They surfaced in the warehouse fringe just as the morning traffic thickened.
The wizard's mask frayed the moment they cleared the last maintenance seal. Ordinary cover took its place—carts, laborers, the low din of a district that measured value in weight and volume rather than rank or power. The group scattered by prearranged intervals.
Clara and Lara took the next distribution nodes. The swordsman vanished toward a roof line. The wizard stayed long enough to confirm the trails had thinned, then she too slipped into the flow. Eli stayed with the emperor, not as escort, but as unfinished business that refused to walk away.
Atlas did not follow either path.
He turned aside at the second junction and took a narrow service cut that led toward the older river walls. No one called after him. The others understood the look. Some weights could not be carried in a group.
