Cassian Vane climbed out of the maintenance void the way a man backs away from a hearth he can’t afford to keep—slow, reluctant, already turning his face toward the road. Above him, the Scavenger’s Bridge shuddered under traffic. Plank-and-iron, patched and repatched. Every footfall made it complain. Lanterns hung low beneath the span, their amber glow turning rivets into little dots of attention. He let his shoulders hang. Kept the limp even. Bandaged knuckles stayed tucked under his sleeves. Kai pressed close in the buttress’s narrow lee, chin down. His breath came in short, ugly pulls. Hands kept worrying at fabric—sleeves, belt, empty air—like he could wring a solution out of his own clothes. Heat pulsed under Cassian’s cuff. The serpent ring again. Not pain. Not comfort either. A coal pushed into bone: warning or claim. Cassian leaned in just enough for Kai to hear him over the bridge’s clatter. “Low traffic. Maintenance bell rang.” He angled his head toward the span overhead. “We go on the third chime.” Kai bobbed his head too fast. “Yeah. Yeah. Window’s there. Like a crack in the—” He snapped his mouth shut, swallowed hard, eyes flicking to the lamps. “No tech. I know. Just… thinking in shapes.” “Think quieter.” Cassian’s gaze stayed on the service lane. “And breathe through your nose. Mouth carries.” Kai’s lips pressed thin. He obeyed, nostrils flaring like he hated every inhale. Wet iron and old grease coated Cassian’s tongue. Somewhere a cart groaned across the bridge. Boots passed overhead. The first bell chime slid through the noise—thin, patient. He checked the stolen credential tab hidden inside his sleeve. Then the wand’s weight against his ribs. Neither felt honest. Timing did. Second chime. Cassian slid out and merged into a knot of workers hauling coil-spools and pails. Nobody looked anyone else in the eye. Shoulders hunched. Faces turned away like decency was a luxury. He matched their gait. Let his limp catch the same plank seam each step, consistent as a bad habit. Kai stayed one pace behind—close enough to look attached, far enough to not trip him. Third chime. A side hatch waited beneath the bridge’s spine, half-hidden behind pipes. A blue lamp burned above it—clean light that made skin look sick. Cassian didn’t step under it. Blue meant seen. White meant owned. He turned into the service lane, dragged the pail so it scraped loud and ordinary, and stopped at the hatch like he belonged there. Condensation beaded on the metal. Cold, slick. Three gouges scarred the lock plate. Recent. Kai crowded in until Cassian caught his scent—solvent, old cloth, fear turned sour at the edges. “This is it?” The whisper barely made it out. Cassian answered with motion. He drew the wand. Let the tip hover. Tap-tap on the plate—light, like knocking on a door you don’t want opened. Then the scavenged access wafer slid into the slit beneath the lock. Click. Then nothing. Cassian waited anyway. Counted under his breath. One. Two. Three— On seven he thumbed the wafer and twisted the wand head, coaxing the mechanism into thinking it had already complied. The hatch shivered. A deeper hum rose through the metal, and ozone bit the back of his throat. Amber status lights beyond the seam pulsed slow. The hatch sighed and released. Cassian slipped inside, caught Kai by the sleeve and hauled him after, then eased the hatch shut instead of letting it bang. The corridor air clung damp to his skin, cold enough to raise tight bumps on his forearms. A ladder dropped into darkness. Condensation slicked the rungs. He gripped the first rung anyway and started down. Boots found purchase by feel. Kai followed, quieter than Cassian expected. Halfway, Cassian stopped. The hum in the conduit changed—barely. A shift in rhythm that his bones recognized before his mind did. The ring warmed, cooled, warmed again. Not an iron lockdown. A soft one. “It’s… noticing,” Kai breathed. “Right?” Cassian didn’t look back. “Keep your tongue. You’re praying to the wrong saint.” They reached the corridor floor. Metal plating vibrated under Cassian’s soles, the tremor traveling up through his shins. Amber LEDs marched along the walls, each one a small sealed light behind glass. Dust baked into wiring. Coolant’s sharp bite. The whole place smelled scrubbed and old at the same time. Cassian walked neither fast nor slow. Too quick drew eyes. Too slow looked lost. At the far end, a maintenance panel waited with sigils and a scuffed seal. He knelt. Wet seeped through his trouser knee and chilled his skin. The pail clanked as he set it down and opened it. Not tools. A compact relay, wrapped in cloth. Kai’s gaze locked on it the way hunger locks on bread. His hands twitched—then stayed where they were. He remembered the terms. Cassian pulled one glove off and pressed his bare fingers to the relay casing. Cold as river stone. He slid the connector out, checked the pins, and fed it into the panel’s throat. A tiny screen flared. Light washed over his bandages, turning them ghost-white. Text crawled across in crisp lines: “IDENTITY WORKS NODE: AUXILIARY INTAKE / STATUS: NORMAL.” Normal. Cassian’s molars pressed together. Kai leaned in until he hovered a breath from Cassian’s shoulder. “If it’s normal, we’re good.” Cassian didn’t glance at him. “If it says ‘normal,’ it’s already sharpening something.” His fingers moved with practiced precision despite the sting where skin had split. He didn’t ask the node for a story. Just seams—routing, token edges, the places lies tended to snag. The screen blinked once. “RECONCILING RECORD…” Then: “RESULT SET VERIFIED (OFFICIAL).” A neat history unfolded, tidy as a sermon. Cassian Vane: registered citizen. Licensed cleaner. Contract authorized. Target: Elias. Status: lawful termination. No anomalies. No overlaps. No reissues. Smooth. Comforting. Too smooth. Kai’s breath caught. “That’s… that’s what I said. It heals. It—” Cassian raised a hand. Stop. He tapped the relay twice, hard enough to make plastic click against metal. “It’s too clean.” Scroll. Search. Dig. Handler names. Ledger marks. Intake stamps. Anywhere ink might’ve bled. The node answered with a polite refusal: “INQUIRY OUT OF SCOPE. SUGGESTED TOPIC: RETIREMENT CLAUSE ELIGIBILITY.” A hard knot pulled low in Cassian’s gut. The city offered him exactly what he wanted, wrapped up nice, like a lord offering pardon with chains already clasped. Kai’s voice went thin. “Bait. It’s—don’t.” Cassian bared his teeth for a heartbeat. Not a smile. “I know.” He typed wrong on purpose. A deliberate misstep. He searched not for Cassian Vane, but for a blank token string—placeholder junk the system used when it couldn’t decide what to call a man. The screen stalled. “SEARCH TERM INVALID.” Then, faint and fast beneath it: “HISTORICAL CONFLICT DETECTED.” Cassian’s fingers froze over the keys. The corridor seemed to lose air, as if the node drew a long breath and held it. Not panic. Calculation. Kai leaned forward, voice barely there. “There. You saw it. That’s the crack.” Cassian moved quicker now, controlled. Eyes tracked the bottom edge of the display where status runes flickered. A fan deeper in the node began to whine, climbing pitch. The screen announced, calm as a notice posted on a wall: “SANITIZATION IN PROGRESS.” The “official” history blurred, then snapped clean again—like a scraped page rewritten while you watched. Margin fragments started to dissolve into placeholders. Dashes where names belonged. “REDACTED” where tags should’ve been. Cassian’s thumb dug into the relay edge until it hurt through leather. “Of course,” he breathed. “It’s a monk with a razor.” Kai’s hands fluttered, then curled into fists. “We gotta pull it mid-cycle. Like, physically. Or it’ll—” “I know.” Cassian’s voice cut harder this time. He pulled the panel wider. Node guts stared back—fuse-links, braided cables, slim power rails labeled in Council script. Condensation slicked everything. His fingers slipped. Cassian wiped his thumb on his trouser leg, leaving a dark smear of oil. Kai swallowed. “Which one?” Cassian didn’t answer. He looked for the telltales: a scuffed screw head, a tie re-done too recently. Fresh twine cinched one run of cable tighter than the rest. There. A thin copper rail marked with Identity Works’ pale seal. Knife came out. Amber light kissed the blade’s edge. Kai’s voice snagged. “If you cut that, it’ll throw flags.” “It’s already flagging.” Cassian wedged the knife spine under the fuse-link. “We’re choosing volume.” He pried. Resistance. Then a sharp snap. Sparks jumped—brief, bright. The conduit hum dipped. The fan whine faltered. LEDs stuttered, then steadied slower, like something forced to calm itself. The screen flashed: “WARNING: PURGE INTERRUPTED.” Cassian’s pulse hammered loud in his ears. He kept his hands steady through the tremor trying to crawl into his right fingers. The serpent ring burned—one sudden flare that made him hiss between his teeth. Kai flinched like he’d been struck. New lines poured onto the screen, frantic in their neatness: “HISTORICAL CONFLICT DETECTED.” “IDENTITY TOKEN INVALIDATED—” “—RECONCILING…” Behind them, the corridor door sealed with a magnetic thud. The vibration climbed Cassian’s shins and rattled his teeth. A thin tone rose, almost inaudible. Not a public siren. A private whisper. Kai’s voice cracked. “That’s the quiet alarm.” Cassian gave one tight nod. The node wouldn’t scream for the crowd. It would murmur to the right hands. He pulled a portable shard from inside his coat, cloth-wrapped and already warm from his body. He slotted it into the relay’s side port; the edge bit his bandage. “Scrape.” Kai blinked. “You want me to—” Cassian’s stare pinned him in place. “Now.” Kai’s hands lifted, shaking. Then the tremor turned into speed—practiced, muscle-memory quick. He didn’t touch Council-made tech, but this shard was scavenged, pre-wipe. That loophole mattered to him. It let him breathe. His lips moved as he keyed in commands, silent syllables like he was counting steps. The screen responded: “VOLATILE MEMORY FREEZE: ACTIVE.” “SCRAPE RATE: 12%… 19%… 27%…” Cassian kept one hand on the panel, the other on his knife. Air turned sharper—ozone and hot dust. Sweat cooled along his spine. Kai’s eyes flicked across the display. “It’s fighting us. Look.” Files resolved, then corrected in real time. A routing code shifted. A name smoothed itself into “CITIZEN.” Dates rounded off like stones in a river. Cassian leaned in until the screen glare burned his eyes. “Keep it frozen.” “I’m trying,” Kai snapped, voice tight. “It’s like—like pulling water into a bucket with holes.” “Then we plug the holes.” Cassian dug into the pail and pulled a coil of conductive wire and a clamp—his own work, scavenged and cleaned. He looped the wire around exposed contacts, bridging power into the volatile bank. Cold metal bit his fingertips. The screen steadied for half a breath. “SCRAPE RATE: 41%… 55%…” Kai let out a shaky exhale. “There. That’s—” A new line cut across, stark: “ACCESS PATTERN ANOMALOUS.” “MAINTENANCE AUTH REVOKED.” “PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE.” Cassian’s breath came out short. Almost a laugh. The city always had time for “please.” He spoke toward the ceiling, toward whatever ear hid in the walls. “Routine inspection. Power dip. Manual fallback. I’ve got it.” The thin tone didn’t change. No voice answered. Only more text. “SANITIZATION IN PROGRESS.” Kai’s face looked drained under the amber LEDs. “They’re sending someone.” Cassian didn’t look away from the screen. “They always do. Scrape faster.” Kai’s fingers flew. He angled his body away from the device like even breathing on it counted as theft. “SCRAPE RATE: 78%… 83%…” Cassian tracked the file list, hunting for the proof Kael’s claim lived on rewritten ink. A cluster flickered into existence: “CONTRACT ROUTE / ARCHIVE HANDOFF” One line item resolved for a heartbeat: “IDENTITY EDIT: SUBJECT— CASSIAN VANE / PRIOR: ELIAS / FLAG: INSURGENT NODE—” Then it collapsed into dashes as sanitization chewed at it. Cassian slammed his palm into the panel. Pain lanced up his arm. “Hold,” he snarled—not at Kai, at the machine. “Hold, damn you.” The fan whine surged, angry now. Cassian reached deeper into the panel and yanked a second fuse-link free. The lights dimmed. Amber LEDs became weak, like candles in a draft. The conduit hum dropped to a growl. Kai sucked in a sharp breath. “You’ll kill it.” “I’ll kill it after it pays.” “SCRAPE RATE: 92%… 96%…” Behind them, the sealed door clicked—testing itself. The magnetic locks held. Overhead, traffic on the bridge went on, ignorant and heavy. Kai’s voice shrank. “If we get out… I wasn’t lying. About any of it.” Cassian didn’t offer comfort. His eyes stayed on the scrape. Still, his left hand shifted—just enough to put his body between Kai and the door line. A shield, made without comment. The screen flashed: “SCRAPE COMPLETE.” Cassian snatched the shard free. Heat soaked through the cloth into his palm—alive heat, like something that didn’t want to be carried. He shoved it under his jacket against his ribs, pressed it close for shielding and possession. The relay screen began smoothing itself immediately. “ROLLBACK INITIATED.” “NODE STATUS: NORMAL.” Of course. Cassian reseated the first fuse-link and pressed the panel cover back on with careful pressure. He left the second link out. A small wound. A limp in the node’s stride—enough to make its story stumble later. Kai stared. “We’re just leaving it broken?” Cassian kept his eyes on the sealed door. “I’m leaving it honest.” That thin alarm tone still sang, insect-faint. Cassian scanned the corridor. His nose caught it again—recycled air, metallic and dry, threaded with old filters. Vent nearby. A grate sat low on the wall behind a conduit bundle. Paint covered the screws, but the paint had cracked from recent removal. Knife under the edge. Twist. Metal squealed soft. The grate popped free, and stale air rolled out—tin, dust, old damp. Kai recoiled. “That’s… tight.” “You’ll fit.” Cassian jerked his chin at the opening. “Go first.” Kai’s eyes flashed—insult, maybe—then fear snuffed it out. He crouched and wriggled in. His shoulders caught. He sucked in a breath, forced through, boots scraping metal. Cassian followed, dragging the grate back into place behind him as best he could. Inside the vent, the walls pressed close. Condensation slicked the metal. Old lubricant left everything faintly greasy. Cassian’s bandaged knuckles brushed along the sides; grime clung to him like it wanted a claim. Darkness swallowed them, broken only by weak amber leaks through seams. He kept his breathing shallow, listening. The ring warmed again—steady now. Like a brand held to skin. Ahead, Kai’s muffled whisper floated back. “You got it? The proof?” Cassian shifted the shard against his ribs. Heat spread into his chest, uncomfortable and intimate. “Enough.” “Not clean?” “Enough,” Cassian repeated, and let the word end the argument. “How much time?” Cassian counted like a soldier counting arrows. “Two turns. Maybe three. Then they trace the dip.” Kai muttered—fast, messy. Not prayer. Calculation. They reached a junction where the vent split. One path breathed warmer, carrying soap and steam. Washroom or decon. The other tasted colder, metallic—toward open air. Cassian chose cold. Steam meant people. People meant eyes. He crawled on, shoulders burning from the cramped angle. The vent edge snagged his sleeve, caught on the hidden ring. Pain flared sharp. Cassian froze. Tugged gently. Freed the cloth with a quiet scrape. Behind them, another sound answered—faint, distant, wrong. Not their movement. Another grate opening somewhere. His body coiled tight. He didn’t bolt. Bolting made noise. He moved faster with smaller motions, conserving sound. A hatch appeared ahead, a maintenance drop into a storage alcove beneath the bridge. Cassian shoved it open and dropped, landing on bent knees. The impact jostled the shard against his ribs; heat throbbed there, almost tender, almost cruel. Kai dropped beside him and stumbled, palms slapping the floor. “We’re—” Cassian clamped a bare hand over Kai’s mouth for one heartbeat. Skin to skin. Kai went rigid, pupils blown wide. Cassian let go at once. No apology. Only necessity. Footsteps passed in the service lane beyond the alcove’s thin wall. Two sets. They paused. A wand hummed faint through metal. Cassian crouched behind stacked crates, pulling Kai down with a sharp tug on his sleeve. The crates smelled of old grain and chemical cleanser. Ration next to soap. Kai breathed through his nose, fast but silent. The wand hum drifted away. Boots followed. No shout. No clamor. Cassian waited until the sound thinned into nothing, then pointed Kai toward the far exit. A narrow door stood ajar. Beyond it, a shadowed ladder climbed into the bridge’s underside. They went up quick and careful. Cassian’s fingers slipped once on a wet rung—condensation cold as river water—and he caught himself with a grunt. His knuckles protested under the bandage. Pain sharpened the world. They emerged into the under-crawl: beams, rivets, cramped shadow. Above, the bridge deck thrummed—carts, voices, the low roar of ordinary hunger. Below, darkness pooled and waited. Cassian moved along the beam line to a drop point hidden by hanging cloth and pipe shadows. He dropped into a refuse lane and melted into the flow of workers hauling waste and broken parts. Rot hit hard. Hot metal. Stale piss. It coated the throat. Cassian kept his face blank, as if stink meant nothing. Kai stayed close, head bowed. Useful posture. Safe posture. They cut through three corridors, then five. Cassian avoided the cleanest paths. Clean meant watched. Dirty meant forgotten. He watched the lamps—blue, white, amber—and chose his turns like placing feet on a minefield. Under a stairwell, a small stall steamed with broth. Onions and fat rode the air. Cassian stopped because stopping made him look ordinary. Coin on the counter. “Two.” The woman’s eyes flicked over him, then to Kai. No questions. Just ladling, hands fast and practiced, clay cups shoved across. The cup burned Cassian’s palm. Good. Kai stared at his like it might bite. Cassian lifted his and drank slow, letting steam fog his lashes. Salt, cheap herbs. Heat settled in his belly. He shifted so Kai stood half-hidden behind a post. Then Cassian held his cup out, blocking the sightline. Kai blinked—confusion—then something softened into understanding. He raised the cup and took two quick swallows, hidden. Cassian kept his voice low. “Don’t choke.” Kai’s mouth twitched toward a smile. It didn’t quite make it. “Wouldn’t dare.” They moved. By the time Cassian reached the anonymous room, his legs ached with the aftertaste of a sprint he’d refused to run. The corridor outside smelled faintly of lye and old smoke. The door looked like nothing. That was the point. Cassian checked both ends of the hall, then slipped inside and shut it behind them. Three locks. He set them in order, listening for each click. A wedge went under the door seam next. Old habit. Older oath. Kai hovered near the threshold, eyes sweeping. “This is… better than a pipe.” “It’s a bed.” Cassian stripped the warmth out of the words. “Don’t get sentimental.” “I wasn’t.” Kai swallowed the rest of whatever he wanted to say. Cassian crossed the room and swept it—under the table, behind the hanging cloth, inside the wash-basin cabinet. No mirror. Good. Mirrors made men study their own faces. Faces led to questions. Ceiling corners: no lenses that he could see. He trusted nothing anyway. The shard went on the table. Cassian built a crude cradle from a metal bowl and foil-lined cloth—shielding, isolation. He plugged the shard into the relay and powered it from a battery he’d stolen weeks ago and kept like a relic. The shard pulsed warm, then steadied. A faint chirp cut the room—small, birdlike, wrong in this place. Kai flinched. “It’s pinging.” Cassian set his palm flat on the table beside it. “Let it. Not loud enough to carry.” Kai drifted toward the room’s far corner where a narrow pallet sat made up with clean sheets and a folded wool blanket. He didn’t sit. Didn’t touch. His body didn’t believe softness. Cassian finished the broth and rinsed the cup—quick, thorough. Rituals mattered. Clean tools. Clean hands. Kai cleared his throat. “So. Did we prove it?” Cassian pulled the file list up on the relay screen. The glow painted his fingers pale. He scrolled until the right cluster showed itself. “Not all.” He kept his voice flat. “Enough to show the node tried to feed me a clean history.” Kai took a step closer, then stopped short. “And that you’re… overlapped. Like I said.” The word landed. Cassian’s throat tightened around it. He didn’t let it show in his voice. “We proved it edits in real time. We proved it hides the cuts under ‘official’ comfort.” Kai’s gaze fixed on the screen. “What about the name?” Cassian clicked into a cluster labeled: “REISSUE LOG / IDENTITY TOKEN.” The text flickered, tried to slip away, then held a fraction longer. The cradle helped. A line resolved: “SUBJECT TOKEN: CASSIAN VANE” “REISSUE COUNT: 17” Cassian’s hand tightened on the table edge. Knuckles went white under the thin skin. Seventeen. Kai’s whisper barely stirred the air. “Seventeen?” Cassian’s jaw worked once. His tongue tasted copper. “That’s one way to resign.” Dry. Bitter. He hated how close it came to a prayer. Kai looked like he wanted to push, then thought better of it. He backed off a pace as if Cassian had turned dangerous in a new way. Cassian kept scrolling. A fragment flashed, fought to exist: “EDIT AUTHORITY: DIRECT—” Then it snapped clean into: “EDIT AUTHORITY: COUNCIL.” His fingers twitched—an urge to smash, to tear the truth out by force. He swallowed it. Rage wasted time. Time got men killed. He powered the relay down for a breath, then up again. Test stability. The shard chirped twice, then quieted. The files stayed. Not perfect. Not whole. Still there. Kai sat on the floor—not the bed—and hugged his knees. “So you’re… a coin they keep re-stamping.” Cassian’s shoulders tightened, then eased with a controlled exhale. He went to the wash basin and turned the tap. Water gurgled, then ran hot. Steam rose, carrying soap from a small dish. Too clean. Too generous. The city didn’t give without taking. Cassian stripped off jacket and shirt, then peeled his bandages. Cloth stuck to dried blood. He hissed and pulled anyway. Pain flared bright, then dulled to a throb. Kai looked away. Polite, or afraid. “You’re bleeding.” “It’s nothing.” Cassian let the lie sit there because it was useful. He washed his hands first. Scrubbed oil and blood until his skin went pink and raw. Soap smelled sharp—lye cut with cheap lavender. It stripped the corridor stink off him. Water ran over his face, through his hair, down his shoulders. Heat pounded tight muscle loose. Steam filled the small space and beaded on his lashes. The serpent ring burned once when water hit it. Then it cooled, sullen. Cassian shut the tap and stood dripping until his breathing evened out. Behind him, the room stayed quiet. Kai didn’t move. The shard didn’t scream. Only the distant turbine-thrum in the walls, steady and indifferent. He dried with a rough towel that smelled of sun and old linen—impossible, which made his teeth grit. He dressed in clean, tagless clothes from his cache and went back to the table. A new message waited on the shard screen, like it had been biding its time: “CORRECTION PENDING.” Cassian stared at it. “Not tonight.” From the corner, Kai’s voice came small. “It never stops, does it.” “No.” Cassian’s answer came out flat. “That’s the point.” He sat on the bed at last. Tested it like he’d test a plank over water. The mattress gave too much, welcoming in a way that felt like a trap. Cassian pulled his boots off and set them beside the bed, toes aligned. Kai watched him. “You’re gonna sleep?” Cassian lay back without answering. Sheets cooled his skin, then warmed where he pressed into them. One hand slid under the pillow and found his knife. The other pressed briefly over the shard’s outline under his jacket—warm, insistent—then released. Kai stayed on the floor. Too quiet. Too safe. Cassian reached for a battered recorder—old, not Council make—and held it near his mouth. “Pulled proof from an intake node,” he murmured. “It tried to hand me a clean history like a blessing.” He swallowed, kept his voice steady. “I’m finishing the contract. Still leaving. But I’m not going blind.” Click. Off. Away. The bed took weight he’d carried for years, weight that lived in joints and old scars. Cotton whispered when he shifted. Soap clung to his skin, making him smell almost like a man who belonged somewhere. Almost. The turbine-thrum behind the wall filled the room. A pipe ticked as it cooled. From the corner, Kai’s breathing stayed thin and careful. Cassian stared at the ceiling and forced his breath slow. Counted like steps. One. Two. Three— On seven, his shoulders dropped a fraction. A tiny amber blink pulsed from the shard cradle on the table, steady as a heartbeat that wasn’t his. Each blink tugged him back toward the corridor and the fuse-links. Kai shifted on the floor. Cloth rustled. Cassian didn’t turn his head. “Take it. The pallet.” A pause. “Nah,” Kai muttered. “I’m… I’m good.” Cassian let it go. Minutes stretched. His vision softened at the edges. The shard chirped. Sharp. Wrong. Cassian’s eyes snapped open. His hand slid under the pillow and closed around the knife. On the table, the shard screen had lit on its own, throwing pale light across the wall. Words scrolled, calm as scripture: “CORRECTION PENDING.” “REISSUE LOG RECONCILIATION…” “—SUBJECT TOKEN: CASSIAN VANE—” “REISSUE COUNT: 17—” Then a line resolved clean before it could be wiped: “SIGNATURE HASH: FINAL CONTRACT / SIGNER VERSION: —” The dash flickered. Became a number. “SIGNER VERSION: 09.” Cassian’s throat tightened until the next breath scraped. Version nine signed it. Not him. Not the man in clean sheets with a knife under his pillow. Kai sat up, the screen glow catching the whites of his eyes. “What—what is it?” Cassian swung his legs off the bed. Bare feet hit cold floor. Softness vanished like it had never been. “It’s worse.” Kai swallowed hard. “Worse how?” Cassian watched the screen as if staring hard enough could keep it from healing. Seventeen rewrites. And one earlier Cassian—some older pour of him—had signed away the last door out. From somewhere beyond the room, a faint mechanical click. Then another. Locks cycling. Not here yet. Moving closer with patient hands. Cassian grabbed the cradle, warm against his palm, and shoved it under his jacket. “Get up.” Kai scrambled, voice thin. “They found us?” Cassian didn’t give him certainty. He didn’t have it. He moved to the door and put his ear to the seam, knife ready. Boots approached—soft, professional, unhurried. Cassian’s grip tightened until his knuckles ached under the old bandage. The city didn’t need to shout to start a fight. It only had to decide he didn’t exist.