basin, and a tin of lard that served as soap.
Nik waited until the door was closed and then let his breath out in a slow, careful hiss.
"She’s the only safe bet for miles," he said. "But if you cross her, she’ll sell the at off your bones before the blood dries."
"I’m not planning to cross anyone," Apollo said, though the words sounded more like a prayer than a strategy.
Nik smirked. "Nobody plans to." He stepped out, leaving Apollo to the basin, the lard, and the first monts of privacy he’d had in months.
He stripped off the stinking shirt, peeled bandages from his side, and prodded the wound with surgical detachnt.
The skin was healing, the violence of the previous days compacted into a single, angry welt. He washed, lathered, and rubbed at the blood until the water ran nearly clear. In the corner, the dog watched with the solemnity of an older priest witnessing confession.
Apollo sat on the cot and let the exhaustion settle, the hush of the room thickening around him.
For a mont, he considered sleep, but the prospect of dreams, of the sick, the dead, the children with their blue-rimd eyes, made him flinch.
Instead, he studied the map Othra had given him, tracing the path from Marrowgate to the glassworks and, beyond, the forests and scars of the world.
Voices rose from below, Nik, Lyra, and a new one, deep and abrasive, the sound of gravel poured into a crucible.
Apollo listened, trying to parse the cadence, the threat or invitation hidden in each word. He dressed in what passed for clean clothes, then descended the steps, the dog ghosting after him.
The first thing Apollo saw at the base of the stairs was a hand: broad, square-pald, each nail half-mooned with black.
The hand clutched the neck of a glass bottle, its amber contents sloshing with each gesture.
The rest of the man resolved itself around the hand: a dwarf, not the mythic kind of storybooks but a living artifact of mountain and forge, his beard braided tight with bands of copper, his head shaved to a glistening do.
His skin was the color of old parchnt, and his eyes, strikingly pale, almost ice, stared with the focus of a mathematician plotting a murder.
He wore a tunic stained with burn marks and the chemical signature of a hundred failed experints.
When he laughed, the sound trilled up through his sinuses, as if delight were a debt he paid on the installnt plan.
Nik made the introductions. "Lio, this is Thorin Ironfist. Don’t let the na fool you—he’s got a sense of humor, sowhere under the layers." Nik clapped the dwarf on the back, which did nothing to alter Thorin’s posture or expression.
Thorin sized Apollo up, eyes flitting from his face to his hands to his feet, then back to his face. "You don’t look like much," he said, not unkindly. "But they say you can patch a wound, and that may be all the magicians are good for anymore."
Apollo inclined his head, uncertain whether to reply or wait for the next test. "I do what I can."
Lyra, arms now scrubbed clean, moved to the hearth and stirred a cauldron with a glass rod. "You’ll forgive Thorin," she said. "He trusts tal, not flesh."
"Flesh is a liability," Thorin agreed. He took a swig from the bottle, wiped his mouth, and set it down with a thunk.
"And so is magic, if you ask . Too much cantrip and glamour in the world, not enough honest work." He eyed Apollo sidelong, then shrugged. "Still, I’ve seen worse. If you’re able, you’ll patch up before this is over."
Nik raised his eyebrows. "You didn’t ntion you were hurt."
Thorin grunted. "Didn’t want to show weakness in front of strangers." He unbuttoned his tunic with blunt fingers, peeling it back to reveal a bandage above his left hip, hastily wrapped and already seeping rust-dark blood through the linen.
"Was nding a kiln door when a bastard from the Blackhearts decided to collect paynt for last month’s rent. Shanked on the way ho." He glowered at the wound as if it were an insubordinate apprentice.
Apollo stepped closer, unwrapping the cloth with a practiced efficiency. The flesh beneath was gouged and puckered, the edges raw but not yet septic. "You waited too long," he said, voice soft but without accusation.
Thorin bared his teeth, which were blocky and worn but surprisingly white. "Kiln was hungry. If folk don’t get their glass, the orders stack up and the Watch gets nasty. I’m used to working with pain."
He watched as Apollo rinsed the wound with a splash of clear liquor from the bottle. "One condition," Thorin added, gripping the edge of the table until his knuckles shone. "No gods-damned magic. Just stitch it."
Apollo nodded, but as he threaded the needle and set to work, he let a trace of the old warmth into his fingertips.
Not a miracle, just a gentle nudge, enough to keep the flesh from dying, enough to slow the river of pain. He worked quietly, ignoring the sidelong glances from Lyra and the dog’s soft panting at his knee.
Thorin’s breath hissed through his teeth, but he did not flinch or curse. When Apollo finished, he wiped the wound with a strip of boiled linen and tied it off with a square, tidy knot.
The skin had already begun to knit at the edges, the worst of the rawness retreating. Thorin eyed the work, then grunted. "Not bad. You could’ve been a smith, if your hands weren’t so pretty."
Nik clapped Thorin on the back, ignoring the fresh dressing. "See? He’s worth keeping alive."
Lyra spooned out bowls of the cauldron’s contents, a sort of thick, root-flavored porridge studded with chunks of beet and charred sausage. She handed one to Apollo, who accepted it with gratitude.
"Eat," she said. "You’ll need your strength. Word is, the Blackhearts are already hunting. They sent runners before dawn. By tonight, the bounty will’ve doubled."
Apollo ate, each bite anchoring him more firmly to the present.
He listened as Lyra and Thorin argued logistics, debating whether to hunker in the glassworks or try for the old supply tunnels that ran beneath the marsh.
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