The city was watching him now.
Men on corners paused when he passed. Coppers loitered too long near the betting shops. Children whispered the name of the new Shelby in alleys behind bakeries and blacksmiths.
It wasn't just fear that followed James.
It was curiosity.
And something darker.
Campbell moved quietly, but James had lived in silence far longer. He could feel the weight of every glance. The subtle shifting of pieces. The way a dog barks not at noise—but at something it doesn't understand.
By midday, three of Campbell's men had tailed James through the Garrison Lane markets. They were trained to blend in.
But he could smell them.
Feel the slight tremble of iron in their pockets. Hear the rhythm of their steps.
Out of sync.
He led them through a twisting corridor of back alleys, beneath the old ironworks, where soot still clung to walls like ghosts.
Then he vanished.
No door. No window. Just gone.
The first man cursed.
The second drew his pistol.
The third looked up—and saw nothing.
Until James dropped.
Silent as death.
His boots didn't make a sound when he landed.
The first man went out with a crack of bone against brick. The second tried to run. James was faster—inhumanly fast.
He caught him by the collar, lifted him into the air like a sack of feathers, and whispered into his ear.
"You work for a man who plays games with fire. Tell him I don't burn."
Then he dropped him.
The third man had already pissed himself.
Back at Watery Lane, Polly was waiting with tea and tension.
"You were followed," she said. Not a question.
"I know."
"Handled?"
James nodded.
Polly studied him.
"You move like a ghost, boy. Like something not entirely human."
James looked into his cup. "I'm not."
She didn't flinch. "Tell me."
He set the tea down.
"In the trenches... I should've died. A thousand times. I did die. But something... or someone... brought me back."
Polly didn't breathe.
"A voice," he continued. "A presence. It said my bloodline wasn't finished. That I had a war to fight. A name to protect. And a world to change."
Polly's voice was just above a whisper.
"God?"
"No," James said. "Something older."
She crossed herself, despite herself.
"I'm stronger. Faster. My mind doesn't sleep. I see in the dark. Hear things others can't. And when the blood starts boiling… I don't stop."
Polly sat slowly, eyes wide. "So when Campbell comes knocking…"
"He'll find something worse than what he's afraid of."
That night, a constable woke Campbell at his private apartment.
"There's been a problem, sir."
He handed Campbell a note.
No envelope.
Just two lines, scrawled in charcoal on torn parchment:
"Stop digging.
The grave is yours."
Campbell stared at it.
Then folded it, and slipped it into his coat pocket with a trembling hand.
He'd dealt with murderers, warlords, traitors.
But this was different.
This wasn't Tommy Shelby's game.
This was something else entirely.
At the edge of the city, in the ruins of an old chapel, James knelt before the cold stone altar.
He didn't pray.
He remembered.
A flash of white light. A golden figure. Words that still echoed.
"You will be the blade between the wolves. The shield in the smoke. The darkness they fear."
His fists tightened.
It had begun.
And the city would never be the same.