Chapter 153

Elara’s POV

Seventeen rejection letters. I counted them again, spread across the narrow table like a deck of losing cards.

The apartment was barely an apartment. A single room above a laundry service, with a mattress on the floor, a wobbly table, and a window that didn’t close all the way. Wind whistled through the gap, carrying the smell of detergent and damp concrete. I’d found the listing pinned to a board outside a bakery—cheapest rent in the district, and now I understood why.

I picked up the nearest letter. The parchment was thin, the ink already fading.

We regret to inform you that your application does not meet our current requirements.

The next one said the same thing. Different words, same meaning. You are no one. You have nothing to offer.

The messaging stone on the table pulsed with a faint glow. I touched it.

Margaret’s voice filled the small room, warm and steady, as if she were standing right beside me.

“Just checking on you. Robert fixed the fence today—nearly hammered his own thumb. Made me laugh so hard I burned the bread. We miss you. Don’t forget to eat.”

I pressed my palm flat against the stone until the message faded. The silence that followed was heavier than before.

Four days since I’d left. Four days in this city that smelled like wet stone and strangers. Four days of walking into offices, sitting in hard chairs, and watching faces close like shutters the moment I couldn’t answer the simplest question.

Where did you work before?

Nowhere I could name. Nowhere that existed in their world.

The stone pulsed again. Different signature this time. Unfamiliar.

A clipped female voice: “This is Jennifer from the Merchants’ Marketing Guild. We received your application for the clerical position. Please report at 10:00 a.m. for an interview. Suite 304, 1247 Pine Street.”

I played it twice to make sure I’d heard correctly.

Then I laid out my only clean blouse on the mattress and pressed the wrinkles flat with my hands.

—

The Marketing Guild occupied the third floor of a grey stone building wedged between a tailor’s shop and a closed pub. The stairwell smelled like mildew. Suite 304 had a frosted glass door with gold lettering that was starting to peel.

Jennifer was already seated behind a heavy desk when I walked in. She looked to be in her forties—sharp cheekbones, reading spectacles perched low on her nose, dark hair pinned back with military precision. Her eyes swept over me the way a butcher inspects a cut of meat.

“Sit.”

I sat.

She opened a thin file. My application. Mostly blank.

“Sarah, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about your experience.”

I’d rehearsed this. Practiced the words walking here, murmuring them under my breath like a prayer. “I have extensive experience in document management, record-keeping, and administrative coordination. I’m proficient in organizing large archives, maintaining correspondence, and—”

“Where?”

The word landed like a slap.

“Pardon?”

Jennifer tapped the file with one manicured nail. “Where did you gain this extensive experience? Your application lists no employer, no institution, no reference. There’s a gap here starting from—” She squinted at the page. “Imperial Year 1018. That’s years of absolutely nothing.”

My mouth opened. Closed.

What was I supposed to say? I worked inside the imperial palace. I managed classified archives for the wolf emperor. I attended war councils and read documents sealed with blood magic.

“I worked in a private household,” I said carefully. “The nature of the work was confidential.”

Jennifer removed her spectacles. Her gaze was not unkind—but it was final.

“Sarah. I’ve been doing this long enough to know when someone is hiding something. I don’t need to know what it is. But I can’t recommend a candidate with an employment history I can’t verify. I’m sorry.”

She closed the file.

I stood. My legs felt hollow.

“Thank you for your time,” I said, and walked out before my voice could break.

—

Seven interviews. Seven refusals.

Four days, and not a single door had stayed open longer than a few minutes. The pattern was always the same. Polite greeting. Hopeful beginning. Then the question—where have you been?—and the slow withdrawal of interest, like a tide pulling away from shore.

I couldn’t prove I existed. Not in any way that mattered here. My real skills were useless in a world that didn’t believe in wolf courts or enchanted archives. And the name on every application—Sarah—belonged to a woman with no history, no connections, no past.

By evening, I was standing in the narrow aisle of a grocery shop three blocks from my apartment, staring at the price tags on bread.

The cheapest loaf cost more than I wanted to spend. I calculated in my head. The gold coins the Morrison family had given me—the ones I’d converted to local currency at a terrible exchange rate—were dwindling faster than I’d anticipated. At this pace, the money wouldn’t last through the month.

I picked up the bread. Put it back. Picked up a smaller one. Added a tin of beans and a bruised apple. Set the apple down. Picked it up again.

The cashier watched me with flat, bored eyes.

At 7:00 p.m., I paid and walked out, beginning the fifteen-minute walk home.

—

The streets were darker now. Lampposts cast pools of sickly yellow light on the cobblestones, and the gaps between them stretched long and deep with shadow. The temperature had dropped. My breath came out in thin white ribbons.

I walked quickly, the grocery bag clutched against my chest.

A short distance from the shop, something prickled at the back of my neck.

I didn’t turn around. Not immediately. But my body responded before my mind caught up—shoulders tensing, stride lengthening, ears straining for a sound I couldn’t quite identify.

Footsteps.

Not the casual rhythm of someone heading home. These were deliberate. Measured. Matching my pace exactly.

Old instincts surged up like muscle memory. Once, I would have extended my senses—stretched my awareness outward until I could smell the follower’s sweat, hear the fabric of his clothes shifting, feel the vibration of his heartbeat through the ground.

Once.

Now I was just a woman with a bag of cheap groceries and a hammering pulse.

I turned a corner and ducked into a twenty-four-hour laundromat. Magical lumens buzzed overhead. Automated wash-vats churned in the back, unattended. The air was thick with heat and the strong scent of cleansing soap.

I pretended to study the instructions posted on the wall. My reflection stared back at me from the dark window—pale face, silver hair tucked under a cap, eyes wide.

He walked past the window.

I saw him clearly. A man in his thirties. Denim trousers, a wrinkled jacket that hung loose on his frame. His gait was unsteady, and he reeked heavily of alcohol.

He paused outside. Glanced in through the glass. Then kept walking.

I stood there. Counted my breaths. Waited.

The wash-vats hummed. Warm air blew against my ankles from a vent near the floor. A sock lay forgotten beneath one of the chairs, stiff and grey.

After waiting for five minutes, I stepped back outside.

The cold hit my face like a wall. I pulled my jacket tighter, shifted the grocery bag to my other arm, and walked.

I continued walking, but after two blocks, the footsteps returned. Behind me. Closer than before.

My heart lurched into my throat. I walked faster. The footsteps quickened to match.

Not coincidence. Not a stranger going the same direction.

He was following me.

The street ahead was empty. Storefronts shuttered. No one on the sidewalk. My apartment was still some distance away, and there was nothing between here and there but dark windows and locked doors.

I reached into my coat pocket. My fingers found the messaging stone—Finnian’s sigil was etched into its surface, the grooves familiar under my fingertips. He was a three-hour carriage ride away. Too far. Far too far. But he was the only lifeline I had left.

In the cold air, the stalker’s footsteps accelerated right behind me. Panic setting in, I pulled out the messaging stone, ready to contact Finnian.