The climb out of the alley is routine.

Brick to pipe, pipe to ledge, a sequence burned into muscle and bone. I don’t rush it—no need. This stretch of the city might as well be etched into me by now. The fog is thick tonight, heavy enough to bead on my lashes, but it doesn’t slow me. I don’t need to see the roof to know it’s there.

I swing up, roll, and don’t stop.

The run takes over. Boots drumming metal. Weight shifting on instinct. I count my steps without thinking—three, five, jump—clearing the gap to the next building exactly where I always do. The city is a map under my feet, distances measured long before tonight.

Easy.

Fog swallows everything beyond a few feet. Chimneys and vents loom out of it like ghosts, familiar silhouettes stripped of detail. I leap again, trusting the landing because I always have.

That’s the mistake.

I hit something solid instead of empty air. The impact jolts through me, sudden and wrong, my breath tearing out as my arms snap out on reflex. I twist hard, boots scraping for purchase, shoulder slamming as I redirect momentum away from the edge I know is there even if I can’t see it.

Metal shrieks. Something small clatters and vanishes into the void below.

"Fuck.."

No—

I lock in place, muscles burning, holding fast until the world stops trying to tip sideways. Only then do I register the weight in my grip. The warmth. The unmistakable shape of a person where there should have been nothing at all.

The fog thins just enough.I pull back slowly. Face to face with someone the city never warned me about.