Draven’s POV
The market at four in the morning was laced with dew, the surroundings smelling like wet wool, roasted chicory, and sweat.
Usually, this place is a joke. Shifters and monsters haggling over stolen goods while pretending they aren’t going to eat each other. But today, nobody is laughing.
The wards went dark six hours ago. The hidden district feels exposed, and everyone knows it.
I keep my hands in my jacket pockets, my shoulders feeling tight. The dragon inside me is pacing, scratching at the back of my mind, demanding I shift and burn whatever is making the hair on my arms stand up. I shove down the feeling. Fire doesn’t fix a broken grid.
I stop at a rusted iron stall near the back.
Corvus is perched on a crate, picking his teeth with a feather quill. He’s a crow s
