Percy moved before the thought finished forming about what was above him.
His legs were already carrying him, coat snapping behind him as he cut across the pavement. People scattered out of his way. Some police on duty were confused as to why he ran.
The sensation pressed down from above, and seemed to be closing in on him real fast. His hand found the revolver and he drew it as he ran.
He didn't know what he was running toward. The street blurred past in the lamplight, orange pools and dark gaps between them.
Then he heard the footsteps behind him, real close and catching up too. He was now genuinely fearing for his life since the sensation above had not disappeared and yet another had appeared behind him on the ground.
His feet didn't slow down and were actually going faster, while his eyes tracked the street ahead, his ears stayed on the sound at his back since he couldn't feel it but only hear it strangely enough.
But whoever the fuck it was, they were fast. He cut left around a corner and pushed harder.
The footsteps behind him followed without hesitation. Then stopped abruptly. Percy ran another ten paces before his body registered the silence.
He slowed with a heaving chest , and turned. The street behind him was empty. Lampposts stretched back the way he had come and nothing moved between them.
He could still feel it. The presence hadn't gone. It had just gone quiet, which was worse than the footsteps.
He kept moving, slower now, revolver raised, eyes cutting across doorways and alleys and the spaces above window ledges. The sensation hadn't shifted direction.
He could still feel the presence above but not the one who had been chasing him.
"Was that a normal person?"
He brought his eyes back down as he felt his foot catch on nothing.
One moment he was moving, the next his foot had simply stopped while the rest of him hadn't. The pavement rushed up and Percy threw his arms out, which saved his face and did very little for anything else. He hit hard, shoulder first, the impact rolling him sideways with the full force of his speed behind it until his ribs connected with a lamp post at the side of the road.
"What?"
He pushed himself upright. His right hand was empty. The revolver lay four feet away, caught against the edge of the pavement. Percy got his feet under him and moved toward it.
Two steps away, something seized the back of his collar. His boots briefly left the ground and then he was sitting on the pavement, tailbone ringing, collar still bunched in a grip.
The revolver sat directly in front of him, now unreachable, a man's shoe stopping one step away from it.
Percy looked up at the figure standing over him.
"Haunted."
He curled his hands into fists, his stance awkward from the ground.
But the figure with a relaxed posture simply waved his hand.
"Relax, Valemont. It's me."
The haze peeled back as the edges began to sharpened. Percy still couldn't make him out clearly in the dark but he recognised the voice easily.
Lyro crouched and picked up the revolver. He turned it over once and held it out.
Percy took it and looked at Lyro, then at the space above the roofline, then back again to him .
"You were hazy," Percy said.
"That I was."
"How?" Percy asked.
"I was in my Haunted state. That's how I appeared."
He wanted to ask more about it but feeling that the conversation was going nowhere with Lyro being the one explaining , Percy moved on.
"There's another sensation. From above. I can still feel it."
Lyro didn't bother glancing upward where Percy was pointing and simply smiled, which irked Percy a little.
"That's also me."
Percy stared at him. "You're standing in front of me."
"Yes."
"And also above the rooftops."
Lyro said nothing, which Percy was beginning to recognise as its own kind of answer.
Percy stood, brushed the grit from his coat, and looked at him directly. "How."
Lyro straightened his hat brim with the expression of a man who considered the question reasonable but the answer belonging somewhere else entirely.
"I had a reason," Lyro said.
Percy waited.
"For earlier."
The random comment confused Percy for a moment.
"Earlier," he repeated.
"Marco Street." Lyro kept his gaze level. "When you saw me."
The alley behind George Eats came back with unfortunate clarity. Percy looked at Lyro. Lyro looked back, seemingly trying to appear composed.
"Against the wall," Lyro said.
"I remember," Percy replied.
A soft pause settled between them.
Percy said nothing further. Some mercy felt appropriate. Lyro appeared to appreciate it without showing it. He glanced down the empty street.
"Let's go to the Syndicate. There are things worth discussing."
Percy looked at the lamp post he had recently met at speed. He could feel a bruise forming along his ribs. The post itself had dented slightly, which was its own kind of comment. His tailbone had probably been met with a harsh punishment too.
"Fine," he said.
He holstered the revolver and fell into step beside Lyro.
---
*Earlier — the police station side room.*
The workers from Beningham Styles had been sitting together long enough that the initial shock had worn off and the quiet had started filling itself in.
Benny looked sideways at Gareth.
"Who do you think Percy really is?"
Gareth turned his head and fixed him with a stern look .
"He is a good young man working in our tailor shop," he said, with a tone of certainty . "That's who he is. Nothing less."
Mrs. Gloria, sitting with her hands folded neatly in her lap, nodded once in agreement without a word.
Benny opened his mouth, seemed to reconsider, and closed it again.
Silia, sitting at the far end, had not looked up from the floor during any of this. She spoke without raising her eyes.
"Whatever you're curious about, you can ask him directly. No need to discuss it here."
That ended it. Benny shifted in his seat and said nothing more.
The room went quiet again.
Silia kept her gaze where it was.
"Tomorrow surely" , she thought.