The next morning, breakfast was already gone from Snow’s bowl when Averik pulled on his coat. The wolf stood near the door with the focused patience of an beast pretending she had not spent the last several minutes watching it.
Evelyn noticed too. She finished fastening her own coat, silver hair loose down her back as she looked from Snow to Averik. "Should I let her range ahead once we’re outside? She’ll find half the things hiding in these streets before either of us sees them."
"She can." Averik answered.
"Mm. I will~" Evelyn gave Snow a fond look as Averik opened the door.
Cold air rolled into the house. It was sharper than the warmth inside, but his body barely cared. Snow slipped past his leg and into the lane, paws crunching over old packed snow. Evelyn followed, and Averik pulled the door closed. The revolver remained where it hung with the field harness, and Evelyn’s spear stayed inside as well. They weren’t crossing the wall today.
District 2 was already awake. Smoke drifted from chimneys between rows of low houses. Workers carried bundled tools toward the wider lanes, while two women farther down knocked snow from blankets stretched over a rail. Somewhere behind a wall, a child was arguing loudly about a missing glove. A crow watched the street from a chimney cap until Snow looked up at it, then hopped to the far side without bothering to fly.
Averik noticed more animals once he started looking for them. Tracks cut beneath a fence. Small claws had scratched the crust beside a drain. Birds shifted under eaves where the stone kept some of the wind away. None of it would have earned a second glance yesterday.
Snow stopped at the mouth of a narrower service lane and lowered her head. Her nose worked once, twice. She took three quiet steps toward the wall beside a Unit ration post, then turned sharply toward a stack of empty wooden trays.
A man inside the open service door swore. "If that’s another damned rat, kill it before it gets back under there."
He came out carrying a split grain sack by its tied end. Tiny brown kernels leaked through two chewed holes and bounced across the packed snow. Snow’s ears angled forward.
A brown rat shot from behind the lowest tray. The worker jerked his boot toward it. Averik moved first. One step put him across the lane. He dropped into a crouch and closed his hand around the rat before it reached the drain gap. The little animal twisted so violently its body bent between his fingers, teeth flashing toward his glove.
It wasn’t strong. No resistance he felt when he pushed Taming toward it, he pressed through it. The bond closed.
::···:::···:::···::
[Target Successfully Tamed]
::···:::···:::···::
The rat stopped fighting. It wasn’t limp or empty; its sides still fluttered with quick breaths, black eyes bright and restless. It sniffed his thumb, then twisted its head toward the grain scattered on the ground.
Averik set it beside the wall. "Stay out of the grain. Keep to the walls and drains."
The rat vanished behind the trays, but this time it passed the split sack without touching the kernels beneath it.
The worker stared after it. "You just told the little bastard to stop stealing?"
"Yeah." Averik watched the gap beneath the trays.
A grain kernel rolled against the man’s boot. He looked at it, then at Averik. "If it listens, I’ll take weird over patching another sack."
"It’ll listen."
The man’s expression said he wasn’t sure whether that answer made the situation better. He bent to gather the leaking sack instead.
Evelyn had stayed near Snow while Averik caught the rat. When he straightened, she gave the gap one last look before smiling at him. "That was quicker than chasing Frost Beasts through a forest."
"Didn’t need a bullet first, either."
Evelyn came alongside him, amusement still in her eyes. "You almost sound disappointed~"
Averik snorted and started down the lane. Snow ranged ahead again.
They hadn’t gone far when barking erupted behind a wooden gate. A medium-sized dog shoved its head past a half-open gate, tan ears high and muzzle dusted white from the snow. It barked at Snow first, backed away when Snow glanced over, then barked again from what it apparently considered a safer distance.
A boy came running from the side of the house with one mitten half on. "Bran! Hey, stop!"
The dog looked back at once. Its tail gave a fast wag before it remembered Snow and stiffened again.
Averik slowed. The boy noticed him, glanced at Snow, and widened his eyes before returning his attention to the dog. "He doesn’t bite. Usually."
"Usually?" Evelyn asked, a quiet laugh in her voice.
The boy pushed his other hand into the mitten. "He bit Torren’s boot, but Torren kicked the gate first. That doesn’t count."
"Sounds fair," Averik said, and the boy brightened as if Averik had settled a serious legal dispute.
Averik crouched beside the gate and held out a hand. Bran sniffed from a distance, suspicious but more interested than afraid. Snow sitting several paces away helped, as did the boy scratching the dog’s neck and muttering something about not embarrassing him.
When Averik pushed Taming toward Bran, the dog recoiled from the pressure for an instant. The bond closed, leaving no meaningful contest.
He took it.
::···:::···:::···::
[Target Successfully Tamed]
::···:::···:::···::
Bran blinked. Its posture hardly changed at all. It still leaned into the boy’s hand, and its tail still thumped once against the gate. When the boy said its name, Bran looked up at him immediately.
Averik stepped back. "Stay here. Carry on like normal."
The boy stared at the dog, then at Averik. "Did you do something?"
Averik straightened. "I tamed him."
Both of the boy’s hands closed around Bran’s neck fur. "Are you taking him?"
Averik looked down the lane. The dog already had a place, people it knew, and a street it watched. "No. He stays here."
Relief crossed the boy’s face so openly that Evelyn’s expression softened beside him.
Averik pointed two fingers at Bran. "Come."
The dog left the boy at once, trotted through the half-open gate, and stopped at Averik’s knee. One word sent Bran straight back to the boy. The child laughed and dropped both arms around the dog’s neck.
A woman watching from a doorway across the lane whispered something to the man beside her. Averik caught only the last word: Tamer. He kept walking.
By late morning, the street had widened enough that roofs stepped unevenly toward the ration post behind them. Crows worked the higher ridges. Smaller brown birds vanished under tiles and reappeared near gutters, hopping after crumbs shaken loose from sacks and household scraps carried through the lane.
Averik stopped beneath a low stone awning and looked up. Evelyn looked up too. "You’re going up there, aren’t you?"
Averik measured the awning and the roof edge above it. "Yes."
Her mouth curved. "I’ll stay down here with Snow and watch the street while you’re up there, if that helps."
He checked the lane below. "Do it."
Evelyn’s smile deepened. "All right~"
Averik stepped onto the awning and jumped. The roof edge came under his hand almost immediately. He pulled himself over without needing to search for footing, boots finding the narrow ridge beneath a skin of snow. The drop into the lane wasn’t far enough to matter, but the people below certainly thought otherwise.
The nearest crow launched before he reached it. Averik changed direction, landed on the next roof, and cut off its second perch. The bird flared its wings, black feathers flashing against the snow.
He left his hands at his sides. He pressed Taming against the crow. Averik held the pressure until it yielded. The bond closed.
::···:::···:::···::
[Target Successfully Tamed]
::···:::···:::···::
The crow landed two arm lengths away and cocked its head at him.
"Stay around these roofs." It gave a rough croak and hopped sideways. Averik moved on.
After the first few birds, Averik stopped lingering over each success. A pair of sparrows burst from beneath an eave and settled farther down the same roofline. Another cluster lifted from a yard when Snow passed below. Two crows argued over something frozen near a chimney until Averik’s approach scattered them in opposite directions.
Whenever another bird settled, he took it too. The System flashed more than once through the afternoon.
On the street below, Evelyn moved with Snow, looking up whenever Averik crossed a roof gap and steering people away from the spots where he meant to land.
Near the last row of houses, a Unit worker carrying a narrow bundle stepped from a side passage just as Averik came down from a roof edge. Evelyn saw him before he walked underneath.
"Wait there a moment," she called, lifting one hand toward the man.
He stopped out of reflex. Averik landed in the open patch of packed snow a heartbeat later, close enough that the worker’s eyebrows climbed.
"Right," the man muttered. "Glad I listened."
Evelyn smiled politely. "Thank you." She turned toward Averik as he straightened, and her tone softened at once. "Are you finished up there? I’ll keep the lane clear if you’re not."
Averik brushed snow from one sleeve. "Finished with this row."
Snow trotted over and bumped her shoulder against Evelyn’s hip before looking up toward the roof, apparently expecting another round.
"You’ve encouraged her," Evelyn said, steadying herself against Snow’s shoulder.
Averik eyed Snow. "She was already like this."
"Mm. Maybe you’re encouraging each other, then~" Evelyn said as Snow leaned into her again.
Averik reached down and rubbed once between Snow’s ears before starting toward the next lane.
By afternoon, the roofs ahead thinned toward the wider road into District 1. Averik looked along it for a moment before heading home.
A crow he had tamed earlier crossed above the lane and settled two houses behind them. Bran was already back by his gate. The rat had vanished behind the ration-post trays hours ago, while sparrows tucked themselves beneath eaves as the afternoon cold deepened.
Evelyn turned to him. "How many did that make?"
"Eighteen." Averik answered.
Her eyes widened a little. "All in one day?"
Averik glanced once toward the roofs behind them. "Every one I could see."
Evelyn turned toward the wider road ahead. "And tomorrow you’re going farther."
He looked toward the broader street ahead, where District 1 lay beyond the next stretch of Vardel. More people passed through there. More work animals too, if the traffic he’d seen from Unit 1 was any indication.
He gestured toward the broader street. "District 1."
Evelyn slipped her hand into his as they turned toward home. "Could I join you again tomorrow?"
He gave her hand a brief squeeze. "You’re coming."
Her smile appeared at once. "Mm, I’ll be there~"
Snow pushed ahead through the snow, forcing Evelyn to laugh and call her back before she disappeared around the corner. The wolf wheeled around and returned to Evelyn’s side. They continued home together.