A dull crunch reaches my ears, then a thud. I peer around the corner of the building, careful to keep hidden. Dark, glistening red spatters the ground, spidering through seams of cobblestone. It guides my eye to a collapsed body across from me. Once so violent, the roughneck is now little more that a sack of crumpled flesh, blotted with mud.

Ais exhales, his breath misting against the cold air. Blood flecks his knuckles as he looms over the motionless body, his feet on either side of it.

Fear spreads like ice in my bones. Moments ago he was joking and friendly with the others, but now...

Ais's crimson eyes find me in the dark.

"Not running, Sparrow?"