By the eighth morning, Buck no longer has to set up.

  The stool is already there when he comes downstairs. The crate waits by the door like it knows its job. Maeve slides the whetstone back across the counter without comment, and a mug of weak tea appears beside it. Trade has become routine, which is the closest thing to safety a man can earn.

  The common room is full.

  Not loud, exactly. Dense. Voices layered over one another, accents bumping and overlapping. The room smells of damp wool, bread, and boiled potatoes. Someone laughs too hard at something that isn’t that funny. Someone else mutters a prayer under their breath before sitting.

  Buck takes his place near the window and starts sharpening.

  The rhythm is second nature now. Angle. Pressure. Listen to the stone. He no longer thinks about the motion, and because of that, it keeps improving.

  See, B.U.C.K. murmurs. Wax on.

  “Don’t start,” Buck mutters, but he’s smiling.

  A man with red hair and hands like split oak sets a cleaver down in front of him. “Best edge on Mulberry,” he says. “My cousin swears by you.”

  Buck nods, sets to work.

  More blades follow. Kitchen knives. Shears. A razor wrapped carefully in cloth. People linger now, watching him work instead of dropping things off and leaving. Familiarity breeds curiosity.

  Elysia sits cross-legged on the floor nearby, braiding and unbraiding a piece of string with intense focus.

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  “How long you been here,” she asks him, not looking up.

  “About a week,” Buck says.

  “That’s not a long time,” she decides.

  “He works quiet,” Maeve says to no one in particular. “That counts for something.”

  “It counts for knives and secrets,” someone replies, and the room chuckles.

  Conversation drifts the way it always does when people feel safe enough to speak.

  Work on the docks is thin this week. Wages are down. Rent is up. Someone heard a speech near Five Points about how the city’s problems have names and accents now.

  “They say we take the bread,” one man mutters.

  “They say a lot,” Maeve replies without looking up. “Mostly things that make them feel better about who they step on.”

  Buck listens, careful not to look like he’s listening.

  “They’ve got new boys patrolling,” another voice adds. “Protestant gangs. Say they’re keeping order.”

  “Order for who,” Maeve says sharply.

  Silence follows that, thick and uncomfortable.

  This is the pressure point, B.U.C.K. says quietly. You feel it?

  Buck does. Not as a threat. As a pattern. Tension gathering the way storms do, slow and obvious if you know how to look.

  He finishes the cleaver and hands it back. The man tests it and nods approvingly.

  “Worth the penny,” he says.

  Buck wipes the blade clean and winks at the man. “Two pennies.”

  The man grins. “Worth two.”

  Coins clink into Buck’s pocket. The weight there is reassuring now, familiar.

  You’ve stabilized, B.U.C.K. says. Income. Routine. Social acceptance.

  “And training,” Buck murmurs.

  Especially that.

  It’s true. Every day since that first lesson, the work has become part of it. Sharpening as meditation. Walking and observing as calibration. Stillness woven into motion. Seeing things that he would have overlooked in the past. At night, Buck sits on the floor and breathes until the city noise fades into something like a pulse.

  Something has changed.

  Not dramatically. Subtly. Like a muscle he didn’t know he had learning its job.

  You’re close, B.U.C.K. says now, quieter than usual.

  Buck’s hands pause on the stone. “Close to what.”

  There’s a hum beneath the words, not sound but certainty.

  The first step, the AI replies. The smallest one.

  Buck looks around the room. Elysia laughs at something someone says. Maeve claps a man on the shoulder and finally allows herself to smile. The room is warm despite the cold outside.

  “I don’t want to break this,” Buck says.

  You won’t, B.U.C.K. says. That’s why you’re ready.

  Outside, a shout carries down the street. Angry. Sharp. Someone slams a door.

  The room goes quiet again.

  Maeve looks to the door as she approaches him a steaming bowl in hand. “Eat while it’s warm,” she says to Buck. “Tomorrow’s never promised.”

  Buck nods, accepts the bowl she offers.

  As he eats, he feels it again. That distant pressure. Curious. Patient. No longer indifferent.

  Time is watching. Watching what he does next.