14 Crane Passage was dark when he arrived. Not the dark of abandonment. The dark of deliberate concealment, the same dim quiet that had greeted him on his first visit a year ago. The dimensional shielding still hummed at a frequency just below hearing. The door still looked like it led to a maintenance closet.
Daven met him at the entrance. The Pathfinder's cane tapped once on the stone floor, a single note of acknowledgment, and his eyes tracked across Cael's ruined jacket and the dried blood that wasn't his own.
'You've been busy,' Daven said.
'I need gear.'
'The Foundation's stores are open to you. Sera Aldric made that clear a year ago.'
'I need specific gear.' Cael followed him through the corridor, past the security station, past the door marked with the angular symbol that matc
