Scoop had a name and a date in his notebook, and both could make him famous. He was thirteen, an orphan, and he ran messages for the newspaper. The editors thought he was older, and he let them. But the name on that page meant more than any delivery. Three days after that date, something terrible happened in Bellstorm, and no one had linked the two. Scoop had. If he proved it, he would be the youngest reporter to break the biggest story in the city. So he had been asking around. Quiet questions, careful ones. Then, this morning, he noticed the man. A stranger followed him down his usual route. Tall. Gaunt. A dark cloak swallowed him whenever Scoop turned to look. Scoop slowed at a shop window and watched the reflection. The man stopped too. On his belt hung a strange gold clockwork thing that caught the light. Scoop's stomach dropped. Someone had heard his questions. Now someone was hunting the answers, and him. He could not go home. His home was the streets, and the man knew them now. So Scoop ran the only place with locked doors and too many people to hide a killing. The newspaper office roared with sound. Brass pipes hissed. Typewriters clattered behind tall windows. Scoop pushed through the revolving door and climbed to the editor's desk, breathing hard. Rajesh Patel did not look up. He was the man who gave Scoop this job, after catching him stealing papers instead of turning him over. His clockwork glasses ticked as he read a page. "You look like you ran from something," he said. "Or toward it. Both, from your face." "Someone's following me," Scoop said. "Since I started asking about a name." Rajesh set down the page. "What name?" Scoop hesitated. The name was his story, his alone. But the man with the gold weapon was real, and Scoop was thirteen, and afraid. He opened the notebook and pushed it across the desk. Rajesh read. His glasses whirred faster. He was quiet a long moment. "You worked this out yourself." "Yes." "Then you're either a very good reporter or a very dead one." He closed the notebook. "You'll stop running the streets. You'll work from here, under my name. If someone's shadowing a boy, they won't touch a Clarion reporter in daylight." He slid the notebook back. "The story stays yours." Scoop felt the fear loosen. He had traded his freedom on the streets for a desk and a shield. It was a good trade. But when he turned to the tall windows, the gaunt man stood across the way. He was not looking at the door anymore. He was looking up, at the office, at Scoop. He had followed him here. Now he knew exactly where Scoop worked, and who protected him.