Snore.

Alex watched the fog-covered streets through the barred window as the night waned and the day began. With the coming day, orange light slowly peeled away the fog. There was no sun, just as there had been no stars across the night sky.

Yet, he had seen stars before being captured on August, hadn't he?

His time in the Twelve Kingdoms had become a blur. After escaping the lab, it had taken five years to piece his mind back in place. He hadn't done it alone, but he didn't like remembering that time. It wasn't the brightest chapter in his life.

It was why he would avoid August at all costs.

Snore.

Sayed continued to snore on one of the two beds while Jean was frozen like a dead body on his. Neither of them made sleeping easy, but the mystery of what lay out in the dark had kept Alex awake. He hadn't seen a single thing that could be a collector. The streets seemed completely empty the entire night.

He had seen nothing but fog all night.

He wasn't worried about losing sleep. He hadn't needed much sleep since a series of experiments had ripped his body to shreds and rebuilt it to house the artificial curse in his chest. A metal cover was all that remained as a sign of the experiment.

That and the memories. Ash in his nose, fire in his lungs. Screams in the distance as pale-skinned monsters rampaged through the mist. Monsters that he had called into the world using an island core. All in a half-baked plan to escape the island.

His real problem was that he remembered too much about August—another reason not to go anywhere near the island.

He turned from the window as the fog fully faded, not so different from the mist of his past. Instead of piles of bodies revealed in the sunlight, and screams of mistwalkers filling the air as light burned their skin, people were exiting their homes, their white masks already covering their faces as they woke up to the morning light.

He didn't need to see any more. There clearly wouldn't be Collectors out in the night. Whatever sense of creepiness was down to just the masks now, and that was likely just part of the trauma from Grim Hollow.

He woke up Sayed and Jean, and took them down to the dining area to meet back up with Erin, Wen and Mari. A breakfast and a split-up plan later, and Alex was walking with Li Wen to get their needed documents. He would stay outside while Wen registered the ship under a different name. Erin would keep Jean and Sayed out of trouble, as they already knew not to send the two men out alone.

He had a lot of hope that nothing would go wrong on Binvieti. They could leave in a few hours and start their journey to pass deeper into the Core. That thought already tasted sour, but he could ignore it for a while.

Binvieti was a large town, and it took them some time to arrive at the right building. As they walked, Alex saw people as they went about their morning routines. Some hadn't put their masks on yet, and he took some comfort in the fact they weren't monsters. However, he noticed something that bothered him.

"They have a lot of older people, don't they?" It was a simple observation, something that shouldn't be that odd.

However, it was the number of old to young that bothered him. Far too many people with wrinkled faces and bodies, traits that couldn't be fully hidden by the masks. Maybe if there had been a recent war, or if Binvieti was some kind of retirement community, it would make sense. However, it was a town in a faux medieval totalitarian setting. Young blood was essential to keep places like that running. The more kids, the better.

"Like an old folk's home," Li Wen said, stopping in her tracks and giving him a glare. "You're not allowed to get interested in whatever's going on here. We're getting the documents and leaving."

"You're telling me you can see all this." Alex gestured vaguely around them. "And you're not the slightest bit curious about what's going on?"

"Normal people don't look up," Li Wen said. "They focus on what they need and want and don't worry about what's going on around them."

Alex started to raise a finger to object, but stopped. Li Wen had a point. A problem could be staring a person directly in the face, a proverbial elephant in the room, and many people would ignore it. Unless the elephant stomped on them, it wasn't their problem. What was the phrase?

"Stay in your lane?"

"Yes." Li Wen turned, leading him toward a nearby building, marked with a symbol he didn't recognize. "That's how these people survive in the Core. The Twelve Kingdoms will curb stomp you if you don't."

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"They've tried that already," Alex offered a weak defense.

"That was out in the Fringes," Li Wen said. "There are more than enough bounty hunters, Military Police, and worse things running around in the Core. We need to play this by the books if we want to make it through the gates."

"It was so much easier going out." Alex sighed.

"You didn't have your own ship, and you weren't going deeper inside," Li Wen said. "There's a lot less need to protect the Twelve Kingdoms from domestic terrorists. Most of the problems, aside from the odd outlaw or revolutionary, come from the Fringes."

"I guess you would be an expert on it," Alex said.

"I had to earn a living." Li Wen shrugged, her shoulders seeming a lot smaller than before. "I only ever went after outlaws with a long rap sheet."

Alex wasn't questioning her on that, but he couldn't correct it at the moment. His bluntness was coming into play again, though he had been doing so well not to say the wrong thing recently. He grimaced, but wasn't sure how to apologize.

"Go find a place to wait," Li Wen said before she entered the gray building. "It'll take at least an hour, if I'm lucky."

Alex did as he was told. However, he didn't think Li Wen had to worry that much. He hadn't seen any bounty posters up around the town, and Sayed had only yelled his name really loudly in front of a few people. The chance that they would put the information together and then care about it was slim. Out on the Fringes, an outlaw naming themselves loudly enough was a sign for regular folks to keep away.

"Maybe things are just different in the Core." He sighed, finding an old wooden bench and sitting down in front of the building.

Alex stretched his arms across the entire back in such a way that would encourage other people not to sit down next to him. He was in a public place, with a small open park behind him, but that didn't mean he wanted to be around the public. He'd keep his head down until Li Wen came back.

There was no singular bright light shining down on him, and he didn't feel the heat even though the sky had turned a bright blue above. He couldn't get over how the sky in November worked. He tried to imagine waiting day in and day out with all the light of a sun, but no singular orb in the sky.

Granted, everything about the Core so far was odd, including the masks.

He rested his head back, looking behind him with an inverted view of the world, and as he did, he noticed the kid staring at him from an alley. It reminded him of Cragg Hollow, where noticing the one kid not wearing a mask had tipped him off to the entire conspiracy of replacing people with masked monsters on the island.

There was no way that would happen again.

He watched the kid for a good minute before he stood up. Blood rushed back to his head with Li Wen's warning. 'Don't get involved.' His fingers cracked as he stretched out his grip. Of course he was going to get involved. He needed to know what was really going on with the masks.

It was practically a compulsion.

He started walking toward where the kid had been hiding. He didn't want to make himself too obvious, of course. The kid might yell or scream if he did that, and that would defeat the purpose of asking questions. He needed just the right amount of surprise. Not enough to scare the kid away, but just enough to make him want to answer some questions.

The kid stuck his head out to look around for where Alex had gone, just as Alex came around the corner to him. Alex saw the kid's eyes widen behind the mask, and his body spread out to run away. Alex sucked in a breath.

"Step."

He disappeared in a blur of movement. His feet kicked off the ground a hundred times in an instant, and he reappeared behind the kid just as the kid turned to run. Alex smiled and waved to show he didn't mean any harm, but the kid definitely wasn't going to get away.

"Hey," Alex said, continuing to walk towards the kid as he gave furtive glances back and forth. "Do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

The kid froze, looking up at Alex. He was afraid, and far too afraid to even run away. It was a typical flight-or-fight response. Most people didn't know there was even a third option, freeze. Alex stopped where he was and dropped into a squat. He rested his hands on his knees.

"I promise I'm not here to hurt you. I just want to know something about this town."

"O—Okay," the kid stammered after a full minute of staring at Alex.

"First, just out of courtesy, why were you watching me? Do you know who I am?"

The kid shook his head before remembering that he was supposed to answer the question.

"I heard you were with the 'Sword Saint' yesterday. I thought he'd be with you."

Sayed. The kid was looking for Sayed. He knew who Sayed was, but not the man who burned down August. Alex had to admit that stung a bit. Not that he wasn't happy for Sayed. The kid wouldn't have been so excited to find him if it weren't a bit of hero worship.

However, Sayed hadn't been in the Core at all, so it was odd that the kid knew about him outside of bounty posters. Alex tilted his head. That was right; the kid shouldn't have known who Sayed was enough to look up to him, unless he had first seen Sayed yesterday in the square.

"How do you know Sayed?"

"Granddad tells us stories all the time about him," the kid said, his eyes suddenly finding the ground very interesting. "I didn't believe it when Branou told me either."

Alex nodded like that made everything make sense, even if it didn't.

"Who's your Granddad?"

"Corvin!"

Alex turned as the kid practically snapped to attention to see an old man leaning on a cane. He was mask-less, with a full white long beard running down his face, and wore only rags. Honestly, the kid was better dressed than him. Alex watched as he ran over to the kid, grabbing onto his hands and starting down the alley. He brushed past Alex like he weren't even there.

"We've been worried sick!"

"Sorry, Granddad!"

They turned a corner before Alex could object. Alex started after them, but when he reached the corner, they had disappeared completely. It was like the two hadn't been there at all. He ran down the street to check the next turn, but they were there either.

"Strange," Alex said.

He could activate his curse to try to track them down due to the small electrical signals brains gave off, but he needed an idea of where they went to sort through the mess of information. Without a line of sight on them, he didn't know what to look for.

He turned back to the park, resolved to wait with more questions than answers.

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