A curse.

  I looked at the spot where Hana’s shadow should have been and felt a weird sort of prickle in my chest. It wasn’t just the mana frostbite acting up. It was that feeling you get when you realize the puzzle you’re trying to solve is actually missing half its pieces and the box was probably cursed by a vengeful god.

  Typical.

  "Roonie," I said, turning my head toward the man who was currently trying to fix his hair while looking like he’d been dragged through a hedge backward. "You’ve seen reports on this before, right? The dark magic signatures from the Eclipse Raid were off the charts."

  Roonie stopped poking at his reflection in the window and adjusted his glasses. He looked serious for once. Not the 'I’m-filling-out-paperwork' serious, but the 'I-actually-know-my-shit' serious.

  "Dark magic curses are a mess, Elara. They don’t just latch onto your mana. They eat into the soul. But they aren’t permanent. Not if you have the right people and the right amount of guild money."

  "It’s possible to get it removed?" Hana asked.

  Her voice was still that hollow, ghost-like whisper. She looked at Roonie like he was a miracle worker. I mean, he was a B-Rank administrative guy with a god-complex about his schedule, but he had his moments.

  "Everything has a price tag," Roonie said with a shrug. "Even soul-eating shadows."

  I leaned back against the edge of the table, tapping my chin. "It’s not just any dark magic, though. Hana, when you used [Weaponize] on your shadow, you weren't just making a tool. I think you accidentally triggered something called the Curse of the Twilight."

  Hana tilted her head. "Twilight?"

  "It’s an old classification," I said, my strategist brain firing on all cylinders. "It’s about the boundary between two worlds. The two shades of the sky. When you weaponized your shadow, you didn't just give it mass. You gave it a piece of your 'self' that was supposed to stay connected to your body. That’s why it’s sentient. That’s why it’s hunting. You basically split yourself in two and turned the other half into a sentient blade."

  Hana sat there, her dark eyes wide. For a second, she looked like she’d seen a ghost, which was funny considering she literally was being haunted by her own silhouette. "I’ve spent years in libraries. I’ve talked to every sage in the eastern mountains. None of them mentioned anything about a Twilight split."

  "That’s because it’s in a text that’s basically a doorstop now," I said. "A hundred-year-old manuscript written right near the second cataclysm. My parents had a copy. I used to read it when I was bored. It was mostly filled with ramblings about how reality is just a thin sheet of paper, but there was a whole chapter on 'unintended soul-shards' in weaponization."

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Hana looked at me with a new kind of intensity. It wasn't the 'I-might-kill-you' look from the alley. It was respect.

  "Roonie," I snapped my fingers. "Get on the horn. Call the Ashen Gryphon headquarters. I know we have at least one curse specialist on the payroll who isn't a total hack. Tell them what I just said. Curse of the Twilight, soul-shard theory, the whole nine yards. Tell them we need a solution yesterday."

  "On it," Roonie said. He pulled out his encrypted guild phone and started pacing the room again. He looked a lot more useful when he had a clear goal.

  "In the meantime," I said, looking back at Hana. "We can’t just sit around and wait for a specialist to fly in. We can reverse engineer a temporary seal. Magic circles aren't just for S-Rankers. Anyone with enough mana and a good diagram can set one up. We just need to lure that shadow into a corner and pin it down."

  Hana stood up. She looked like she was finally ready to stop running. "I’ll coordinate the mana distribution. I know the town’s layout better than anyone. I know where the leylines are thin."

  "Perfect," I said. "Let’s get to work."

  ***

  While Roonie was busy chewing someone’s ear off over the phone about 'logistics' and 'contractual obligations,' Hana and I headed back out into Meraki-Do.

  The morning fog was still thick, clinging to the wooden houses like a wet blanket. It was pretty, in a haunting sort of way, but I wasn't here for the scenery. We needed a place that was isolated but cramped. A place where a shadow wouldn't have anywhere to run.

  "This way," Hana said.

  She led me away from the main district, past the fancy ryokans and the pretty red lanterns. We headed toward the base of the mountain, where the buildings were older, rotting, and leaned against each other like tired drunks.

  This was the shady part of town. The part they didn't put on the travel brochures.

  The air here smelled like stale beer and old wood. We turned a corner into a wide, muddy square surrounded by derelict warehouses.

  "Whoa," I muttered. "Talk about a vibe shift."

  "The Yakshi likes the dark corners," Hana said. "And the fear."

  I scanned the square and stopped. My eyes landed on a group of men sitting on some crates near a rusted-out cart. They looked familiar.

  It was the thugs from the alley.

  The leader, the guy with the broken nose, was sitting in the middle. His leg was wrapped in thick, dirty bandages, and his face was a mottled mess of purple and yellow bruises. He looked like he’d been through a meat grinder.

  When they saw us, they didn't charge. They didn't even stand up.

  The two guys who had run away just stared at me with their mouths open. One of them actually dropped his cup.

  "It’s... it’s the city girl," one of them whispered.

  The leader looked at me, then his gaze drifted to Hana. His eyes went wide as saucers. He started scrambling backward, dragging his injured leg across the mud. "The Yakshi! No, stay away! Please!"

  "Relax," I said, stepping forward with a smile that was probably a little too mean. "I’m not here to break your other leg. At least, not yet."

  I looked around the square. It was perfect. High walls, limited exits, and plenty of shadows for our 'ghost' to hide in. Plus, we had something even better than a good location.

  "You guys," I said, pointing at the shivering thugs. "You’re lucky. You’re going to help us save your town."

  The leader gulped. "Help? How?"

  "It’s simple," I said, my smile widening. "You’re going to be the bait."

  I mean, I’m just a girl, right? And a girl’s gotta use every resource available. Even if those resources are a bunch of terrified thugs in a muddy alley.

  "Hana," I said. "Get the circles ready. I think we just found our volunteer squad."

  The thugs looked at each other, then back at me. They looked like they wanted to cry.

  Good. Fear was exactly what we needed to lure the shadow out.

  It was time to go hunting.