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Book 1: Chapter 45: The Ones We Leave Behind
🕑 Added 2025-06-18 14:44:09 +0000 UTCChapter 45:
The Ones We Leave Behind
The cell was always cold. Not freezing. Not sharp, just constant. A damp kind of chill that crept in through the walls and stayed in the bones, no matter how many times Leon wrapped his arms around his knees. He didn’t know how many days it had been since she last came.
Grace.
No one had said her name again. Since then, only the same guard visited. Once a day. A tray slid through the door, half-stale bread, sometimes broth, sometimes not. Leon didn’t speak to him. The guard didn’t speak back. They both understood the rhythm. Eat. Wait. Exist. There wasn’t much else to do. He used to think a cell would make him scream. It didn’t. At least not anymore.
Now it just made him remember.
Valewick was a city so big it made its own sky. That’s how the old man by the river docks used to describe it—one for the nobles, one for the rats. Leon hadn’t understood it at first. But over time, he did. The city was carved into twenty-nine districts, each one its own world. And even those were split again; sub-districts, markets, compounds, slums, and alleys with no names at all.
Leon had grown up in District Twenty-One. People called it the Butchers' District because the air always smelled of blood and salt. Rows of meat shops, drying houses, smoke sheds. Gutters ran red some mornings. And if it wasn’t blood, it was fat.
He lived in a hollow under a collapsed wall behind one of the bigger slaughterhouses. Warm in the winter. Rotten in the summer. You couldn’t sleep too deep, rats would chew your fingers if you stopped moving.
He hadn’t had a name. Not a real one. People called him “stripper” because he was good at grabbing strips of dried meat from ropes without getting caught. Leon didn’t care. He was fast, and quiet. That was enough.
Most mornings started the same. Wake before the smokehouse bell. Crawl out of the hollow behind the slaughterhouse. Shake off whatever crawled in during the night. Then find food, fast and quiet.
But Leon hadn’t been alone. He had Rin. She was smaller than him, sharper in the eyes, always coughing through winter and running through summer. She didn’t talk much, but she followed him everywhere. And when someone tried to take their scraps or shove them out of a warm corner, Leon shoved back. He didn’t know why he protected her. He just did. She felt like something real in a world that kept proving otherwise.
Even after Lady Callaire took him in—gave him shoes, a cot, a name the nobles could pronounce—he still found ways to check on Rin. He’d sneak out early, leave her bread, fruit, a coin when he had one. She never said thank you. But she always took it. That was enough.
They’d grown up together in that district of brine and bone. She was the only part of that life he hadn’t tried to forget. The only part that still made sense when he looked at his hands and didn’t see dirt under the nails anymore.
Sometimes they climbed the rooftops together, just to sit where the stone warmed under the sun. From there, they could see the edge of the High Walk. The noble gates. The washed streets.
Rin once whispered, “They’ve got their own sky up there. Bet it doesn’t even rain.”
Leon had laughed. But deep down, he wondered if she was right. Maybe one day, they’d walk beneath it together.
That was before everything changed. Before Callaire—before Grace.
Lady Callaire... He would never forget how he met her.
It was a sunny Marketday. The streets in the Butchers’ District buzzed with the usual stench and shouting; dried meat, cracked bone, flies and old arguments. Leon had been out early, trying to score something for Rin and himself. Something fresh, or at least warm. A broken pie, some bruised fruit. Anything.
That’s when he saw her.
An old woman, walking alone through the market, too calm for this place. She moved like she belonged somewhere else, like the filth and shouting weren’t even real. Her gown was fine, trailing only slightly across the damp stone. Her boots were polished. Her hair was neatly coiled under a traveling wrap of soft gray velvet. She didn’t belong here.
She looked like a noblewoman who had wandered off script.
Leon got curious.
He didn’t mean to follow her. He just did. Something about how wrong she looked in this place made her interesting. The market swallowed people like her. And maybe part of him just wanted to see how long she’d last.
But then he noticed he wasn’t the only one watching.
A gang, older kids he recognized, mean ones who roamed between District Twenty and the outer Slats, had seen her too. Four of them. Scarves tied over their mouths. And they weren’t curious. They were hungry.
Leon’s first instinct was to turn away. It wasn’t his problem. He had enough to worry about without getting sliced open for someone who should’ve known better.
But the image of her didn’t leave his head.
She looked like someone’s grandmother. Lost. Fragile. Too slow for this place. Too clean. It didn’t sit right. Not even in a place like this.
So, he kept following. And watched as she walked into one shop after another, picking up sealed pouches, string-tied bundles of herbs, crystal jars too small for their price. She didn’t haggle. She didn’t rush. Just smiled, nodded, moved on. Graceful. Confident. Vulnerable.
Then she turned into a side alley.
And that was the moment it changed.
The gang moved at once, slipping in behind her, splitting off. Two to the back. Two toward the entrance. A perfect pincer. Leon saw it. The motion, the timing. They were going to box her in and bleed her out before anyone could blink.
And for some reason he didn’t understand—not even now—he moved too.
He didn’t think. He just moved.
“Run!” he shouted toward the old woman. “They’re behind you!”
He didn’t wait to see if she listened.
His fingers dipped into the satchel hidden inside his ragged cloak, pulled out a crumpled pouch of rough, hand-ground powder. He’d made it himself, weeks ago. A mix of dried thistle, greenleaf, and riverside resin, worthless to eat, but hell on skin.
He tossed it hard at the first gang kid who rushed in.
The pouch burst on impact, powder clouding the air. The boy screamed, dropped to the ground, clawing at his face, twitching and swearing as the itching tore into his skin like fire ants. It’d burn. Leave a rash for a week. Might even blind him for a few hours.
There was a brief opening, and if the woman was smart, she’d run.
But Leon never saw her move, because that’s when a fist crashed into his ribs, hard. The world tilted. He hit the ground with a grunt, air knocked from his lungs. Another kick followed. Sharp. To the side. He gasped and rolled, trying to stand, but a boot caught him in the back and slammed him flat again.
“Stupid little rat,” one of them snarled. “She’s our bounty!”
A glob of spit landed near his cheek.
He looked up, dazed, just in time to see two of the other boys drawing knives, circling the old woman. She didn’t step back. She didn’t flinch.
She just tilted her head and smiled like they were squabbling over a spilled drink.
“You know,” she said lightly, “street robbery’s punishable by death, lads. Bit young for this, aren’t you?”
Leon blinked. Why the hell was she smiling? The first gang member lunged. There was a soft chime, like a tiny bell. Sharp. Delicate. And the blade stopped midair. Not because it missed. Because it hit something. Something invisible.
The woman sighed, almost disappointed. “Tsk.”
She raised her arm. Leon noticed it for the first time, a bracelet around her wrist. Thin silver chain, six round pearls. Pale blue. One of them flashed. The boy was thrown backward with force, and he slammed into the alley wall with a sickening crack. Something snapped inside him. The pearl that had glowed turned white.
The alley went silent. The others froze. They’d heard stories. But none of them had ever seen real magic. Before they could run, another pearl flared—then whitened. A second boy collapsed, knees buckling as something shattered inside his chest. No blood. Just pain, and bones broken.
The last one turned and ran, dragging the screaming, powder-blinded one with them.
Only Leon remained on the ground, curled, aching. The woman stepped over to him, slow and quiet.
“Interesting powder you made…” He heard her voice again, not out loud, but echoing somewhere deep, like a bell struck underwater.
And then… He was back. Back in the cell. Back in the dark.
A soft cough rattled in his chest. His throat burned. His side still throbbed from where the gang kid had kicked him all those years ago… but that wasn’t the pain now.
It was his shoulder. Or what was left of it. He shifted slightly, wincing as his body protested. The skin around the ruined joint felt like it didn’t belong to him. His left arm barely moved, limp and strange, connected to something that wasn’t there.
It felt like something had taken a bite out of him. He sighed through his teeth. Cold breath. Stone walls. Dirt floor. One blanket. No light.
It was a miracle he was still alive. Or maybe a curse.
Something was completely wrong with that girl.
Leon had met nobles before. He’d seen their arrogance, their cruelty, their detachment. He’d been ignored, spat on, called filth. That wasn’t new.
But Grace… wasn’t like them. She was something else entirely. Not just cold, calculated. Not just powerful, unnatural. She hadn’t hurt him out of anger. She hadn’t even yelled. She’d smiled. Spoken gently. Then began to torture him, with a smile on her face, like she was plucking a weed from the garden.
And the way she’d looked at him afterward, curious, not remorseful, that was what haunted him the most.
Leon was afraid of her. Not in the way he feared gangs, or guards, or hunger. This was different. He wasn’t even sure she hated him. She just… wanted something. And what was he supposed to do? He was a prisoner. A crippled one, at that. He had no allies. No options. No way out.
So, he did the only thing he could.
He waited.
And he prayed, not to the gods, but to whatever still had a grip on his fate, that she wouldn’t come back.
--::--
The boutique smelled of rose ash and sea-mint.
Maison Callaire – Couture & Parfum was quiet in the mornings, the way Lady Callaire preferred it. No customers yet. Just the sound of cloth being folded, glass stoppers being checked, rows of balm jars realigned with perfect symmetry. She moved through the front room in silence, dressed in lavender robes with a gray sash, her sleeves rolled back as she took inventory by hand.
It had been nearly five weeks since the incident.
Five weeks since that girl—Grace—had walked into her life, and taken Leon from her.
He wasn’t dead. At least… not officially.
The Lady Grace had spared him. By her word, it seemed. A quiet, cutting mercy that left more questions than comfort. He was imprisoned now, locked away on the Ashford Estate, where outsiders weren’t allowed. She had asked, formally. Requested entry. Petitioned for one supervised visit.
The answer had been simple.
“No.”
No explanation. No further reply. She was a noble by title, but in Ashford, titles without weight were just names.
So, she did his work now. Refilled the shelves. Mixed the lighter tinctures. Packed orders for the eastern couriers. Leon had been a fourth-year apprentice, nearly independent, fast with ratios, faster with packing. He didn’t speak much, but his presence had filled the boutique like the warm draft from the alchemy kiln.
She missed him more than she expected to.
That’s when she saw the girl again. Standing across the street. Pale, skinny, maybe ten now. Long black hair. Green eyes that didn’t blink much. Dressed in two sizes too many, but clean. She wasn’t loitering. Wasn’t begging. Just… waiting.
Lady Callaire stepped to the glass and looked through the morning haze.
She recognized her. The girl Leon kept slipping food to. The one he’d never explained, not really. She never asked. She knew the type. The ones who came from nowhere, clung to each other like driftwood in stormwater.
And this one? She was still waiting. Waiting for a boy who hadn’t walked out that door in over a month.
Lady Callaire took a slow breath, then pushed open the boutique door.
The early light spilled across the cobblestones, and the cool spring air touched her face. The girl didn’t flinch when she approached, didn’t run, didn’t straighten like a caught thief. She just looked up. Quiet and waiting. There was something familiar in that stillness. Not fear. Just… resolve.
“Rin, isn’t it?” Lady Callaire asked gently.
The girl nodded once. Her expression didn’t change.
“He talked about you. Not often, but enough.” She paused. “I know why you’re here.”
The girl looked away, then back. “Where is he?”
There was no hesitation in the question. Only a faint strain in the voice, like she hadn’t used it in days.
Lady Callaire folded her hands in front of her.
“He’s alive,” she said. “But he’s not here. They took him to the big estate outside the city. After…” Her words faltered slightly. “After he lost his mind....”
Rin’s eyes sharpened. She didn’t ask what happened. She didn’t ask if he was well.
She just nodded once. “Thank you,” she said, then turned to leave.
Callaire moved without thinking, stepped forward and placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. Not forceful, but firm.
“You can’t just wander onto the estate and rescue him.”
Rin froze.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Callaire added. “But that place… it isn’t like Valewick. You don’t sneak through the back gate. The walls there don’t just keep people out. They keep people in.”
The girl didn’t look at her. At least not fully. But her jaw clenched. Callaire saw it all in her posture, the stubbornness, the fear buried under it, and something else. This wasn’t a reckless child. It was a girl who had already made up her mind. And that scared her more than any tantrum ever could. She was scared the girl would just throw her life away.
“I know you want to help him,” Callaire said quietly. “I know what he means to you. But if you run off half-starved and angry, all you’ll do is get caught. Or worse...”
Rin didn’t argue. She just stayed still.
Lady Callaire sighed.
“You’re not going to give up on him. I know that. So… if you’re going to do anything, it should be the right way. Which means…” She hesitated. “You’ll stay here. With me. For now.”
That made the girl finally blink.
“Why?” she asked, her voice rough.
“Because someone needs to look after you,” Callaire said. “Because Leon would want me to. And because—” She paused. “Because I could use the help.”
That last part wasn’t a lie. The boutique had been too quiet. Too heavy. Too full of work that wasn’t meant to be done alone.
Rin glanced back at the shop, then at the street, then finally at Callaire.
“You don’t know me.”
“No,” Callaire said. “But I know him.” And that was enough.
The girl stood there for a long moment, then gave a single, sharp nod.
“Okay,” she said. Not thank you. Not anything else. Just okay.
Lady Callaire let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
She stepped aside and gestured toward the boutique door.
“Come on, then. You’re going to learn how to sweep like an alchemist.”
