The steam-driven car tore along the road like an iron leviathan, its hulking frame and eccentric lines flaunting the magnetism of the industrial age.

Evelyn sat in the passenger seat, pages of an academic journal fanning like pale wings under her hands.

Her deep brown hair whipped in the rush, stray strands brushing her cheek like grass against a stone, while her gaze stayed anchored on the print, a lake that wouldn’t ripple even if a pebble dropped.

Empty fields slid backward in a river of motion, leaving only a smear of memory in the rearview mirror.

The far horizon burned with sunset red, dovetailing with the gray-white sky like ember on ash.

“We’re almost to Shattered City.”

Evelyn turned to a fresh page, listening to the tires rasp the road like a file on iron, and murmured as if replying and thinking at once, “Faster than I thought.”

“But I don’t get it. If we’re exploring the Dark Realm, we should pick a lower-risk one; Shattered City’s has been open so long it’s A-class.”

“Who?”

“Who else? Selina ignored your orders, stole the crystal, and ran here like a bird slipping the net!”

Evelyn pressed her lips, a faint glint swimming under her lashes like a lamp behind frosted glass, the light of a mind that knew and chose silence.

She let her eyes drift, riffling possibilities in her head like leaves in a stream; the show of thinking would make the answer sound steadier.

“She didn’t know the Dark Realm’s danger level. That’s the only reason.”

“Fair point. Her written scores were a train wreck!”

“Shattered City is probably a purgatory.” Evelyn closed the journal, her gaze falling on Hedi, the cover figure, and read the caption like a brand stamped in gold. “Red-hot rising star in academia. High praise.”

“I heard she won the Arcane Prize in her twenties, and she’s the youngest Professor at Hervor Academy of Magic.”

“If we could ask her to help with the Dark Realm—forget it. A noble won’t even glance our way.”

“In a noble’s eyes, we’re just the rank and sweat.” The driver tried to joke, then flinched under Evelyn’s sharp look and shifted tone. “I mean… our work looks shabby next to their cushioned life.”

Evelyn said nothing, her silence smooth as lacquer.

Outside, the view flicked past like spinning film, far hills etched in sunset like red ink lines, near fields dotted with lone trees like posts in a sea.

The driver stomped the throttle, sending the car arrowing toward Shattered City, then swung a clean drift, stopping before the city’s pure-black gate like a blade set on an altar.

“Your driving’s good, but don’t do that when I’m in the car.”

“Got it.”

Evelyn steadied her breath, pressed the unlock stud, and with a soft click the door lifted like butterfly wings, releasing air scented with leather and metal, warm as a forge.

She leaned forward, her long legs sliding out beneath the skirt like water over smooth stone, then smoothed the fabric, keeping the lines as immaculate as a lacquered screen.

“I hear voices, sounds like shouting.”

“Residents.” Evelyn swept the scene with emerald eyes, the color cool as river glass. “They’re under Dark Realm Erosion. Most want to get out.”

“How do we get in?”

“There’s a stair fitted for Investigators over there.”

“How do you kn—sorry, that’s not my question.”

“It’s fine. I came after Shattered City’s Dark Realm opened.”

She led the driver toward the stair, its steps rough as broken teeth, uneven and narrow, with gaps patched by jutting stone ridges like knuckles.

“You go first.”

“Me?”

“I’m wearing a skirt.”

He stammered an apology and climbed fast, then reached down to pull Evelyn up, their hands meeting like a brief clasp of shadow and light.

They stood on the wall, following the shouts to the stair mouth like hunters tracing echoes.

“No guards,” the driver said, surprised, his voice thin as wire. “We should avoid this crowd.”

“Barrier magic… kill them all.”

“Me?”

Evelyn tilted her head, her look puzzled as a mirror that holds no warmth. “You know those residents, infected by mutation, aren’t human anymore. If compassion shows up here, are you fit to be an Investigator?”

“I’m very sorry!”

“Don’t leave one.”

“Wait here a bit.”

“No. I’ll stroll the city. Maybe I’ll find Selina.”

The driver’s face pinched, his words tripping like feet on rubble. “Her crystal signal vanished in Shattered City. She probably entered the Dark Realm.”

“Your job is cleanup.”

“Understood.”

Evelyn watched him go, then turned toward the nearby Dark Realm, its edge like smoke pressed against glass, and murmured, “First the elder sister, then the younger. Family ties that almost make me laugh.”

She crossed to the other stair and waited there, a figure of patience carved in dusk, for the crowd at the mouth to be cleared.

“Done!” the driver called, swapping magazines, his movements snapping like flint. “No residents left here.”

The sun slanted from the west, heat laying on Evelyn’s delicate face like a brand that couldn’t burn through fog; her emerald eyes deepened under the light, a frozen lake without ripple or mercy.

“What’s wrong? Want me to clear first?”

She didn’t answer. He scratched the back of his head, awkward as a boy, and ran into Shattered City, hunting mutated residents hiding in houses like shadows under eaves.

Evelyn considered replacing a driver who didn’t read hearts, then drifted down the stair, walking the city with unhurried steps like a cat through alleys, until she spotted a guard in the southwest, his body a ledger of scars.

A faint smile finally touched her mouth, a petal on cold water.

“That’s a serious wound.”

The guard coughed and shifted, his movement brittle as dry bark. “Who are you? You don’t look local.”

“From outside the city.”

“Outside? Then they went out.”

“Who?”

“The Investigators who came to survey and—” He looked up, saw Evelyn, and yanked a handgun up like a snake striking. “Why is it you?!”

“We’re meeting for the first time.”

“Bah! You opened the Dark Realm; I’d know you even as ash!”

Evelyn drew a badge from her pocket, the metal catching dusk like a dull star. “I’m Evelyn Stratford, Deputy Director of the Dark Realm Research Institute.”

“Heh. No wonder the Investigators let the Dark Realm sit for a year and a half.”

“When the Dark Realm opened, we set countermeasures at once, keeping risk as low as we could.”

Her smile thinned, a pale shadow hanging at her lips, while she watched the guard point the barrel at her like a nail at wood.

His finger cinched the trigger, tension white as frost.

The world slowed and grew heavy, time thick as honey.

Suddenly, he swung the gun to his temple without hesitation, his hand trembling like a leaf, eyes brimming with disbelief and despair, and he pulled.

A thunderclap shot tore the quiet in half.

The bullet punched through bone at impossible speed, shredding brain like paper in a storm.

Gray matter and blood spattered together, a horrific abstract painting under the glare of sunset, spraying out and staining the ground like crushed berries.

The guard wavered, then dropped hard, the gun skidding to a stop at Evelyn’s feet like a dead bird.

“Deputy Director!”

“I’m fine,” Evelyn said calmly to the driver rushing up, her voice a still pond. “I just pity this guard.”

“He… killed himself… Those wounds could be treated!”

“See the tentacles on his back? Mutations from the Dark Realm treat every resident of Shattered City the same, and he’d rather die than let me act. He wanted to keep himself apart from monsters.”

Her expression fell, a lantern dimming behind paper. “He was likely the last guard who stayed—one filled with duty.”