Chapter 17

     The night was thick with dampness, the air clinging to my skin like something oily and wrong. Tony and I had left the printworks behind, but the weight of what we’d uncovered lingered with every step, heavy and unavoidable. Achilles had been playing us all, setting the city on a path we hadn’t seen until now. But knowing was only part of the battle. We still had to stop him.

     We moved through the backstreets, keeping to the shadows, the low hum of the city vibrating beneath our feet. The plan was simple: find Madeleine before Achilles did, before he could erase her from the city’s history once and for all. But nothing about this felt simple. Every corner we turned, every alley we crossed, felt darker, more closed off, as though the city itself was swallowing us whole.

     I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were being followed. The shadows seemed thicker than usual, the fog denser, as though something was moving just out of sight. But each time I turned to look, there was nothing there—just the damp streets and the hollow silence that hung over everything like a shroud.

     Tony hadn’t said much since we left the printworks. He was ahead of me, moving quickly, his steps urgent but quiet, like he knew exactly where we needed to go. But I could sense his unease, the way his shoulders tensed every time the fog shifted, the way his eyes flickered to the edges of the buildings as though expecting something to crawl out of the darkness.

     “What aren’t you telling me?” I asked, my voice low but sharp.

     Tony didn’t turn, didn’t even slow his pace. “Achilles isn’t the only one after her,” he muttered.

     The words hit me like a punch, and I stopped in my tracks. “What do you mean?”

     He paused for a moment, his back still to me, before letting out a slow breath. “The city’s rotten,” he said, his voice almost a whisper. “It’s been that way for years. Achilles might be pulling the strings, but there are others—people who thrive on the decay. They don’t care about rewriting the city’s past. They’re just here to consume whatever’s left.”

     “Who are they?”

     Tony finally turned to face me, his eyes shadowed, hollow. “Call them what you want—parasites, vultures. They’re always there, lurking beneath the surface, feeding off the pieces Achilles leaves behind. They know about Madeleine, and they know Achilles is close. They want to finish what he started.”

     I felt a cold knot tighten in my stomach. “And we’re walking right into them, aren’t we?”

     Tony’s silence was answer enough.

     We kept moving, but now the streets felt different, more claustrophobic, like the city was curling in on itself. The fog swirled around us, thick and suffocating, muffling every sound except the faint drip of water seeping from the cracks in the pavement. There was a staleness in the air, a smell like rot, like something had been festering beneath the surface for far too long.

     And then we heard it—a low, wet sound, like someone dragging their feet through a pool of sludge. It echoed through the alley, slick and seedy, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

     Tony’s hand went to his side, where I knew he kept a knife, but he didn’t draw it. Not yet. We moved cautiously, our footsteps quiet, as the sound grew louder, more deliberate. It wasn’t just someone moving. It was the sound of something feeding, something indulging in the filth and decay of the city.

     I edged closer to the corner of the alley, my heart pounding in my chest. And that’s when I saw them.

     Two figures, crouched low in the shadows, their faces half-hidden beneath tattered coats. They were hunched over something on the ground, something that glistened wetly in the dim light. The air around them was thick with the stench of rot, and I could hear the faint, sickening slurp as they worked—pulling apart whatever it was they had found, consuming it in slow, greedy gulps.

     I felt my stomach turn, bile rising in my throat. It wasn’t just the sight of them, but the way they moved—methodical, animalistic, like they’d been doing this for years. Feeding off the scraps of a city that was slowly dying.

     Tony stepped forward, his voice low but commanding. “We’re not here for you,” he said, his hand still resting on the hilt of his knife.

     The figures didn’t respond at first, just kept feeding, their heads bobbing as they slurped and tore at the mess beneath them. But then one of them paused, slowly lifting its head to look at us. The face that met mine was gaunt, hollow, the skin stretched tight over the bones like a corpse half-unearthed. But the eyes—those dark, hungry eyes—were alive with something that wasn’t human.

     “You think you’re different?” the figure rasped, its voice thick and wet, like it had something lodged deep in its throat. “You think you’re not feeding, too?”

     Tony didn’t flinch, but I could see the tension in his jaw. “We’re not here for this.”

     The figure let out a low, guttural laugh, a sound that sent a shiver down my spine. “You’re all feeding,” it said. “Whether you know it or not. The city’s rotting, and you’re all slurping at the edges, taking what you can before there’s nothing left.”

     I swallowed hard, the bile still burning at the back of my throat. “We’re looking for Madeleine,” I said, my voice steady despite the unease crawling up my spine.

     The figure tilted its head, its eyes narrowing. “She’s part of it, too. You’ll see.”

     Tony stepped forward, his hand tightening on the knife. “Where is she?”

     The figure’s smile widened, revealing teeth that were broken, yellowed, like they’d been chewing through stone. “Closer than you think,” it whispered. “But you won’t save her. Not from this.”

     I didn’t know what the figure meant, but the sense of urgency that had been gnawing at me grew sharper. Madeleine was close, but so was something else—something darker, more insidious. Achilles wasn’t the only danger in this city. There were others, and they were feeding off the chaos he’d created, slurping up the pieces in their own seedy, twisted way.

     “We need to go,” Tony said, his voice tight. “Now.”

     I didn’t argue. We turned and moved quickly through the fog, the sound of the figures’ laughter following us as we left them behind. But the image of them crouched over their meal, slurping in the darkness, stayed with me.

     The city was rotting, and everyone was feeding, whether they knew it or not.