Evelyn's boots clicked lightly against the cobblestones as she stepped down from the carriage she had spent far too long trying to call. Under ordinary circumstances, finding one in this part of Tingen would have been a matter of minutes. That morning, however, half the city's available carriages seemed to have been claimed by families rushing to the railway station, merchants making hurried deliveries, and government offices suddenly discovering that every message needed to arrive immediately.
It was hardly surprising that the city felt more alive than it had at any point since Evelyn first opened her eyes in this world. Even the quieter streets seemed to carry the same restless urgency.
Cool air moved between the buildings, carrying the smell of damp stone, burning charcoal, horse sweat, and train smoke. Somewhere beyond the roofs, another whistle sounded from the direction of the railway yard. It was followed by the distant grind of wheels and the harder, more regular rhythm of military traffic. The sound blended into everything else until war became less a single event and more a pressure laid over the city.
The shopping district had become a river of people. Men carrying bundles of coal brushed shoulders with clerks who had abandoned their offices long enough to purchase whatever their households had suddenly decided was indispensable. Women stood outside a grocer arguing over the price of flour while a delivery cart sat trapped behind them, its driver leaning forward over the reins with a patience that had clearly been exhausted some time ago.
The noise never resolved into one thing. Wheels rattled over cobblestones, merchants called from open doors, newspaper boys shouted headlines from street corners, and conversations crossed one another in fragments. Someone insisted the war would be over in a month. Someone else claimed Feysac troops would be in Backlund by the week's end. A constable farther ahead was trying to keep pedestrians from spilling into the path of a military wagon, his instructions ignored until the wagon itself appeared and the crowd suddenly discovered a much greater respect for authority.
Tingen had always possessed the movement of a growing city, but this was different. People were not merely going somewhere. They were trying to get there before somebody else did.
Evelyn moved with them rather than against them, her hair tied neatly into a tight bun against the back of her skull without the decorative care she might have used for an evening engagement. Her clothes were similarly restrained, respectable without being memorable. The silver ritual knife borrowed from Lucien rested hidden beneath her small overcoat, snug against her ribs where the shape would not be obvious unless someone knew to look for it. Nothing about her appearance advertised the nature of the errand that had brought her into the district.
Harrington & Sons stood near the middle of the commercial row between a stationer and a narrow shop advertising imported teas. Its sign was modest, painted in dark lettering over tall front windows crowded with devotional goods. Silver candleholders, offering bowls, framed religious prints, and small statues had been arranged with meticulous care behind the glass. Even war, apparently, had not convinced the proprietor that presentation was optional.
A fresh paper notice had been fixed beside the entrance, warning that due to present circumstances, certain silver and imported goods might be limited to one purchase per customer. Someone had underlined the word silver twice in pencil, giving the otherwise formal notice a faintly desperate quality.
The bell above the door rang almost continuously as customers entered and left. An elderly gentleman emerged clutching a box of candles against his chest while muttering about shortages manufactured by fools, and Evelyn waited for him to clear the threshold before stepping inside.
Warmth closed around her as she stepped inside, bringing with it the scents of beeswax, old wood, metal polish, and the lingering sweetness of incense. She inhaled quietly before letting her gaze travel deeper into the shop. For a moment her eyes lowered in a manner that might easily have been taken for humility in a religious shop. Then her gaze moved across the display cases before settling on the man behind the main counter.
The shopkeeper was middle-aged, perhaps somewhat older, dressed in a dark waistcoat with small spectacles resting low on his nose. He was finishing a conversation with a nervous woman who held three silver candleholders as though she expected them to defend her household from artillery.
Harrington exhaled through his nose, adjusted a stack of receipts, and looked toward Evelyn as she approached. His expression changed smoothly into professional welcome.
"Good morning, miss. Welcome to Harrington and Sons. I am afraid you've caught us on a rather unusual day, but we are still conducting business as normally as circumstances allow."
Evelyn returned the welcome with a gentle smile. She stepped closer and passed him a sealed letter containing the order she had prepared beforehand.
"Everything should be in there, sir. I'm simply here to deliver the order details and take it back with me."
"Certainly, miss. That will make things easier."
He accepted the letter with a nod, broke the seal using the narrow opener beside his ledger, and unfolded the page inside. His eyes moved down the list while his mind followed almost as clearly.
The order resolved in his thoughts as candles, a silver knife, herb sachets, and perfumed oils. His thoughts were otherwise ordinary, practical, and pleasantly easy to catch. Stock numbers surfaced alongside the memory of where the lavender oil had been moved after yesterday's delivery. He disliked how quickly silver had begun disappearing from his shelves and was already considering whether to restrict purchases further before noon.
Evelyn had never truly stopped listening after becoming a Telepathist. At first, the ability had demanded attention. Now it existed around her as naturally as ambient sound. Since advancing to Psychiatrist, the distinctions had become even clearer. Intentions, emotions, half-formed judgments, and unguarded associations rose from ordinary people with enough texture that she no longer needed to reach far for them.
The younger assistant was thinking about the knife first, then the herbs, then whether another customer would complain when she saw someone purchasing silver. One of the women near the front counter was worried about her husband being called up. Her companion was calculating whether she still had enough money for lamp oil after buying candles.
Evelyn tilted her head slightly as if examining the shop, allowing her eyes to wander without any obvious focus until her attention settled on a man near the devotional pendants. Nothing in the movement suggested that she had found anything more interesting than the merchandise around him.
He wore a dark coat of respectable quality, neither expensive enough to announce wealth nor cheap enough to mark him as struggling. His short brown hair was neat. His face was ordinary in the precise way that made it difficult to remember once one looked away. He seemed to be examining a small silver emblem associated with Evernight, turning it once between his fingers before setting it back.
When Evelyn listened, however, she caught nothing from him. It did not feel like a wall, the sensation of being pushed away, or even the strain she might have expected from someone consciously resisting intrusion; there was simply no useful impression at all. The absence became conspicuous only because everyone around him remained so easy to read, so she avoided looking twice, tagged him in her own mind, and let her attention continue across the displays.
"Thomas," Harrington called, "bring me two packets of myrrh, one rosemary, the six-inch altar knife from the second case, and the small bottles of rose and lavender oil." He glanced toward the younger assistant only long enough to make certain the instructions had been heard before returning his attention to the order sheet.
"Yes, sir." Thomas answered at once and moved away with his keys already in hand, weaving around the narrow counter without interrupting the other customers.
Harrington folded the order sheet and set it beside the ledger. "It should only take a few minutes, miss. If you would prefer, you may wait by the side counter. It will keep you out of the doorway while everyone decides today is the last day shops will ever exist." One of the nearby women gave an offended little sound, but Harrington had the good sense not to look at her.
"Thank you, I will do so." Evelyn acknowledged the women with a small nod before turning toward the side counter, leaving Harrington to continue organizing the order.
The cabinet there was narrower than the main devotional displays and considerably less orderly. Old pendants rested on faded velvet beside several rings, a tarnished silver whistle, two small lockets, and what appeared to be a blackened coin pierced through its center. A handwritten card inside the case identified them as estate pieces of uncertain provenance, sold as curios unless otherwise marked.
Some of the items might have been exactly what they seemed, while others might not. With Evelyn's poor spirit vision, the distinction was irritatingly difficult to make without some more obvious sign.
A narrow brass ring carved with a pattern of intertwined reeds sat closest to the glass. Beside it lay a pale stone pendant on a dark cord, its center marked by a shallow indentation where some other material might once have rested. Neither displayed anything obvious to ordinary sight. If either possessed spirituality, it was faint enough to disappear into the residue of incense, prayer, silver, and countless hands that had passed through the shop, one of the more irritating limitations of poor spirit vision. Nearby, the man who had first stood near the pendants shifted only a little, trading one display for a rack of devotional booklets closer to the front window before opening one near the middle. His posture remained relaxed, and his eyes moved across the page with convincing patience, yet nothing readable surfaced from him. Thomas returned a moment later carrying the silver knife on a small wooden tray, drawing Harrington back toward the side counter.
Harrington came around the side of the counter with it. "This is the six-inch altar knife listed in the order, miss. Solid silver blade, walnut handle. No devotional engraving and no blessing performed by the shop. Some customers prefer that if they intend to have the piece dedicated elsewhere."
The blade was simple, without ornamental flourish, unnecessary carving, or anything else that would interfere with practical ritual use. It looked more like a tool than a devotional showpiece.
"The rest is being wrapped now. You are welcome to inspect the knife before I include it."
"Is there any way I could get this all in a box with padding? The carriages have been moving much faster than usual today."
Evelyn smiled as she asked, maintaining the same easy friendliness she had used since entering. There was nothing to gain from making Harrington's morning more difficult. He had likely spent hours managing frightened people who treated uncertainty as permission to become entirely unreasonable.
His expression softened by a fraction before he nodded. "Yes, certainly. That would be wiser." He glanced toward Thomas and raised two fingers. "Use the cedar box from the lower shelf. Felt lining, and wrap the bottles separately." Thomas acknowledged the instruction with a nod and immediately changed what he was preparing.
"The roads have been dreadful since sunrise," Harrington continued. "Drivers are trying to make twice their usual trips before restrictions get worse, and half of them seem convinced speed will somehow solve congestion. You would think war had suspended the existence of corners." One of the women nearby laughed despite herself, and Harrington's mouth twitched with the satisfaction of having briefly broken through the morning's tension.
"The oils will be stoppered, wrapped in cloth, and separated from the silver. Herbs on top so nothing heavy crushes them. Candles along the sides. It should travel well enough unless your driver intends to test the carriage against a wall."
Thomas reappeared with a shallow cedar box lined in dark felt. Evelyn slipped her fingers beneath the wrapped knife and quietly began arranging the order herself. She placed the items in the order Harrington had described, accepting help when he offered it and adjusting the packets so the corners would not be crushed beneath the lid.
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Harrington seemed content to let her work once he realized she was handling everything carefully. He slid a folded strip of felt beneath the oil bottles and shifted the rosemary packet away from the hinge. Thomas added another line of padding around the sides before tilting the box slightly to make certain nothing moved.
"That should survive even the more ambitious drivers," Harrington said as the shop continued around them. The two women near the front counter finished counting coins, while the bell sounded again for another customer at the door. The bell rang twice as customers entered and left. Outside, a military wagon rolled past the windows, briefly blotting out the view of the opposite pavement.
The unreadable man finally closed his booklet, selected a small pendant from the display, and waited his turn at the opposite counter before paying in coins and leaving. The cheerful bell rang above his head as he stepped outside, while Evelyn followed his departure only in the indirect way she had allowed herself from the beginning.
Harrington checked her order one last time. "Candles, herbs, oils, silver knife. Everything is here." He began calculating the price while Evelyn remained pleasant throughout the exchange, speaking with an ease that had nothing strategic behind it.
"That's alright. The household didn't need too much, just little odds and ends to keep us topped off. Such is life though." Evelyn kept the remark light, and Harrington looked down at the receipt before folding it neatly.
"Such is life," he agreed. "Though I confess I would prefer life to become a little less inventive for a few weeks." Thomas gave a quiet snort from behind the counter, earning a glance from Harrington but no reprimand.
"My wife sent me here before dawn," he continued. "Told me that if the city intended to panic, then someone ought to remain behind the counter and make sure they panicked in an orderly fashion. I suspect she mainly wanted me out of the house."
The older woman gathering her candles laughed softly. "A sensible woman."
"Painfully," Harrington replied, and the small exchange loosened something in the room. The fear did not disappear, nor did the war outside cease to exist, but for several moments everyone behaved like ordinary people again. Harrington slid the cedar box toward Evelyn once the moment had passed, still carrying the faint trace of that humor with him. "There you are, miss. Everything should remain secure unless your driver develops ambitions toward professional racing." Evelyn nodded, tucked the box under one arm, and stepped outside, where the crowd swallowed her almost immediately. The warmth and incense of Harrington's vanished behind her beneath the press of bodies and the cooler smell of the street.
She took an immediate right down the road, and for a moment the pavement was so thick with people that walking in the street seemed almost reasonable. That thought ended the instant another carriage bolted past, its driver shouting for pedestrians to clear the intersection while the wheels struck hard against the cobbles.
Across the street, the man in the dark coat was still there, standing near a tobacconist's awning with one hand resting close to his coat pocket and the other loose at his side. His posture remained easy enough to pass for idleness. The pendant he had purchased was nowhere visible. Nothing about him suggested impatience. He might have been waiting for a carriage, reading the traffic, or simply deciding where to go next.
The crowd around him was anything but quiet. Evelyn caught irritation from a clerk whose shoe had been stepped on, worry from a mother calculating the price of flour, excitement from a boy craning his neck toward a passing military wagon, and the low dread of a reservist carrying his summons folded inside his coat, yet the man himself remained empty. She did not dare look toward him again and instead let the crowd take her down the street.
Only after she had put distance between herself and Harrington's did he move from beneath the awning. He did not cross immediately, nor did he choose the shortest path after her. He waited for the traffic to break, then entered the same flow of pedestrians at an angle, keeping enough distance that anyone less attentive would have dismissed the coincidence.
He stopped once at a newspaper stand and later slowed near a storefront, never rushing even when the gap between them widened. It was competent work, but the unnatural silence around him made his presence far easier for Evelyn to track than his footsteps ever could, so she kept walking without giving him the satisfaction of another glance.
At the next intersection she allowed the movement of the crowd to carry her left, then farther down the block she dipped into an alleyway between two clusters of buildings. The noise of the main street dulled almost at once. Damp brick rose on either side, interrupted by service doors, stacked crates, coal bins, and narrow windows opened just enough to vent the heat from kitchens and workrooms.
A thin ribbon of gray water ran along the gutter, but Evelyn knew the area well enough that the unpleasant footing required little attention. The alley bent behind a tailor's shop and eventually opened onto a quieter street where hired carriages were usually easier to catch. It was not hidden, merely inconvenient, the sort of route used by delivery boys, servants, and anyone who had learned Tingen beyond its main roads.
For several moments there was no sign of the man, until a single set of footsteps entered the alley behind her. They were neither hurried nor carefully concealed, only measured beneath the distant noise of the city in a way that made their continued presence impossible to mistake.
A porter emerged from a side door carrying an empty crate, crossed the passage, and disappeared in the opposite direction. Mild annoyance at a foreman brushed against Evelyn's perception as he passed. Someone above was worried about whether flour would last the week.
Behind her, the mind attached to those footsteps still offered nothing useful. The steps continued for a time and then stopped, but Evelyn never did, carrying herself around the bend without changing pace.
Her feet carried her around the bend, through the narrow rear passage, and out on the opposite side of the cluster of buildings. The street there was calmer, lined with modest shops, a small hotel, a bakery, and a tobacconist whose proprietor was dragging a crate inside. Several hired carriages waited near the next intersection, fewer than usual but still enough to make escape simple if she chose it.
The alley behind her remained empty while a deliveryman pushed a handcart across its mouth and a newspaper boy followed a few moments later. The dark-coated man did not emerge behind either of them; instead, movement farther along the opposite side of the street gradually resolved into the same familiar figure.
He stepped out from between two buildings well ahead of the alley Evelyn had used. Whether he had known another passage through the same block or anticipated the route was impossible to tell from position alone.
He waited near the curb, and as Evelyn watched from the edge of her vision, something in the blankness around him finally loosened. For the first time since Harrington's, impressions reached her from him: not a complete train of thought, but enough to distinguish recognition, patience, and a deliberate desire to speak.
There was no accompanying hostility, predatory anticipation, readiness to attack, or thrill at having cornered someone. Whatever he wanted, violence did not appear to sit at the center of it. Whatever had obscured him before had receded enough that intention finally showed through.
Across the street, he looked toward Evelyn and held the glance for a moment before stepping back from the curb to wait. Distrust wrung through her gut despite the absence of obvious hostility, sharpening every option the crowded street offered her. For a moment she considered calling one of the waiting carriages, disappearing into the city, and changing vehicles until there was no reasonable way for him to remain behind her. It would have been easy enough. Tingen was crowded, confused, and full of routes that could swallow a single person.
Fate seemed to have a different idea. Evelyn turned and walked down the road in his direction, but rather than stopping when she reached him, she passed directly by and continued as though the choice had already been made. The man did not reach for her. He did not shift into her path, nor did he turn fast enough to create a scene. For several steps he simply allowed her to continue. Then his voice came from behind her, low enough not to carry beyond the immediate pavement.
"Miss," he called without command or urgency. "I believe the Goddess intended for us to speak." The words themselves were simple, but the reaction beneath them was not. Now that she could read him, Evelyn felt caution, duty, uncertainty, and something close to discomfort beneath the surface, all of it arranged around a sincerity that had not been available to her inside the shop. It was immediately apparent that he knew very little about her. The gaps in his knowledge were almost as revealing as the information he did possess. There was no name attached to her in his thoughts, no dossier, no Church report, no carefully memorized history.
What he knew reduced to only a few facts: she was a follower who had drawn the Goddess's attention, and this meeting had been arranged according to Her will. He had obeyed because Evernight had asked it of him, not because anyone within the Church had supplied a fuller explanation.
"I will not stop you if you choose to keep walking," he added. "But I was told to be here."
Evelyn stopped one step past him, and the crowd moved around her like river water around a stone. She turned her head then and looked at him properly, giving herself the first unobstructed chance to judge the man who had followed her across half the district.
Up close, he seemed even more ordinary. The tiredness around his eyes suggested he had been awake longer than the morning warranted, but nothing about his appearance announced the Church. There was no insignia, no displayed weapon, and no dramatic posture that would have belonged in a serialized story about Nighthawks. Nothing about him advertised what he was to an ordinary passerby.
His appearance offered little, but his mind did more. Discipline sat near the surface, practiced but not perfect. Beneath it lay caution, curiosity, and concern over whether the meeting had already been mishandled. His faith in Evernight was genuine enough to form the stable center of everything else.
There was also clear professional awareness that he had allowed her to see his face, and the fact mattered to him more than he showed. Evelyn kept reading and found no hidden team, no second watcher, no superior observing from a carriage, and not even a memory of her name. The man simply held her gaze and waited to see what she would do with the information he had offered.
"I apologize for following you," he said. "I was told not to approach until I was certain."
Evelyn watched him for a moment without speaking, then let her eyes flick away and continued forward after the smallest tilt of her head. The motion was invitation enough, and Adrian followed while still leaving several paces between them.
For a while neither spoke, while his mind considered where they could talk without creating another reason for distrust. A church would be too conspicuous, a carriage too enclosed, and a public square too exposed, leaving him to search for something ordinary enough not to feel like a trap.
"There is a small tea room two streets over," he said eventually. "Quiet at this hour, usually, and public enough that you needn't trust me." He left the suggestion there without pressing for agreement.
"Hm. I was also considering tea. If that is the case, you do not have to walk so far behind."
Her voice carried through the crowd without disturbing it, and the man adjusted his pace until he walked beside her while leaving enough space to preserve propriety. "Very well," he replied, a faint thread of amusement moving through him at the absurdity of spending several streets trying not to look like he was following someone only to be invited to stop doing exactly that.
"The tea room is called Bell & Finch. Nothing remarkable, which is part of its appeal." They turned with the flow of pedestrians toward the quieter second street, where the press of bodies had already begun to thin.
"My name is Adrian Cole," he added after a moment. "Since I've already had the discourtesy of knowing what you look like before introducing myself."
Evelyn glanced toward him, reading the line of his posture and the small tension that remained beneath his attempt at calm.
"Did she tell you to stalk me, Adrian?" she asked flatly, making no effort to rescue him from the bluntness of the wording.
Adrian's mouth tightened for the briefest moment, not in offense but in the restrained reaction of someone who knew the wording was deserved. "No," he answered quickly, and the absence of defensiveness in his thoughts made the denial cleaner than any explanation could have.
"She told me to find you. To be certain before I approached. The rest was my judgment." His eyes moved toward her and then back to the street. "A poor judgment, perhaps," he added, accepting the criticism rather than trying to argue himself free of it. There was embarrassment in him now, though not defensiveness. More than anything, he disliked the possibility that he had mishandled something entrusted to him by the Goddess.
"She was not especially detailed," he continued. "Only that there was someone I was meant to meet according to Her will, and that I would know when I found her."
"I see. I didn't expect the Nighthawks to be following me this soon." Evelyn mused lightly before crossing the street, and Adrian's attention sharpened at the word Nighthawks.
"So you knew," he said, with no accusation behind it, only surprise and a reluctant measure of respect. "I suppose that saves me from deciding how much I was permitted to say first." He crossed after her when the carriage traffic opened, keeping pace without moving close enough to crowd her.
"I was not told you were expecting us. Only that I was to find you." His eyes shifted toward her once. "And, for what it is worth, I was not assigned to watch you before today." Evelyn looked over her shoulder at him, taking advantage of how much louder and easier to separate his thoughts had become now that the earlier blankness had receded.
"I am not planning on punishing you for the indecency, Adrian. Though the moment I even get the scent of another Nighthawk..." The displeasure in her expression was mild, but it was enough to make Adrian answer without softening the point.
"You won't. I have not reported you to anyone, nor have I brought another Nighthawk into this. If that changes, you'll know before I do it." The truth aligned cleanly beneath every part of the promise.
"Yes, I know." Evelyn turned forward again and continued onto the second street, leaving Adrian to glance at her with an obvious temptation to ask what she meant. He ultimately decided against it, and the unanswered question remained in his thoughts rather than his mouth.
Bell & Finch occupied the corner beneath a striped awning, its front windows faintly fogged from the warmth within. The street here was quieter, lined with booksellers, small offices, and cafés rather than practical merchants. War still followed the people who walked it, but at a lower volume.
Adrian reached the door first and opened it without ceremony, letting warm air carrying the smell of black tea, bread, and cinnamon spill into the street. The change from the coal-smoked chill outside was immediate. Inside, newspapers lay beside plates. Conversations repeatedly returned to mobilization, the railway, and prices. The tea room was busy enough to provide privacy without appearing deserted.
"There is a table in the back," Adrian said quietly.
Evelyn stepped inside with the cedar box still tucked securely beneath her arm. Whatever Evernight intended, she had found the person promised to her, and the only question left for the moment was what use she intended to make of him.