Chapter 25 · The Bottom-Floor Dealer

"Hold it right there, shadow-rat. One more inch and I carve you into sushi."

A jagged blade of obsidian glass stopped an inch from my throat. I didn't even blink. I stayed flat against the damp stone wall, my form still halfway between a human silhouette and a puddle of ink.

"Nice knife," I said, my voice sounding like two grinding stones. "Who's the butcher?"

"The guy who’s going to sell your core for three gold coins if you don't start talking," the man replied. He was lean, dressed in scavenged leather that smelled like old blood and wet dog. He had the look of a bottom-floor crawler—someone who’d survived the Abyss Tower not by fighting, but by hiding in the cracks.

He pressed the blade closer. I could feel the cold edge biting into my skin. Or what passed for skin now.

"You're not a normal mob," he muttered, his eyes narrowing. "Too quiet. Too much... something. What are you?"

I let a sliver of my shadow leak out, sliding across the floor toward his boot. "I'm the guy who knows you're shaking."

"I ain't shaking," he snapped, but the blade wavered.

I moved.