Aleric hated the feeling of borrowed luck.

  It crept up his spine like static, humming in the space between his thoughts like the air before a storm. And right now, as he stood at the entrance to the market that feeling was screaming at him.

  But the streets were packed, too packed and he could feel his body automatically trying to pull the Karma into him. It hung thick in the air, shifting and swirling around him in invisible currents. He could feel it brushing up against his skin. Some of it good. Most of it not.

  His coin pouch was already lighter than it should’ve been. The merchant guild hadn’t paid him since he left his apprenticeship, and he’d been dodging collectors for the last three days. If he didn’t get lucky, real lucky by nightfall, he’d be sleeping in a gutter and hoping the storm clouds were bluffing.

  Aleric moved through the crowd with practiced caution, brushing past vendors hawking silverfruit and chalk-burned incense, ducking under swinging banners stitched with red thread. One vendor caught his eye—a woman with crow-black eyes and shelves full of salvaged trinkets. She grinned when she saw him.

  “Back again, boy? Still living off scraps?

  He smiled thinly “Living’s living.”

  She laughed and tossed him a piece of stale bread. It arced lazily in the air.

  He could feel it then. A ripple in his mind.

  The bread which should have hit the ground at his feet was suddenly caught by a strong gust of wind and landed cleanly in his palm. A relatively small change, barely a trickle, but it was enough.

  Someone else in the crowd would lose a hat to that gust. Or maybe drop a coin down a sewer grate.

  He clenched his empty hand into a fist, internally reprimanding himself

  But his powers wouldn’t listen. They never really had. Not since the day he ducked into a side alley to avoid a creditor and the entire scaffold collapsed behind him, crushing the man he'd been running from as well as a bystander who had been too close.

  The Mages who found him had called it “potential”

  He hated it.

  He shoved the bread into his coat pocket without tasting it.

  He could feel the karma clinging to him, rising under his skin like static. The more he stayed in the crowded space, the more his body would draw it in, and he really didn't need one of the Mage guards noticing the fluctuations.

  A child ran past him, barefoot and shrieking with laughter, chased by a woman carrying a dripping bundle of laundry. Their path knocked a bucket off a cart, sending dirty water splashing across the cobblestones. Aleric sidestepped it just in time—just—and felt the pull again. Not his doing. Not consciously. But his bones thrummed as the magic seeped out unintentionally.

  Someone else had just gotten soaked instead.

  He pressed a hand to his ribs, grounding himself. Breathe in. Breathe out.

  He didn’t want this.

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  He didn’t ask for this.

  He needed to get out of the crowd.

  As soon as the thought formed he cursed and a sudden gust of wind rattled the crimson banners overhead. One snapped loose, fluttering wildly into the market square, drawing shouts and laughter from a group of kids trying to catch it. Aleric took the opportunity to slip away into a narrower lane between stalls, where the noise dulled and the press of people thinned.

  He ducked into a shaded alley beside a closed spice stall, where discarded crates formed a makeshift bench. Sitting, he tore the bread in half and chewed slowly. It tasted like dust and rain.

  Rain

  He tilted his head toward the sky catching the heavy scent of moisture in the wind and sighed.

  He had until sundown to find shelter and that meant either spending his own karma or drawing it out from people in the crowd, if he could still find some in the rain.

  Footsteps echoed behind him.

  Not the casual kind. Too steady. Too precise.

  He didn’t look right away. Turning too fast might spook someone. But that creeping tension in his spine—the hum between the thoughts—was rising again.

  “Funny thing about low-karma trash” a voice called out. Smooth, and crisp

  “They’re supposed to stay unlucky”

  Aleric stood up slowly, slipping the last of the bread into his coat pocket.

  “I don’t want any trouble,” he said without turning.

  “Then maybe you shouldn’t be siphoning in public without a Mage license”

  He turned quickly

  The man was tall and clean-cut, dressed in the deep navy cloak of a Guild-sanctioned Mage. Subtle Runes shimmered faintly around his sleeves. He wasn’t from the local chapter. Too polished.

  Aleric’s throat went dry. He couldn’t see the man’s aura, not clearly—but he could feel it pressing against the space like heat off stone.

  “I’m not siphoning anything,” Aleric said, keeping his voice even. “Sometimes things just go my way.”

  The Mage smiled cruelly.

  “We’ll see about that”

  With a flick of his fingers, the man drew a thin thread of light through the air—a sigil rune, flickering between symbols of binding and marking. It hung there, thrumming.

  An Anchor, just his luck he thought as he rolled out of the way.

  The spell fired behind him, crushing the stone where he’d been standing a heartbeat before. It flared once, then faded.

  The alley twisted, and Aleric vaulted over a crate, cutting hard left into a cluster of storage bins. Something cracked behind him. The Mage was moving faster than he should’ve been. Enhanced, no doubt. Using his karma to move the air out of the way as he ran.

  Aleric didn’t have that luxury, not without drawing enough karma to potentially hurt some of the people nearby.

  He ducked under a low-hanging pipe, then scrambled up a narrow ledge, boots slipping on the wet stone. A broken balcony jutted out above him—rickety but climbable. He grabbed it and hauled himself up, breath catching in his chest.

  The city opened up again, this time on a slope overlooking the southern market. The wind hit him hard. So did the vertigo.

  Another binding spell just barely missed him.

  The Mage was still chasing him.

  Aleric reached, not with his hands—with his instincts. For the threads around him.

  There. A gutter nail, loose. A merchant’s canopy stretched too far. A man about to step into a puddle with both arms full of crates.

  He shifted slightly, letting the current brush him—and just like that, the crate-man stumbled, the canopy tore, and the Mage behind him was momentarily blocked by a shouting mess of splintered wood and falling goods.

  It wouldn’t buy much time.

  But it might be enough.

  Aleric ducked behind a weathered door and vanished into the warren of the lower slums, heart hammering.

  He didn’t stop until he reached the edge of the district, where the buildings leaned together like drunks and no one asked your name.

  Only then did he let himself breathe.

  He sat with his back against an ally wall, catching his breath in ragged bursts. The rain had started falling now- soft and sparse, but it still started to dampen his clothing.

  He wiped his face and looked around. The alley was quiet. Lanterns glowed dimly in the windows. He felt the stress from the encounter like a damp cloth on his shoulders.

  That had been a Guild Mage.

  Someone strong enough to sense his siphoning even when it was happening outside his control

  He had almost certainly reported him by now,

  He pulled out the piece of bread and stared at it. His stomach twisted. He bit into and his stomach felt hollow, he had to get out of the city and to somewhere his powers would draw as much.

  He finished the bread and stood.

  He was going to get his power under control.

  No more crowds. No more accidents.

  He wouldn’t use anyone else’s karma.