People like you? Who does he thinks he is?
The words did not feel like they were spoken at her so much as placed inside her, precise and invasive, settling into the quiet spaces she had spent years learning how to keep sealed.
And she hated it. Hated the fact that for a brief and treacherous moment, her mind tried to listen.
Luenna did not waste another second. She was tired. Not just the bone-deep ache of a fourteen-hour shift, but a soul-weariness that came from being picked at by men who thought her silence was an invitation for study.
"Then it seems we've reached an impasse, Arbiter," she whirled towards him, her voice dropping the facade of servant-class softness for something as jagged as the glass in the gutters.
She took a step to the side, intending to brush past him, but his presence was a warning enough that it made her halt once again. She did not shrink, though. Instead she tilted her head, her hazel eyes catching the moon with a sudden, fierce clarity that defied her drab apron.
"You speak of the Bureau and fractures as if they're ghost stories to keep me awake," she spat, her tone leaning into a dangerous edge of sarcasm. "But if you're so concerned with the orderly transition of witnesses, maybe you should revisit those proper channels Lord Hallowell mentioned."
She looked him up and down. From the immaculate mahogany hair to the silver-thread boots with a clinical detachment that mirrored his own. On any other day, a presence like his would have pressed down on her. He was exactly the kind of man who made people lower their eyes without being told.
But she was too tired for intimidation to find purchase. Fatigue dulled the instinct before it could even form.
"Because right now, standing in a dark alley, following a woman home to loom over her with riddles..." She let the sentence hang, almost mockingly. "It doesn't look like the Law. It looks like a lack of a hobby. In this street, we call this stalking. In the Bureau, do you just call it observation?"
A flicker of surprise crossed Julian's face before discipline reclaimed it. One eyebrow lifted almost imperceptibly. No one… certainly no one in a lye-stained dress spoke to him with such casual and biting irreverence.
Luenna did not give him time to recover his poise, she simply veered her head away. She would regret this tomorrow, she knew she would. But that was a matter to be concerned with once the sun rises again.
"If you have a warrant, bring it to the front door tomorrow. I'll be the one with the mop, or a bucket, or whatever the hell I was tasked to do," she snapped, already moving past him. "Until then, I have a family waiting, and a very limited patience for men who think their coat makes their presence a privilege."
Julian did not move when she finally stepped past him. Not at first. But as Luenna brushed by, the air itself seemed to tighten, like the alley had decided it only allowed one of them to leave unchanged.
She expected nothing in return. No sane man would indulge themselves with a rude gutter born woman. But then—
"Luenna."
Her name, spoken like a measured conclusion, made her pause in her stead.
She did not even bother to ask how he knew her name. The thought flickered through her mind and died just as quickly. Because of course he knew. Bureau men collected names the way they collected evidence. Casually and long before anyone realised they were being studied.
A stalker would have at least tried to be subtle about it.
Luenna kept her gaze fixed on the road ahead. Her grip on the strap of her bag remained firm, her posture unchanged, as though her own name had belonged to someone else.
Behind her, silence lingered.
Julian did not call after her again. Instead, she heard the faint shift of leather as he folded his hands behind his back.
"You mistake process for consent," he said at last, his voice carrying through the empty alley with unnerving ease.
Right, whatever the hell that means.
Luenna did not look back at him. She only adjusted her grip on her bag strap. "Goodnight, Arbiter."
For a moment, Julian did not respond.
The gaslight above them hissed faintly, its uneven glow catching on the silver threading of his coat as he stood perfectly still like a calculation paused at the exact point where the variables refused to resolve cleanly.
His gaze tracked Luenna as she walked away, her steps carrying the same denial she had worn since the moment he found her. A woman who moved as though nothing had changed, nothing had cracked, nothing had been taken apart and examined.
It did not fit.
Julian's eyes narrowed slightly in reconsideration, like he was re-reading a line in a report that no longer matched the conclusion beneath it. His gaze stayed on her a moment longer than necessary. And then, almost as if it bypassed intention entirely—
"Goodnight," he said.
The exchange lingered in the air behind her, a cold draft she refused to acknowledge.
Luenna did not look back. She kept her eyes fixed on the familiar silhouettes of the tenements, her boots striking the damp cobblestones with a sharpness that echoed her irritation.
The nerve of him.
His words rattled in her head like loose teeth. It was the arrogance of the Bureau with the belief that the world was merely a collection of data points waiting for an Arbiter to verify them. He had not seen a woman; he had seen an anomaly that was being difficult.
By the time she reached the heavy, salt-crusted door of her home, her temper was a simmering coal. Home usually loosened the knot in her shoulders before she even crossed the threshold. Tonight, even the familiar door felt like something she had to force herself through. She threw the bolt harder than necessary, the metallic thud reverberating through the dark hallway.
In the kitchen, the orange glow of the hearth cast long, weary shadows against the walls. Hollis was there, as he always was, a silhouette of patience seated by the fire. The familiar scent of dried herbs and woodsmoke greeted her, but tonight, it felt claustrophobic rather than comforting.
"You're late again," Hollis said softly, his voice gravelly with sleep and concern. He did not ask why, he simply reached for the heavy iron kettle and poured a stream of dark, steaming liquid into a chipped ceramic mug. "Sit. The tea is fresh. It'll take the chill out of your bones."
Luenna did not sit. She did not even slow down.
She walked straight past him, her eyes fixed on the narrow wooden stairs that led to the upper loft. The sound of her heavy work boots on the floorboards was loud and ungraceful, a deliberate intrusion into the calm of the house.
"Luenna?" Hollis called out, the mug frozen in his hand. "Child, what happened? Was it the Overseer? Or—"
She reached the first step and stopped, her hand gripping the banister so hard the wood groaned. She felt the weight of her own behaviour then, the petulance of it, the unfairness of directing her exhaustion at the one man who had never asked her for anything but her safety.
A wave of guilt crashed over her, mixing with the lingering adrenaline from the alley. She stood there for a heartbeat, shoulders hunched, before spinning around on her heel.
She marched back into the kitchen, snatched the mug from Hollis's startled hand, and tipped it back. The tea was scalding, burning a trail down her throat that finally forced her to feel something other than fury. She drained it in one long, aggressive gulp, the heat blossoming in her chest until her eyes watered.
"You don't behave like someone who survived an incident."
Thunk.
She set the empty mug down on the table with enough force to make the spoons rattle.
"Thank you," she rasped, her voice thick. "And goodnight, Hollis."
Before he could utter a single word of inquiry, she turned and bolted up the stairs, the wood protesting under her frantic retreat. A moment later, the sound of her door slamming shut echoed through the small house, followed by the heavy silence of a girl who had reached her limit.
Downstairs, Hollis remained by the fire, the empty mug still steaming on the table. He looked at the stairs, then back at the door she had entered through, his brow furrowed in deep, silent contemplation.
Luenna did not throw tantrums. She survived them. So for her to act with such raw, unshielded frustration meant the world outside those doors was no longer just difficult, it was becoming personal.
He shook his head slowly, a long sigh escaping him as he reached for his cane. "Whatever you've found, Luenna," he whispered to the empty room, "I hope you're fast enough to outrun it."