"I don't answer to threats," Zelene said, chin lifting despite the crates pressing hard against her back.
"That wasn't a threat." Kael's tone didn't rise. It never rose. "A threat would involve the garrison fifty paces from here. I haven't called them yet."
"How generous."
"Take off the hood."
"No."
Something flickered across his face at that — not quite surprise, but close.
"You bowed to me," he said. "Called me my lord. Then ran the moment I asked a simple question." He took one measured step closer.
Zelene's jaw tightened. Still exactly as observant as I remember. I forgot how exhausting that is.
"Maybe I don't like being followed."
"Perhaps," Kael allowed. "Though you still haven't given me a name to go with that preference."
"I don't have to."
"Everyone does, eventually." He crossed his arms, and for one unguarded second something rawer cracked through the cold precision. "Two years," he said, quieter now. "Two years of being told a fire took everything, and never once shown proof of it."
Zelene's breath caught.
Say something. Do something.
Her hands rose slowly toward the edge of her hood.
"LYNN!"
The shout cracked down the alley behind Kael like a blade — Corvin's voice, sharp with alarm, followed a half-second later by Nym's faster footsteps closing fast.
Kael spun toward the sound on pure instinct, hand already dropping to the sword at his hip, and in that single, fractured moment of his attention breaking away from her, Zelene didn't hesitate.
She bolted.
She shoved past him through the narrow gap he'd left at his side, boots skidding on wet stone, and didn't look back once — not at the alley, not at the man still standing frozen mid-turn, not at whatever expression had crossed his face in the half-second before she vanished from his reach entirely.
"Lynn, this way—!" Corvin's hand caught her arm the second she cleared the alley mouth, hauling her sideways into the cover of a narrow market stall just as Nym slammed a makeshift barrier of crates across the opening behind them.
"Who was that?" Nym demanded, breathless, eyes wide with alarm. "Lynn, that man had a sword—"
"Later," Zelene gasped, chest heaving, heart still slamming loud enough to drown out half of what he'd said. "Just — move. Now. Before he—"
Behind the crates, Kael's voice rose for the first time all evening — sharp, commanding, cutting clean through the harbor noise.
"WAIT!"
But the crowd had already swallowed them whole, and by the time Kael forced his way clear of the blocked alley, sword drawn, eyes scanning every hooded figure in the crowded square with growing, desperate urgency —
She was gone.