The weaving hall doors were open when I arrived. Morning light had already warmed the street and voices carried easily from one corner to the next. Women worked at looms, and the smell of wet wool and hot water moved through the air. I felt a small hope. If Lila existed here, someone at the weaving hall might know where she was.
I walked to the house the worker had pointed out and slowed as soon as I saw the door. The front step was empty, and a small wash bucket still dripped onto the plank. The moment I came in view, a woman ran out of the house, crying as if her voice could not hold together. A man followed, rubbing his jaw and shouting the girl's name.
"We checked the river and the mills," he said. "We called at neighbors. She was playing with the other children this morning and then—she did not come home."
The mother pressed her hands to her face and shook her head. "She never stays out this long. Someone must have taken her."
My chest went cold in the way memory makes you cold. I had seen this before. Another world, another Lila gone. The lemon cloth in my pocket felt heavier.
When they saw me, the father stepped forward. "Do you know her?" he asked sharply.
"I was looking for Lila," I said. "I wanted to see if she was all right."
They stared at me for a moment, then the mother grabbed my sleeve. "Please, if you saw anything—tell us."
I told them calmly that I would search. The father gave a bitter laugh. "You? A boy? The Protector and the council will search. What can you do?"
I did not answer him. I only bent and looked along the path where the children played earlier. My eyes found small signs: scuffed grass, a crushed reed, a tiny shoe print pressed a little deeper than the others. The threads helped me, as they always did. I saw the faint bends where people had passed: a child's quick hop, an adult's heavier step. I followed those bends.
The trail led away from the main road and into poorer lanes. The houses grew closer and leaned in like ears. People here watched me as I passed, and I walked slower to look like I belonged. The threads showed me the way—small disturbances in dust, the angle of an overturned crate, a scrap of ribbon caught on a nail.
Near an old well I found the ribbon, bright in the morning sun. It had Lila's pattern woven into it. I touched it and felt a stinging certainty: she had walked this path not long ago.
The trail continued toward the slums. The alleys smelled of smoke and stew, of damp cloth and tired feet. I kept to shadows and watched the faces in doorways. A man in a ragged cloak shifted his weight when I passed and took the direction I was looking. He seemed to be waiting for someone.
I kept moving and saw him again a little further on—this time with a thin boy walking beside him. The man's hand rested on the boy's shoulder and the boy looked like he wanted to run but could not. The man checked the back of the lane, then unlocked a rusty gate and led the boy inside.
The gate clicked shut. The man moved with the casual air of someone who had done this before. I waited until the coast looked clear, then slipped after him. The gap was small enough that bodies could not pass two at a time. It felt like a place built to hide things.
A stone staircase went down into the dark. Cold air rose up to meet me and it smelled of metal and mold. The lantern light further down glowed a flat yellow. The threads in the stairway were thin, but they quivered when I stepped on the first stone. I held my breath and went down.
At the bottom, a long room opened into the faint light. Cages lined the walls—small enclosures with iron bars. Inside them, children sat or lay on straw. Some had bruises on their faces. One small boy rocked in the corner and whined softly. A girl sat holding a ragged doll and stared at the floor. The sight hit me like a physical blow.
Against a far wall were tables with instruments: glass jars, hooked tools, chalk markings, and notes scrawled on boards. It looked like a cruel workshop where cruel things were tested. The whole place smelled like someone had tried to be useful and had used people instead.
My heart pounded. Lila could be in one of those cages. She might be awake and crying now.
I moved silently, counting steps. I watched the angles of the lanterns and the shadows they made. If I could free them, I needed a plan, and I needed to work fast. There was no time to be brave for the sake of being brave.
A voice spoke from the stair mouth behind me.
"Well, aren't you a curious one?" it said.
I turned quickly. The man from the alley stood there, and two others were behind him, blocking the way out. He stepped down with the slow confidence of someone who had set a trap.
"You shouldn't have followed," he said. He kept his voice low so the children would not fully hear. "You risk a lot for meddling."
I tried to speak, to bluff my way out. "I was lost. I came in by mistake."
He studied me for a moment and smiled without warmth. "Then you can explain that to the boss. He will be interested in how a boy like you slipped through the gate."
I glanced at the cages. In one of them a child moved and looked up. In his small, raw face I thought I saw the same stubborn look Lila had when she insisted on tying her own ribbon. I swallowed.
The man stepped forward and grabbed my arm with a hand like a vice. Pain shot through me, not from the grip alone but from the sudden defeat of a plan I had not yet made.
They closed the door behind me and one of the men put a cloth over my head. The light narrowed to a tunnel, and the world filled with the muffled sounds of small crying and the scrape of straw. My hands were bound. My mind worked faster than my body could move.
I had been careful. I had followed evidence. I had used observation, not force. But I had not known everything. They had planned better.
Everything went quiet but for the soft noise of breath and the thump of my heartbeat. The cloth tasted faintly of old smoke. I tried to calm my rational thoughts and file them away. If they questioned me, I would need answers that fit what they expected. If I lied, it had to be precise. If I told the truth, I needed to be clever about it.
The first thing I saw through a small slit in the cloth was a smear of chalk on the ground: a symbol, not the sign of any protector or town mark, but a crude drawing of a circle with lines inside it. It looked like someone had drawn it in a hurry.
I traced it with my eye and felt a cold knot. This place was more organized than an ordinary gang. It had signs and tools and people who knew how to keep secrets.
My mouth formed words I had not said aloud. "I will find her," I told myself. "No matter what."
Then hands grabbed me more firmly and dragged me toward the deeper dark.