The night air carried the smell of rain as Evander emerged from the bakery cellar into the Merchant Quarter. Storm clouds had gathered during his hours underground, blanketing the city in darkness thicker than usual. Even the eternal church bells seemed muffled, their midnight tolling reaching him as if from a great distance.
He should have gone straight to his residence. Protocol demanded it: minimize exposure, avoid unnecessary risks, maintain the fiction of Dr. Ashcroft's ordinary life. But the revelations in the Council Chamber had left him restless, his thoughts churning with questions that had no easy answers.
Instead of heading home, he walked.
The streets of Valdris at midnight belonged to those who had reasons to avoid daylight: thieves, lovers, merchants moving contraband, and the occasional healer making emergency house calls. Evander fit the last category perfectly, his medical bag a prop that explained his presence and invited no questions.
He moved through familiar neighborhoods with the automatic awareness of someone who had spent years mapping every shadow. The Market District with its shuttered stalls. The Artisan Quarter, where craftsmen dreamed of commissions they would never receive. The Garden District, where noble families maintained estates behind walls of stone and privilege.
His feet carried him, almost without conscious direction, toward the Warren.
The poor district never truly slept. Even at this hour, Evander could see movement in the cramped streets: mothers soothing crying infants, workers returning from late shifts, old men and women sitting in doorways because their homes were too small and too hot for rest. They nodded to him as he passed, some with recognition, some with the general acknowledgment that the Warren gave to anyone who looked like they might belong.
"Doctor."
The voice came from an alley to his left. Evander stopped, his hand moving toward the hidden weapons in his coat before he recognized the speaker.
Bones. Wearing a new hat, a floppy felt affair in forest green with a sprig of holly tucked into the band. Festive for the approaching harvest season, utterly inappropriate for a midnight mission.
"I told you to stay hidden."
The skeleton's posture conveyed: I am hidden. This is what hidden looks like.
"Skulking in alleys wearing a Christmas decoration isn't hidden. It's conspicuous."
Offense radiated from every bone. The hat is festive. Festive is approachable. Approachable is invisible.
Evander decided not to argue the logic. "Why are you here?"
Patrol incoming. Six soldiers, Inquisition elite. They're sweeping the Warren tonight. Bones gestured down the alley. This way. Unless you want to explain why a healer is wandering the slums at midnight.
The familiar cold calculation took over. Six Inquisition elite meant trouble. Not because Evander couldn't handle them, but because handling them would raise questions. Dead Inquisitors attracted attention. Missing Inquisitors attracted investigations. The best outcome was avoiding contact entirely.
He followed Bones into the alley.
The Warren's geography was a maze to outsiders but a map to those who lived there. Bones navigated with the confidence of someone who had spent years learning every shortcut, every hidden passage, every rooftop path that connected the district's cramped buildings. Evander followed, trusting his skeletal servant's judgment.
They emerged onto a narrow street just as the patrol rounded the corner behind them.
"Hold."
The command cut through the darkness like a blade. Evander froze, six armored figures twenty yards away pinning him with their stares. Beside him, Bones went completely still, not hiding but becoming part of the scenery in a way that only the dead could truly manage.
"You there. The man in the healer's robes. Step forward."
Evander obeyed, his face settling into the expression of mild concern that Dr. Ashcroft wore like a second skin. "Good evening, soldiers. Is there a problem?"
"The Warren is under curfew." The lead soldier, a sergeant by the markings on his armor, approached with one hand on his sword. "No one in or out after midnight. You should know that."
"I received an emergency call. A woman in labor, complications. I'm Dr. Ashcroft. I run a clinic in the Merchant Quarter."
"We know who you are." The sergeant's voice was flat, unreadable. "The Purifier mentioned you at this morning's briefing."
The words landed like stones in still water, sending ripples in every direction. Mira Vance was briefing patrols about him. That meant she had taken official notice, had moved beyond personal suspicion to institutional interest. Whatever she thought she knew about him, she was now sharing it with the Inquisition apparatus.
"I'm flattered," Evander said carefully. "Though I'm not sure why the Inquisition would be interested in a simple healer."
"Simple healers don't cure incurable diseases." The sergeant stepped closer, close enough that Evander could see his eyes behind the helm. Cold, assessing, suspicious. "Simple healers don't have reputations that spread through every slum in the city. And they don't make senior Inquisitors ask questions about their methods."
"I've been fortunate in my training and my patients."
"You've been something. The Purifier wants to know what." The sergeant gestured to his men, who began spreading out to form a loose cordon around Evander. "She's requested that we bring you in for questioning. Politely, if possible."
Fight. Flight. Compliance. Each option flashed through him, each worse than the last. Fighting was suicide, not because he couldn't kill six soldiers, but because the consequences would be catastrophic. Running would confirm every suspicion Mira Vance harbored. And compliance meant walking into the Inquisition's hands, submitting to questioning that might reveal his true nature.
None of the options were good.
"Of course," he said, making his voice project relaxed cooperation. "I'm happy to assist the Church however I can. Though if I might ask, the woman in labor? She needs help, and her child won't wait for interrogations."
A pause. The sergeant exchanged glances with his men.
"Address?" he asked finally.
Evander gave him the location of a home he had visited earlier that week. A real family, a real woman who had recently given birth, a real alibi that could be verified. The lie was layered with enough truth to survive scrutiny.
"Corporal Thane, go check." The sergeant's tone suggested he expected to find nothing. "If the doctor's story checks out, he can make his house call before we bring him in. If not..."
"If not, I'll come quietly." Evander spread his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I have nothing to hide."
The corporal jogged off into the darkness. The remaining soldiers maintained their cordon, watching Evander with the patience of hunters who knew their prey had nowhere to run.
Minutes passed. Evander kept his breathing steady, his expression calm, his power so deeply suppressed that even his own heartbeat seemed to slow. In the alley where Bones had vanished, he felt the faintest tremor of movement, his skeletal servant repositioning, preparing for intervention if needed.
Not yet, Evander projected through their connection. Wait.
Finally, footsteps returned. Corporal Thane emerged from the darkness, his posture noticeably different than before.
"Sergeant," he said. "The family confirms the doctor was called. The mother's resting, the baby's healthy, the father says Dr. Ashcroft saved both their lives."
"When?"
"Two days ago. He's been checking on them every night since. They described him perfectly, down to the cold hands."
The sergeant's eyes narrowed. "Two days ago."
"Yes, sir. And sir? The father said something else. Said the doctor didn't charge them anything. Said he just wanted to make sure the baby was healthy." Thane's voice carried a note of reluctant respect. "The whole neighborhood vouched for him. They say he's treated half the Warren at some point."
Silence stretched between them. Evander watched the sergeant weigh his orders against the evidence, watched suspicion war with the inconvenient truth that Dr. Ashcroft appeared to be exactly what he claimed: a healer who helped the poor.
"The Purifier's orders were clear," the sergeant said finally.
"The Purifier's orders were to bring him in if we found cause." Thane met his superior's gaze. "Do we have cause? Because from where I'm standing, this man was doing exactly what he said. Helping people who can't afford the Church's healers."
"Since when did you start defending possible heretics?"
"Since I grew up in a district like this one. Since I know what it's like when the only healer who'll see you is a charlatan who'll take your last copper for snake oil." Thane's voice hardened. "If the Purifier has evidence, let her present it. Until then, I'm not dragging a doctor away from patients who need him."
The tension between the soldiers was almost visible, a crack in the Inquisition's united front that Evander filed away for future reference. Not all of them were zealots. Some still remembered what it felt like to be poor and desperate and dependent on the mercy of strangers.
"Fine." The sergeant's voice was clipped with frustration. "Doctor, you're free to continue your rounds. But understand, the Purifier will want to speak with you, and she doesn't like being made to wait. I suggest you present yourself at the Harbor District command post tomorrow morning. Voluntarily."
"I'll be there at first light," Evander lied.
The patrol reformed and continued its sweep, leaving him alone in the midnight street. Only when their footsteps faded did Evander allow himself to breathe freely.
Bones emerged from the alley, his festive hat slightly askew.
That was closer than I like. The skeleton's shoulders sagged with relief, though his bony fingers still twitched with worry.
"The corporal helped. Unexpectedly."
He remembers being hungry. Remembers being sick with no one to help. The Warren remembers too. You've built something here, whether you meant to or not. Bones adjusted his hat with practiced care. People don't want to see you burn.
"One corporal's sympathy won't stop Mira Vance."
No. But it might slow her down. Give you time.
Time. Evander turned that word over in his mind. Time was exactly what he needed. Time to find the traitor, time to plan his move against Bishop Marcos, time to understand the Death Gods' influence on his power. The Purifier was accelerating his timeline, forcing him to act before he was ready.
Unless he accelerated hers first.
"The misdirection with the Broker," he said slowly, a new plan taking shape. "We need to make it more convincing. Something that will demand the Inquisition's full attention."
Like what?
"Like evidence that the Broker is planning an attack. Something imminent, something that can't be ignored." Evander began walking, his pace quickening as his thoughts crystallized. "If Mira Vance believes there's an active threat, she'll have to respond. She'll have to investigate. And while she's chasing shadows..."
You'll be dealing with the Bishop.
"I'll be dealing with everything." Evander smiled, a cold expression that belonged to the necromancer, not the healer. "The Purifier wants to hunt? Let her hunt. But she'll chase the prey I give her, not the one she's looking for."
Bones fell into step beside him, skeletal legs somehow keeping pace with flesh and bone.
Behind them, the Warren slept beneath gathering storm clouds.
And somewhere in the city, in a command post overlooking the harbor, Mira Vance reviewed reports from the night's patrols and noticed a name that appeared more frequently than any other.
Dr. Evander Ashcroft. The healer who worked miracles in the slums.
She wrote his name on a list and drew a circle around it.
Some prey was worth hunting slowly. And this one, she sensed, would be worth the patience.
