Chapter One:

The Stranger in the Rain

You know that feeling, right? The look of suspicion. Wondering if someone’s lying to you, right in front of your eyes. That’s the kind of mask he wore. Glass. Polished. Perfect. Only to crack and come to me for another one. I get clients like that all the time—broken people who think Currents are the only thing that makes life matter. But he… he’s different. He might’ve worn masks before, but not here. Not in front of me.

He leans against the doorway, rain streaking his shoulders, pink hair plastered to his skin. His eyes—white like glass, but sharper than any mask I’ve ever made. They study me the way someone studies a blueprint: calm, calculating, observant of every detail, waiting for a reaction. I don’t flinch. I never do.

“Lyria Cwae?” His voice is quiet—almost polite. A dangerous kind of politeness. The world around me echoes his words, soft but threatening to be overheard. “I hear you make masks… the kind that people say can hide more than a face. Feelings.”

I shrug, slow, casual. Act your role. I brush a coil of silver—one of the few strands that stand out in my jet-black hair—away from my eyes. “Depends on who’s wearing it. Some faces don’t want hiding. Some faces need it.”

He steps inside. One careful movement. Nothing wasted. The air smells of copper, solder, and the faint hum of my newest Core Mask. He glances around, noting every tool, every glowing wire, as if memorizing my secrets.

“I need one,” he says finally, voice flat but steady. “Not a regular mask. Something… special. Something that can keep me invisible to eyes that should never see me.”

I study him. This isn’t a client looking for protection or status. This is someone who’s walked too close to danger and wants me to help him cheat it. And yet… there’s a hint of trust in the way he doesn’t demand. A quiet respect that surprises me. But is he just acting? Even with his mask off?

“Special masks aren’t cheap,” I tell him. I lied. From the elegance in his walk to the grace in his voice, I know he’s got enough pretty coins to spill into my hands without ever noticing. “And they’re not just about hiding, you know that? They change you. Make you something… else. Understand me?”

He smiles faintly, almost sadly. “Yes. Then I guess I’m ready to pay that price.”

I glance at him again, searching for a hint of deceit or a concealed trick that he might pull out after I give him what he wants. There isn’t any—not yet. But I’ve learned long ago that appearances are greedy, menacing things. Trust is earned, not offered.

“Outside,” he utters, nodding toward the street hidden behind the door. “The Dominion’s eyes have been closer than usual. They seem to have a liking for this place.”

I follow him to the cracked doorway. Rain slicks the streets, steam rising from hidden vents. Shadows twist and stretch along the walls of the Pale Quarters, and I know better than to ignore the way they move. Dominion patrols aren’t supposed to be here—but someone’s reckless tonight. Or clever.

“They’ll see you if you step out,” I warn. “I can make a mask, but it won’t protect you from everything.”

He tilts his head, that faint, sad smile lingering. “I’m not looking for protection. I’m looking for a chance. A few minutes to finish what I started before they noticed.”

His words make the hair on my neck rise. Someone this careful, this measured, doesn’t ask favors lightly. And yet… he’s here. In my workshop. In my life, where every misstep could kill me.

I nod once. “Fine. But when I say ‘wear it,’ you do exactly as I say. One wrong move and the Dominion won’t need their Draining Machines—they’ll have me handing you over myself.”

He laughs quietly, hollow and almost surprised but expectant. “I like your confidence. Maybe that’s why I came to you and not someone else.”

For a brief second, I allow myself to imagine it: a man without a mask, walking through the Pale Quarters unseen—a chance to strike back at a work that has always taken. And maybe, just maybe… someone who can see me, not through a mask, but for who I am.

Then he leans closer, and the faint hum of my Core Mask catches both of our eyes. “Can you really do it?” he asks softly. “Make something unthinkable?”

I smile. Just slightly. “I don’t fail. Not unless I want to.” The small smile doesn’t last before I start sighing—moving around the room as if it were a ball and I was one of its dancers.

He watches me from across the room, eyes following every motion. I can feel his gaze like static in the air—quiet, charged, far too curious. My tools lie scattered across the table: shards of tinted glass, copper wire, a half-drained Core crystal pulsing with a faint light. The workshop hums around me, low and alive.

“Well, you can sit down if you’re not going to leave,” I say. “I don’t want you watching me like I’m putting on a show.” I pause before adding, “And don’t touch anything.”

He obeys, but his attention doesn’t waver. “You built all of this yourself?”

“Who else would?” I mutter. “They don’t just make these things. Dominion scraps make better tools than they do machines anyway. You just have to know where to look.”

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, watching as I hold up the glass shard to the lamp. The light spills through it, refracting like water, bending and twisting the reflection of his face into something unrecognizable.

“What are you hiding from, exactly?” I ask, not looking away from the object in my hand.

He doesn’t answer. His jaw tightens. The Core Mask hums between us, loud as a held breath.

“I don’t make anything blind,” I say. “If I’m putting my name on it, I deserve to know what kind of trouble I’m letting through my door.”

He looks at me then—really looks. The kind of look that feels like it’s searching for something under your skin.

“Trouble,” he says simply. “The kind that burns what it touches.”

I frown. “That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I can afford.”

Before I can reply, a soft click echoes from somewhere outside—the unmistakable snap of a Dominion shock rifle being cocked. The rain muffles—eats—most sounds, but not that one. Never that one.

He’s on his feet instantly, his chair barely scraping the ground. His posture changes—no longer calm, no longer polite.

“Stay away from the windows,” he warns. “They’re sweeping the Quarter.”

I move closer to my bench, snatching the barely-finished mask from its stand. The crystal core flares once in my hand, reacting to adrenaline.

“What did you do?” I whisper. The words come out harsher than I meant.

His breathing quickens. His eyes remain steady. “I took something from them,” he says. “Something that was never theirs to keep.”

Boots splash through puddles outside. Voices bark orders; urgency threads them. I’m almost able to make out what they’re saying. The Dominion is close—too close.

I set the mask on the table, fingers trembling—less with fear than with a sharp, electric excitement.

“Then you’d better hope I finish this faster than I would have wished to,” I say, reaching for the solder. “Because whatever you stole… just painted a target on both of us. I’m getting out of here alive—even if you don’t.”

But the rain didn’t wait. It kept falling—harder, faster, as if the city itself was listening.

Chapter Two:

The Mask

But the rain didn’t wait. It kept falling—harder, faster, as if the city itself was listening. And maybe it was.

He laughs, soft and hollow—like before—then turns to the door. “No,” he says, low. “You leave me behind, and I’m gone for good. I’m not taking you into what I started.”

I don’t answer. Words are useless here. The Dominion’s light washes past the doorway—brief and too bright. A shadow moves at the edge of the glow: a Sentinel sweeping lanes.

“Two minutes,” I say, more command than offer. “You sit. You breathe. When I say ‘wear it,’ you put it on and you follow me, nowhere else. Got it? I’m not leaving you until I get my money.”

He nods, the flicker of trust in that motion fragile and immediate. I work like I always do: fast, precise, like the movement of a hand that has been trained to cheat death, like he has asked. Copper wire, breath, a whisper of code. I thread a thin strip of shadow mesh along the inner rim—my trick to confuse Registry scanners—and weave a pulse pattern into the core so the mask doesn’t just fake glow, it mimics an authorized signature.

Outside, voices are closer. The Sentinel’s boots pads thud over the scrap-metal alley. My pulse taps a rhythm against the solder tip. The core thrums hotter.

“Now,” I say, voice steady.

He lifts the mask to his face with hands that shake just slightly—calluses and scars catching the lamplight. The shadow mesh kisses the skin. The mask slides, and for one breath he looks like a man made of borrowed light: anonymous, unreadable, a Blank made beautiful.

The scanners flash above the doorway. A Sentinel’s shadow tallies a pass, then moves on. The patrol’s light slides past our alley without stopping. For a second, the world holds itself so thin it almost tears.

He breathes out slowly, incredulous. “You did it.”

“Don’t be surprised,” I say. “I said I don’t fail.”

For a moment, before we make a move, I touch my own mask—soft, smooth glass. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Finally, we move—the two of us—out into wet stone and steam, past whispers, past shopfronts with burnt-out signs. He walks like someone who knows how to disappear. I walk like someone who’s just handed her secret away. We aren’t safe. Not yet. But the mask works. Not perfect. Not forever. Just a breathing window. That’s all he needs. That’s all I can give for now.

TO BE CONTINUED!