August, 1096

Nothing has happened for weeks, and I've started to find that frightening rather than restful. The only disruption was on the 17th of July, when the ghost in my head whispered that it was my birthday. An absurd hallucination, and a very specific one. I forced the static down until the voice faded. Another symptom to ignore.

But today, for the first time since I woke up, Rhodes Island isn't moving. The thrum of the engines under the floor grates has settled into an idling purr. We're docked.

Erika and I stand side by side at one of the pill-shaped observation windows in the outer corridor.

"Tkaronto," Erika murmurs, the glare of the world outside reflected in her eyes. "We're in Columbia."

I press my hands to the cool glass, and for once the awe on my face isn't performed. It isn't a wasteland of rust-colored dust. It isn't the jagged mechanical sprawl of a mining rig. It's a towering forest of glass and steel. The skyscrapers go up until they run out of sky, and their mirrored faces throw the sunlight back in flashes bright enough to make me squint. It looks clean, and wealthy, and untouched by the rot of the rest of Terra.

Staring at it, I can't make the woman beside me add up. Why would anyone walk away from this? Why would Erika trade Columbia's safety and all that towering progress for the blood-stained uniform of a Rhodes Island Medic?

Something under her warmth goes bitter, like cold standing water.

"Erika?" I ask, pitching the voice small and hopeful. "Can I… can I go outside? Just for a little bit? I want to see the city."

Erika looks down at me, and the bitterness folds back into protectiveness. She tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, then shakes her head.

"I'm sorry, my little Lethe," she says, and there's medical authority under the softness. "You aren't cleared for a shore pass yet. Dr. Kal'tsit's protocols are still in place. You have to stay on the landship. But don't worry — I'll stay on it with you the whole time."

My fingers go up to the black band at my neck. I look at the floor and swallow the disappointment.

"Okay," I murmur.

The rest of the day tries to proceed normally, but the landship has changed temperature. The corridors hum with something unfamiliar. For the first time since I woke up in this world, the ozone and the medical bleach have been overpowered — by damp soil, by Columbian apples, by roasted coffee. Logistics Operators shout over the din and wheel crates of leafy greens and industrial supplies past the thresholds of the medical wards.

Then there are the faces. Strangers. It's jarring to watch Columbian merchants and dock officials stride through our halls in sharp tailored coats and streetwear, mingling awkwardly with our armed Field Ops and our tired Medics, their eyes darting around for something familiar.

Even with the monitor on, the volume of new people makes the air thick. The collar muzzles my passive Arts, but it can't filter out the overlapping static of hundreds of strangers pressed into a confined space. It's muddy and unpredictable, a hum that makes my skin crawl.

I keep my head down and let my hair fall forward over my face, holding the edge of my jacket, staying glued to Erika's side. She doesn't rush me. She uses her own body to wedge a path through the crowd, her hand steady on my shoulder.

Dinner comes as a mercy, and takes me out of the corridors, which have leaked their crowds as far as the garden.

We sit in the cafeteria. The room smells of spiced broth, and the noise is the relaxed, overlapping clatter of trays and of Operators ending their shifts.

And then the world changes again.

A klaxon rips through the hall — the same dual-toned shriek that gets into my teeth and sends pain up the ridges of my horns.

The crisp white daylight simulation in the LED panels dies. For half a second the cafeteria is dark, and then the emergency lighting kicks in and paints the room in a strobing, blood-red glare.

Catastrophe.

The banter curdles. What replaces the air is acid and adrenaline and the metal taste of panic. Operators drop their forks and scramble to their feet, trays clattering against the tables.

I go still in my chair, my hands flying up to cover my ears.

"Lethe! Look at me!"

Erika's hands are on my shoulders, gripping with a fierce intensity.

"We're fine, Lethe. You're safe." She has to shout over the sirens, her eyes wide and fixed on mine. "Rhodes Island's armor is fully deployed. Our shielding can take the impact. The landship is secure."

Within minutes the cafeteria empties. The Medical Department doesn't freeze at the siren. It just switches, like everyone's done this a hundred times before. The quiet place where people come to get better turns into an army getting ready for battle, right in front of me.

Erika's hand on my shoulder steers me away from the panic and back toward the medical bays. The quiet corridors have become a blur. Blast doors hiss shut on the Convalescent Garden and the standard wards, locking down everything non-essential. Medics and logistics Operators sprint past in coordinated droves, shoving hovering gurneys ahead of them, dragging reinforced crates of bandages and blood bags and Oripathy suppressants toward the triage centers.

Watching them work, it's the scale of the preparation that turns my stomach.

Erika stops outside my dorm, her breath coming short. "Stay inside, Lethe. Do not open the door for anyone but me, Amiya, or Lena. The triage bay is going to be overwhelmed with refugees soon."

The shutters slide into place with a mechanical thud. My window stops being a view of Columbian skyscrapers and becomes a slab of reinforced steel, and I'm inside the box with it.

I sit on the edge of the mattress with my knees drawn up and pull the slate off the nightstand. My fingers move across the cold glass, opening the internal messaging app.

I send check-ins, fast. To Lisa. To Podenco. To Miss Lena. To Rosmontis.

Then a direct message to Amiya.

[Lethe]: Is anyone with Opal?

In my own panic I forgot to ask Erika to check on her. The thought of Opal sitting alone while the klaxons wail makes me shudder. She'll be terrified.

A minute later the slate chimes with a reply from Amiya.

[Amiya]: Sussurro is sitting right beside her, Lethe. Opal is safe. We are monitoring the weather patterns closely. It is a severe Catastrophe. A massive rainstorm mixed with active Originium, bearing straight at the city.

I stare at the white text until the dread in my chest goes cold. The silence of the sealed room is worse than the noise was, so I tap back to the home screen and open one of the few unrestricted apps Ms. Closure left on my terminal: a Columbian news feed.

The screen flickers to life. The shining metropolis I stood at a window and marveled at a few hours ago is already being swallowed alive.

A cameraman is filming from somewhere high, the lens shaking in the wind. A deep grey cloud rolls over the horizon and takes the sun with it. It doesn't look like rain. It's too dense for that, and it pulses with the sick undertone of active Originium.

The anchor's voice is tight with panicked professionalism. The city's nomadic plates are initiating their emergency detachment sequences, trying to haul all that infrastructure out of the storm's direct path.

The feed cuts to street level, and it is chaos.

"Tkaronto Police officers are doing their best to evacuate citizens from the outer sectors," the anchor narrates over the footage.

The camera swings and catches officers in tactical uniforms trying to direct a surge of civilians. One of them steps into frame — a young Kuranta with dark hair and a hard set to her eyes, waving both arms, her face pale and resolute against the wind.

"Move! You need to fall back to the central plate immediately!" she shouts at the news crew, her voice barely carrying over the roar of the approaching thunderstorm. "Evacuate now!"

Over her shoulder two more officers are holding a line: a Cautus with her eyes squeezed shut against the wind, and a Perro clutching her riot shield like a handrail as the crowd surges past.

I pull my grey jacket tighter around my shoulders and watch the city freeze, because there's nothing else I can do.

The feed cuts away from the street to a wide shot from the edge of Tkaronto.

The screen fills with a hulking structure resting on the barren outskirts just past the city border. A colossal silhouette of dark utilitarian metal, crisscrossed with thick industrial pipework and one towering exhaust stack. Yellow floodlights cut through the dusty gloom of the oncoming storm and light up the heavily armored lower hull that anchors it to the earth.

I stare at it, confused. A mobile fortress, and one I've never seen.

Then I read the scrolling text at the bottom of the broadcast.

BREAKING: International Pharmaceutical Company Rhodes Island Offers Assistance.

That is Rhodes Island?

That war machine squatting on the dead ground is where I'm sitting right now. That's my home.

"The international pharmaceutical company, Rhodes Island, is currently docked just outside Tkaronto's outer sectors," the anchor says through the slate's small speakers, his calm the professional kind. "Their representatives have reached out to the city council. A spokesperson has just released a statement regarding the incoming storm."

The broadcast cuts again.

The background is a wall of glowing monitors, scrolling data, PRTS telemetry.

Sitting in the center of the frame is Amiya.

Her brown hair is perfectly neat, her long ears are held high and rigid, and there's a heavy weight sitting behind her blue eyes.

"To the citizens of Tkaronto," she begins, and her voice comes through the screen calm enough to cut straight through the panic under the broadcast. "Rhodes Island has opened its lower logistics bays and triage centers. Anyone seeking refuge from the Catastrophe, or requiring immediate medical treatment, is welcome to come to our landship. We will not turn you away."

I watch her in awe. The gentle girl who crouched by my dorm bed and promised to help me manage the static in my head isn't in that frame. What's in the frame is the CEO of Rhodes Island, standing without flinching in front of the end of the world and offering a shield to thousands of terrified people.

I stare at the slate with my knees pulled up.

Then it vibrates in my hands.

A banner drops down from the top edge of the screen. A secure group chat, created by Podenco.

[Podenco]: Are you two okay? The structural monitors are holding up fine in the Convalescent Garden. Miss Lena and I just finished securing the furniture.

[Suzuran]: I'm okay! I'm perfectly safe in my room! Did you guys see Amiya on the broadcast? She was so amazing!

[Podenco]: I saw her. She's so brave. But I need to know you're both staying away from the outer bulkheads. The vibrations can cause micro-fractures in the glass. Lethe, are you safe? Is Miss Erika with you?

I type slowly, my thumbs clumsy on the cold glass.

[Lethe]: Erika is in the triage center. I'm alone in my dorm. It's really loud.

[Suzuran]: Don't be scared, Lethe! Rhodes Island is the strongest landship in the whole world! The armor won't break. And Miss Erika is a hero. She's going to help Amiya save so many people out there!

[Podenco]: Lisa's right. You're in the safest place you could possibly be. Just stay on your bed, Lethe. Wrap up in your blankets and drink some water if the shaking makes your head hurt. We're a team, remember? We're right here with you.

[Podenco]: As soon as the sirens stop and the lockdown lifts, I'm going to ask Miss Lena to make us the biggest pot of tea we've ever had. We'll have a picnic right in the middle of the garden. Promise.

[Lethe]: I would really like that. I promise I'll be brave until then.

[Suzuran]: We can all be brave together!

The messages stop, and the screen keeps its warm glow a moment longer. The room is the same size it was a minute ago and it doesn't feel like it any more. I press the slate to my chest, against the soft brown ears of the plushie.

Everyone is trying. I need to be brave for all of them.

The night cycle switches on. I try to sleep, and the landship makes it almost impossible.

The storm doesn't howl. It batters. The weight of it slamming into the outer armor sounds like sustained artillery, and I can feel the vibrations traveling through the steel bulkheads and up into my mattress. Thunder rattles the whole ship.

I pull the blanket to my chin, tail curled against my side, and check the slate from time to time.

The news feed stays running in the dark. Every time the screen lights my face pale blue, some paranoid corner of my brain waits for the chime of a high-priority message — Dr. Kal'tsit's blocky white text, telling me to power down the terminal and end my unauthorized screen time.

It never comes.

The broadcast signal is degraded now, thick with static. A reporter and a cameraman huddle behind the remains of a concrete barricade while the rain swallows them and flashes of light cut across the screen. The reporter shouts into a microphone, barely audible over the wind, pointing at a line of evacuated vehicles.

Then the street ruptures.

It happens in the blink of an eye. A massive lump of black Originium tears up through the asphalt and the rain-slicked cars like a tooth coming through a gum, pulsing with a toxic amber light. The force of its growth throws the cameraman backward. The lens spins up at the bruised sky, catches a scream, and the screen tears into static.

The broadcast cuts back to the studio and its artificial calm. The anchor's face is bloodless.

"We… we seem to be experiencing some technical difficulties with the feed," he stammers, his hands shuffling papers that don't need shuffling. "Our technicians are working to fix the signal now…"

My mouth is dry and lined with ash that isn't there. I reach over and press the physical power button on the side of the chassis. The screen goes black and the dorm goes back to the amber of the night cycle.

I set the slate on the metal nightstand, next to the brown Amiya plushie Erika gave me. Then I bury my face in the blankets and squeeze my eyes shut. Sleep doesn't come. All I can hear is the storm taking the world outside apart.

The artificial daylight cycle clicks on, a clinical white that ignores what's happening past the hull.

I'm already sitting on the edge of the mattress when the door snaps open.

Dr. Kal'tsit.

She steps into the doorway, her coat immaculate despite whatever the rest of the landship looks like right now.

"You are aware of the situation outside, Lethe," she states.

I nod, small and jerky.

"The triage bays are reaching capacity with civilian casualties from Tkaronto," she continues. "Your deployment, however, will be contained. Report to the Convalescent Garden immediately. Your focus is our own Operators."

Her gaze narrows a fraction. "Rhodes Island Field Ops have been assisting the Tkaronto police force in maintaining the evacuation lines. They are returning compromised — localized Originium density, acute psychological stress. You will ease their combat fatigue and trauma so that they can be stabilized for redeployment or medical processing."

My hands find the edge of the mattress, and I make myself meet her stare.

"Dr. Kal'tsit…" The voice shakes on its own. "Erika… is she outside? In the city?"

She evaluates my expression for a second.

"Erika is currently stationed in Triage Bay," she replies. "She is managing internal trauma response. She has not been deployed into the thunderstorm."

The knot comes apart all at once, and the breath that goes out of me is ragged. She's safe.

I slide off the mattress and pick up my Arts Unit from the nightstand. Looking up at Kal'tsit, I give her a firm nod.

"I am ready to work."

"Report to the Convalescent Garden in 10 minutes. Do not be late," she says, and turns to leave.

I watch the door shut behind her, and remind myself again that I need to be brave for everyone.

I wash the sleep off my face and run for the garden, past Operators going in every direction.

The garden is wrong when I get there. It feels like a waiting room for ghosts.

The sprawling greenhouse is full of Operators who have just rotated back from the thunderstorm. They cluster on the golden-brown crescent benches or sit on the floor tiles, armor battered, coats stained with ash and dried blood. The garden is comfortably warm, and half of them are shivering anyway, from a cold the landship's heaters can't reach.

I weave through the quiet crowd to a Feline Caster sitting alone on a bench near a bed of broad-leafed ferns. She's falling apart.

Her uniform is torn and her ears are pinned flat against her skull. She's hyperventilating, and the short ragged gasps carry badly in the quiet. Her hands are gripping her knees so hard that her nails have gone through the fabric of her trousers. She stares blankly at the floor, watching something that isn't in the room.

I step closer. "Excuse me," I say, pitching my voice as gently as I can, hoping it gets through the static of the panic.

She flinches on a sharp breath and looks up. Her eyes go over my pale face, the dark grey jacket, the black monitor locked around my throat.

"Can you tell me your story?" I ask, stepping a fraction closer. "About the city?"

She stares at me. Her jaw trembles, and for a second I think she'll just sob. Then the need to get it out of her wins.

"The… the glass," she stammers, her voice ragged and wet. "The buildings…"

I listen. Hours ago I had my hands on a window, looking at those towers with the awe of someone who has only ever seen ruins. She takes that apart for me.

The mirrored towers didn't fall. They ruptured from the inside. Originium crystals came up through the steel girders and out through the glass facades, and turned the architecture into glowing tombs.

And in the ruins of those streets, the storm had brought the wildlife.

"Spiders," she chokes out, her breath hitching. "Originium spiders. They were crawling out of the rubble… Volatile."

Her hands shake as the memory pulls her back into the storm.

"They explode," she whispers, the words scraping. "I… I tried to clear a path for the evacuation line. I cast my Arts. I hit one of them. But I didn't see him. I didn't see that he'd pushed forward to cover my flank."

"It was a Forte defender," she sobs, and the tears finally spill over her ash-stained cheeks. "I killed the spider too close to him. The blast… the Originium frost just swallowed him. The rain went to ice in the air. He froze solid right in front of me, still dripping. And the shockwave…" She buries her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking. "It destabilized the debris above us. A concrete slab… it crushed him. He couldn't raise his shield because he was frozen. Because of me."

Looking directly at the woman in front of me, I picture the invisible channel opening wide. I drink it in. I have to.

The influx hits like a blow. Her guilt goes down like sludge and burns the back of my throat, and my stomach heaves against it. I force my jaw shut and swallow every drop of it, and bury it somewhere inside my own frame.

Slowly, the shaking in her shoulders subsides. The hyperventilating smooths out into long, exhausted, stuttering exhales. Whatever was holding her spine rigid lets go, and she's drained, but she can finally pull the humid, lavender-scented air of the garden into her lungs.

She lowers her hands and blinks at me through tear-streaked eyes. The terror is gone. What's left is mourning, and she can carry that.

I give her a small unsteady smile, step back, sever the connection, and leave her to rest.

But I feel wrong.

And I can't even work out why I feel wrong.

I remember sitting in that bright laboratory, shaking, finally confessing to Dr. Warfarin about the ghost. I remember the voice yelling at me in my first weeks on the landship, warning me about the people around me.

Dr. Warfarin, Ms. Ascalon, and Dr. Kal'tsit all told me it was a symptom. A cognitive misfire. A hallucination my infected brain built to filter the trauma of the ruins.

But… it has been quiet.

Since the Catastrophe hit Tkaronto, the hallucination hasn't said a single word. There's no static.

Am I cured?

The thought doesn't bring relief. It brings panic. If the ghost is gone, does that mean the incinerator finally burned the last piece of kindling?

"Miss Lena," I say, and my voice isn't steady.

She turns from her medicinal herbs, and her eyes go straight to the white-knuckled grip I have on the twisted branch of my Arts Unit.

"Lethe? What is it, sweetie? Are you alright?" she asks, her brow furrowing.

"I need to see Dr. Warfarin," I tell her, keeping my breathing level. I loosen my grip on the staff a fraction. "I'm mostly fine. I just… want to make sure."

Miss Lena studies my face for a long second, then gives a slow nod.

The walk to the high-security laboratory feels like a death march.

The doors open on clinical bleach and an array of gleaming stainless steel.

Dr. Warfarin stands at a diagnostic console, her white hair catching the overhead lights. She turns, finds me, and the smile arrives with the fangs behind it.

"Oh, look who wandered into my lair," she drawls, untroubled by the state of me. She taps at her slate. "Tell me you're here to donate a vial of that fascinating blood of yours. Strictly for scientific research."

"Dr. Warfarin," I say, and it comes out flat and quiet. "The ghost is gone."

"Elaborate."

The word cuts. She steps away from her monitors and crosses the floor to stand in front of me.

"What do you mean, the ghost is gone, Lethe?" she demands, and all the theater is out of her voice.

I swallow. My throat is sandpaper.

"She used to talk," I say, and the voice shakes on its own. "Whenever I saw something new… or someone important. When I met Ace and Scout, she screamed their names. She always tried to string things together, to make up stories about the people I met."

I look at the floor. "But since we arrived at Tkaronto… since the thunderstorm… there's nothing." I draw a stuttering breath. "I saw the Columbian skyscrapers. I saw the city break apart on the news. The ghost should have screamed. But she didn't."

I look back up at her. "It's been seven months, Dr. Warfarin," I say. "Seven months sharing my head with her. Even if she was just a symptom… even if she was just a sickness making things up… she was always there. And now I'm alone in my own mind."

Dr. Warfarin pauses.

She just stares at me, her face unreadable. The silence in the laboratory stretches out, thick, broken only by the low mechanical hum of the centrifuges.

Then she moves.

"Sit. Sleeves up," she orders, pointing at the padded examination chair in the corner. "I'm pulling a fresh panel. And we're doing a full neurological sweep. Right now."

She doesn't wait for me to shuffle over. Her coat snaps as she turns on her heel and crosses to the heavy wall communicator, and she hits the comm switch with the flat of her hand.

"Kal," she barks into the speaker.

The communicator crackles. "I am currently overseeing the triage overflow, Warfarin. State your emergency."

"Get down to my lab," Warfarin says, her eyes flicking back to me as I curl into the chair. The smirk creeping onto her lips has none of its usual warmth in it. It's appetite.

"Drop whatever you're doing and get down here," she insists, and there's a thrill running under the words. "The little anomaly just got a lot more interesting."

Half an hour passes. In the sterile quiet of the high-security laboratory, thirty minutes is a very long time.

I sit on the padded chair with my legs dangling over the edge, a fresh cotton ball taped to the crook of my elbow, still working on the lollipop Dr. Warfarin gave me before the blood draw.

She stands at her diagnostic console, fingers moving fast across the glass. Dr. Kal'tsit stands beside her with her arms crossed tight, watching the scrolling data without blinking, tracking every decimal point and cognitive baseline. I wait.

Finally Warfarin sighs, dramatic about it, and the sigh is a disappointed one.

"No change in your Oripathy," she says, turning to face me. She crosses her arms and taps a fingernail against her elbow. "The lesion hasn't grown a millimeter, nor has it shrunk. Assimilation rate is stable. The lobe is exactly as hyperactive as it was before we docked at Tkaronto."

I blink at her, the cold air of the lab biting my cheeks. "But… but the voice is gone. If the rocks are still burning, why is it quiet?"

Kal'tsit steps forward, her shadow falling across the examination chair, and her gaze drops to the Kazdelian artifact.

"The Arts Unit you were issued was not a random selection from our archives, Lethe," she says. "It was provided with dual intent. The first was an operational security test — to observe whether you would take the visions it gave you, the residual memories of Babel, and attempt to run, or transmit them to an outside handler."

Ms. Ascalon told me as much in Kal'tsit's office. A trap, carefully built, to stress-test my loyalty to Rhodes Island.

"You passed that metric," Kal'tsit continues, her expression carved from stone. "However, its primary function is to serve as a mental shield."

I look up at her. "A shield?"

"Your Arts require memories as fuel to sustain the siphoning," she says. "The staff is steeped in centuries of old, fragmented Sarkaz data. It gives your Oripathy a buffer of useless residual memory to burn in place of your own cognitive framework. That is what allows you to perform the palliative care that has proven valuable to this landship."

She folds her hands behind her back, her ears twitching.

"As for your hallucination," she says, "the absence of the 'Iori' persona is not a cause for concern. The Catastrophe at Tkaronto generated a massive localized Originium resonance. It is highly probable that the atmospheric density has shifted how your Oripathy manifests. And with the artifact shielding your memory centers from extreme degradation, your brain no longer requires a fabricated persona to cope with the psychic strain."

She looks down at me. "You are not cured, Lethe. But you are stabilized. The silence in your mind is merely the intended result of your treatment."

I sit and let the explanation wash over me. It all fits together so neatly. Maybe too neatly.

Reaching down, I close my fingers around the twisted, petrified wood of the Arts Unit where it leans against the chair. I grip it, and my Arts reach out, and for the first time since I woke up in this world something flickers through the glacier of her.

It tastes like an unripe apple. Cold and sour.

Apprehension?

She is lying.

But I don't pry. I let my shoulders slump instead, let the tension drain out of me, and exhale a long shuddering breath.

"Thank you," I say, and the gratitude in it is perfect. I look up. "Thank you, Dr. Kal'tsit. Thank you, Dr. Warfarin. I was… I was just so scared."

I slide off the padded chair. "If I'm not getting worse," I murmur, with a small polite bow to my wardens, "then I should probably get back to Miss Lena. I have duties in the garden."

I walk back through the corridors rehearsing the lie Kal'tsit told me.

Erika is waiting when I reach the residential block. She's pacing outside my dorm, her outfit wrinkled, and when she turns to face me the shifts in the triage bays have carved dark circles under her eyes.

"Lethe!" She rushes forward, hands hovering over my shoulders. "Lena messaged me. She said you looked frightened and went straight to the high-security laboratory. Are you okay? Did something happen? Is the pain back?"

She's vibrating with an exhausted kind of panic. I push the corners of my mouth up into a bright, reassuring smile.

"I'm okay, Erika," I say, pitching the voice light and relieved. "I was scared for a minute, but there's actually really good news."

Erika stops still, the feathers near her temples twitching. "Good news?"

I nod and lift my Arts Unit so she can see it. "Dr. Warfarin ran a full sweep. She said my Oripathy is completely stable. My assimilation rate hasn't gone up at all."

I take a small breath and deliver Kal'tsit's alibi with practiced innocence.

"And Dr. Kal'tsit explained why Ms. Closure gave me this specific staff," I continue, eyes wide and earnest. "It's an old artifact full of leftover Sarkaz memories. She said it works like a mental shield. When I use my Arts in the garden, the Originium in my head burns the history stored in the wood instead of my own memories."

The effect of the lie is immediate.

Erika stares at me, her lips parting in quiet shock as her medical mind works through the implication. The breath that goes out of her is ragged, and the tension in her spine collapses with it.

She drops to her knees on the cold steel floor, bringing us to eye level, and pulls me into a crushing hug. "Oh, Lethe," she breathes into my hair, her voice thick. "That's… that's wonderful. You're safe."

I wrap my arms around her waist and bury my face in the fabric of her clothing.

"I'm safe," I tell the quiet corridor.

"You should go sit with Opal, Lethe," Erika says, her voice dropping. "Everyone in the medical department has been so overwhelmed with the Catastrophe refugees that she's been mostly alone. Sussurro had to put her into a medically induced sleep earlier — the atmospheric Originium resonance from the thunderstorm would have caused her unbearable pain."

I nod. The thought of Opal lying alone in that sterile high-security box while the storm batters the hull is unbearable, and I go back out into the metallic arteries of the landship.

The corridors are still busy, though the frenzy has settled into a grim, organized rhythm. I keep my head down and my tail tucked close to my legs, out of the way of the rushing logistics Operators and Medics.

On the way to the quarantine sector I pass one of the primary surgery centers. The reinforced blast doors are sealed tight, and above the frame the red IN OPERATION lights pulse.

It isn't the lights that stop me. It's the two people waiting outside in the corridor.

They're heavily geared, their uniforms soaked dark with rainwater and ash, and I recognize them. They're two of the police officers from the news broadcast, the ones trying to hold the evacuation line as the storm rolled in.

The Kuranta paces back and forth across the brushed steel grates. Her face is a mask of hardened determination — brow furrowed, jaw clenched, movements crisp and militaristic. She looks exactly like the fearless defender the city needed her to be.

What comes off her doesn't taste like bravery, or resolute focus. It's a frantic, vibrating carbonation that makes my teeth ache, and underneath the hardened exterior it loops like a scream, the raw, spinning panic of someone who has no idea what she's doing. She's terrified.

Her partner leans against the bulkhead with her arms crossed over her tactical vest, long ears drooping, eyes shut, chest rising and falling in an even rhythm. To anyone walking past she's a Cautus officer who has finally fallen asleep standing up.

The taste betrays her. There's no heavy grey flavor of exhaustion on her anywhere, and no dull, numbing fog of sleep. What's coming off her is cold lime and the edge of a freshly sharpened copper blade.

She's wide awake, and she's calculating. Behind those closed eyelids her mind turns like a set of oiled gears, taking in the corridor, the passing Operators, the surgery center.

I stand there for a second with the Arts Unit clutched in my hands. What my eyes tell me and what my tongue tells me are two completely different stories, and it makes my head spin.

I don't linger. I look away from both of them and quicken my pace toward the quiet of Opal's ward.

The air inside is cool and sterile and still. The only sound is the beep of the medical monitors and the subsonic thrum of the engines under the floor grates.

Opal is asleep. The sedatives Miss Sussurro gave her have bought her a reprieve from the atmospheric resonance of the storm outside. She lies flat against the mattress, her long dark ears limp against the pillows. Her face is peaceful.

I rest my Arts Unit against the nightstand and slide my hand over the blankets until my fingers cover hers. Her skin is warm. Her chest rises and falls on its own.

Standing there watching her breathe, a new thought works its way into the cold of my chest.

I'm an Operator of the Medical Department now. I wear the black and white cross on my thigh. If I'm going to stay here, if I'm going to be more than a parasite siphoning trauma to keep myself alive, I should start to learn more. I should study Oripathy. Read the research files, understand the interventions, learn how the suppressants Erika gives her actually work.

Maybe, if I learn enough, I can help her.

I look at the black crystals piercing the skin near Opal's collarbone. Dormant for now, no longer pulsing with that sick light, but still there. Permanent. Unmoving.

My brow furrows. Why can't we heal the rocks?

Rhodes Island is enormous. We have walls of gleaming stainless steel, humming centrifuges, ancient doctors like Kal'tsit and Warfarin. Endless boxes of medicine, and technology that looks like magic. Why can we only put people to sleep to hide the pain? Why can't we cut the crystals out and cure it?

I close my eyes and reach into the empty corners of my own mind.

Iori, I whisper into the dark of my own skull, reaching for the ghost that haunted me for months. Just what were you? You always seemed to know everything before it happened. You knew their names. Did you know the answer to this? Why can't we save her?

I grip the fabric of my dark grey jacket and wait with my breath caught.

Please, I beg the empty space. Talk to me. Just tell me why.

Silence.

Hours pass with me sitting at Opal's side. The beep of the monitors is the only sound in the high-security ward when she finally stirs.

Her waking isn't peaceful. It's a sharp intake of breath, her small frame jolting against the mattress, her ears pinning flat as the storm tries to drag her back under. Her eyes snap open, wide and unseeing, braced for Originium and falling debris.

Then her gaze finds me.

I'm sitting in the chair beside the bed and I don't move, letting her mind catch up with the room.

The terror goes out of her spine. Her shoulders drop on a long exhale. She reaches down, her trembling fingers finding the soft brown Amiya plushie beside her, and pulls it against her chest, burying her chin in the fabric. She doesn't speak, and the room stays quiet.

I take a slow breath and push down the cold dread that's been pooling in my own stomach.

"Good morning." I give her a small smile. "The sirens stopped. We docked at a port city to restock our supplies. The landship will be moving again soon."

Opal blinks at me over the plushie's floppy ears. She takes the information in slowly, holding onto the promise of movement, the promise of leaving the nightmare behind.

"Are you hungry, Opal?" I ask, leaning forward a fraction.

For a long moment she just stares. Then her chin dips. A small, deliberate nod.

I pull the slate out of my crossbody bag and tap out a direct request to Erika, so she can bring Opal something warm and easy to digest.

A few minutes later Erika steps into the ward with a small metal tray, and warm vegetable broth and soft bread come into the sterile air with her. Her face is still drawn from managing the triage overflow, but she finds a bright, professional smile the moment she sees Opal sitting up.

"Look who's awake," she says, setting the tray down on the bedside table. "I brought you something to warm you up."

My own stomach picks that moment to growl, loud in the quiet room.

"Aww. Someone sounds hungry too? You'll get into a world of trouble if you skip your meals, little missy. Go, I've got it from here." Erika turns to smile at me.

"I should take my leave," I murmur, my cheeks warming as I gather my slate and push up out of the chair. "I'll eat my vegetables, Erika."

Then I turn to Opal. "Eat well, Opal. I'll come back to see you soon."

Opal watches me go, her grip on the plushie secure.

The corridors are eerily quiet. The chaotic, frantic energy of the night before has burned itself out, and Operators shuffle past in a silent, collective daze.

On my way to the cafeteria I round a corner and pass one of the large pill-shaped observation windows cut into the outer hull. I stop, and press my hands against the cool glass.

Yesterday this window framed a sprawling forest of glass and steel, a monument to Columbian wealth and progress, untouched by the rot of the rest of Terra.

Today the sky is a bruised, suffocating grey, still heavy with the last of the rain. And the city… the city is gone.

All that's left in the aftermath is the haunting skeleton of the outer sectors.

The sectors that couldn't detach in time have been gutted. One plate has it worst: a graveyard of twisted metal and crushed concrete, pierced by clusters of black Originium that pulse with a sick light through the standing floodwater. A few adjacent plates sit immobilized, half-ruined, abandoned to the weather.

I peel my forehead off the cold glass, my tail going limp against my legs, and make my way to the cafeteria.

The cafeteria is a wall of noise after the silence of that window. I sit at one of the small metal tables. Across from me Lisa is happily talking about a new flower Miss Lena is trying to cultivate, and I nod along and hum in the right places while I take my poultry avocado sandwich and lotus chips apart in small deliberate bites.

Then three figures come in, and my fingers stop over a lotus chip.

It's the trio from the news broadcast. They aren't in the tactical armor of the Columbian police force anymore. They're in standard-issue Rhodes Island refugee clothing, bruised and battered and displaced.

The Perro girl is limping a little and looks overwhelmed by the scale of the cafeteria. The Kuranta with the sharp eyes stays close to her side, one hand hovering, steering her through the crowded tables.

"Careful, Beagle," the Kuranta says, her voice carrying an exhausted, protective edge.

"I'm okay… Fang. Thank you," Beagle stammers, gripping the edge of her plastic tray.

Fang manages a weak, reassuring smile, her gaze going over the busy room and the steam rising off the hot plates. "They have nice smelling food here, at least."

Beagle shuffles forward in the serving line and looks back over her shoulder at the third of them, the girl who had been sleeping standing up outside the surgery center this morning. Her long ears are still drooping and her eyes are still squinted shut in that easy, deceptive smile.

"What you getting, Kroos?" Beagle asks nervously.

"Something sweet, maybe," Kroos says, in a slow drawl that has nothing in it of the weather they just walked out of.

I lower my sandwich to the tray, my eyes locked on the three of them.

They held the line for the civilians who couldn't run fast enough.

And now they're here in our spare clothes, like their own city just let go of them.

Two days have passed since the Tkaronto Catastrophe. The dust has settled enough to free up my schedule. I can finally study Originium.

On my way down the corridors toward the Archives, I spot her.

Amiya is coming the other way, flanked by two logistics operators carrying stacks of physical dossiers. She looks tired. The circles under her eyes are pronounced and her long ears droop under an invisible weight. What comes off her today isn't the usual warmth. It's burnt sugar and heavy grey dust.

The rumors have been going around. Rhodes Island is stuck in a huge fight with Tkaronto, the paperwork kind instead of the weapons kind. Our local branches are trying to send the refugees we pulled out of the storm back home, and the city keeps saying no. Apparently it doesn't want people back who are hurt and scared and might be Infected now. Amiya is carrying the whole weight of it on her shoulders.

But the moment she looks up and sees me, the CEO sets it down for a second. The burnt sugar sweetens a fraction and a real smile breaks across her exhausted face. She waves the logistics operators on ahead and comes over.

"Good morning, Lethe," she says, as soft and sincere as ever. "Where are you heading off to so early?"

I resettle the petrified branch of my Arts Unit and look up at her, letting the resolve show in my face.

"I'm going to the Archives," I tell her.

I raise my free hand and point down at the tactical band strapped around my right thigh, tapping the black and white Rhodes Island Medic symbol.

"I want to read up on Oripathy and Originium," I explain, with Opal's crystals in my head. "I'm supposed to be a Medic here, but I don't actually understand anything about the sickness. I want to know how the medicine works. I want to learn."

Amiya stares at me for a second, her eyes widening, and then her smile deepens into something proud. The fondness that comes off her is enough to push the bureaucratic grey out of the hallway.

"That's a wonderful idea, Lethe," she beams, her ears perking up. "The Archives have extensive beginner-level medical texts that should be perfect for you. Dr. Kal'tsit will be very pleased to hear you're taking your studies seriously."

She reaches out and gives my shoulder an encouraging squeeze.

"I have back-to-back meetings with the Columbian liaisons all afternoon," she sighs, and a shadow crosses her face before the optimism comes back. "But if I can finish them early, I'll come find you in the Archives. I'll bring us some hot tea and pastries."

"I'd really like that, Amiya. Thank you," I reply, returning the smile.

I watch her hurry back down the corridor into the political battlefield, and take up my staff, and carry on toward the Archives on the deck below.

After a short elevator ride I reach it. The Archives are a sprawling, hushed labyrinth of towering bookshelves and glowing racks of digitized data-pads.

Technically this is inside Dr. Kal'tsit's no-go zone for me, and I'm going to risk it. I want to learn about the world I live in. Nobody has stopped me walking in.

I wander the silent aisles pulling out anything with Originium, Oripathy, or Infection Vectors on the spine or the screen, and stick strictly to the foundational material.

I find a secluded wooden table between two rows of physical archives and unload the haul. By the time I'm done, the haphazard pile of thick medical textbooks and glowing slates is taller than I am sitting down.

I reach for the first book, and before my fingers touch the cover the temperature in the aisle changes. A wave of heat, and the recycled air of the Archives goes sharp with chili pepper and cinnamon.

I flinch.

Standing at the edge of the aisle is a Feline, and she is impossible to miss. Her long, voluminous hair is a rich brown-crimson, bright enough at the ends to look like it's making its own light in the dim library, and two sleek brown ears twitch out of the mane, alert to everything. A deep crimson and black coat is draped over her shoulders with more authority than a coat ought to have.

And she is staring right at me. At me, and at the comically massive mountain of beginner's medical texts I've hoarded.

I shrink back into the wooden chair, hands flying to the edge of the table, trying to make myself small behind the teetering fortress of primers I just built.

She marches over, the crimson and black billowing behind her, and stops at my table. Her eyes go from my face, to the monitor at my neck, to the titles stacked in front of me.

Originium Basics for the Uninitiated. Understanding Oripathy: A Primary Guide. Her ears twitch. She crosses her arms.

"You are wearing the Medic emblem of Rhodes Island," she states, in a clear, refined voice with the cadence of a Victorian noble unaccustomed to being ignored. "And yet you are sitting here hoarding children's primers on the most fundamental element of our world?"

I swallow hard. "I… I work in the Convalescent Garden," I stammer, the voice wavering under her stare. "I'm a palliative care assistant. I just… take the pain away. But I don't…"

My eyes drop to my lap, shame burning in my cheeks. "I don't actually know what the black crystals are. I forgot. And I wanted to learn so I could actually help."

For a second she just stares at me, and I brace for the reprimand — that my ignorance is a liability, that she'll report me to Dr. Kal'tsit as dangerously underqualified. Instead she lets out a long, dramatic sigh.

She grabs the back of the heavy wooden chair opposite me and pulls it out with a screech against the floor, then sits, crossing her legs elegantly and resting her hands on the table.

"A Rhodes Island Medic who doesn't even possess a foundational understanding of Originium? Unacceptable," she declares, tossing her hair over her shoulder. "It reflects exceedingly poorly on the competence of this entire organization if our medical staff are wandering the corridors uneducated."

The words are harsh and the air behind them isn't. The chili pepper evaporates, and what floods in after it tastes like roasted spices and the crackling comfort of a hearth fire on a freezing winter night.

I blink at her. She isn't upset with me?

"I am Ethelflaed 'Skyfire' Julie Mountbelan. Member of King's Wand and Senior Caster," she announces, tapping a manicured finger against the topmost book of my pile. "And seeing as I cannot in good conscience allow you to learn from these atrociously oversimplified picture books, I suppose I will have to tutor you myself."

I loosen my grip on the edge of the table. "You… you'll teach me?" The hope in it isn't performed.

She scoffs, and the warmth coming off her only grows. "Do try to keep up. I do not repeat myself for inattentive students. Before we begin. How shall I address you?"

"Le… Lethe. Ms… Ms…"

"Call me Skyfire."

She slides the heavy, intimidating textbook toward herself and flips it open, her eyes scanning the dense text before fixing on me.

"Listen closely, Lethe," she begins, and the haughty noble gives way to the scholar. "Originium is not simply a 'black crystal' or a disease. It is the greatest catalyst in our world. It is the foundation of our technology, the source of our Arts, and the engine that keeps this landship moving. It contains an immense, terrifying amount of energy…"

I lean forward with my chin in my hands and listen while she rebuilds the shattered pieces of my world, word by word.

My head spins. The density of the information she's pouring over me is staggering. She doesn't lecture so much as unleash an academic barrage, her bright amber eyes flashing with scholarly fervor while she dissects the thermodynamic properties of active Originium.

I rub my temples. "Ms. Skyfire," I interrupt, my voice wavering against her momentum, and point at a complex diagram glowing on one of the slates. "Wait. You just said the Arts Assimilation metrics we use here on Rhodes Island are unique. Why?"

She stops mid-sentence. The warmth cools into an exasperated simmer. She sighs and crosses her arms over the crimson and black of her coat.

"Because the internal metrics here were authored by Logos," she says, with reluctant respect in it. "An Elite Operator of this company. You see, Lethe, most nations and militaries on Terra measure Originium Arts by a single brutal metric: destructiveness. How large a crater can a Caster make? How many enemies can they incinerate in a single volley?"

She taps the heavy medical textbook resting between us.

"Very few organizations have the resources, or the intellectual inclination, to truly dive into the medical and biological reasoning behind the Arts Unit process," she continues, and her gaze goes cynical. "Rhodes Island is one. Rhine Lab is another. We measure the neurological pathways, the cellular degradation, the physiological cost of the Arts. Not just the explosive yield."

Before I can finish processing that, steeped tea and spun sugar reach the aisle ahead of her.

Amiya has come, exactly as she promised.

I turn in the heavy wooden chair. She's walking toward our secluded table balancing a silver tray — a steaming porcelain teapot, three cups, a plate of delicate sugar-dusted pastries. The Columbian liaison meetings seem to have let go of her for the moment, and her ears are perked up in greeting.

"Good afternoon, Lethe. Ms. Skyfire," Amiya chimes, her voice soothing in the hushed archives.

Ms. Skyfire turns her head, her deep brown ears twitching.

"Good afternoon, Amiya," she replies, refined for exactly one sentence before the aristocratic edge comes back. She gestures at my fortress of beginner medical texts. "Though I must say, if this girl's foundational knowledge is indicative of the Medical Department's current standards, you are truly letting our recruitment bar drop to abysmal depths."

Amiya's ears twitch once, deliberately, and the soft girl firms into the CEO.

"Lethe's circumstances are unique, Ms. Skyfire," she replies, polite and immovable. "Rhodes Island does not measure the worth of our Operators strictly by their pre-existing academic foundations or their combat metrics. We look at their potential, and their willingness to heal others. Lethe has already proven she has both in abundance."

Ms. Skyfire opens her mouth and draws breath for a scathing, highly educated rebuttal.

"However, we can discuss our recruitment philosophy another time." Amiya pivots without missing a beat, gliding forward to set the tray down on our wooden table, cutting the momentum off clean. "I managed to secure some authentic Columbian fruit and custard pastries from the logistics exchange this morning. We should eat them before the tea gets cold."

Ms. Skyfire freezes. Her eyes narrow and dart from the steaming teapot to Amiya's serene, smiling face, and her mouth closes around whatever it was going to say.

She lets out a dramatic, breathy scoff and reaches out to take a porcelain cup from the tray, eyeing the sugar-dusted treats with manufactured disdain.

"Columbian pastries," she mutters, picking up a small fork. "A dreadful, industrial compromise. They rely far too much on raw sugar and butter to mask their fundamental lack of baking technique. They're nowhere near as refined as a proper Victorian bake, Amiya. But… I suppose they will suffice for a break."

Amiya's face doesn't falter. She lifts the porcelain teapot and pours amber into the three delicate cups.

"I appreciate your willingness to compromise, Ms. Skyfire," she says softly, her long ears swaying in the climate-controlled air. "And I'm even more grateful that you've taken a personal interest in Lethe's education."

Ms. Skyfire takes a remarkably delicate bite off her fork. Despite the disdain, her expression softens a fraction when the sugar and butter land.

I sit quietly between the two of them, the warm porcelain cup held in both hands, and say nothing.

"Her foundational knowledge was practically nonexistent," Ms. Skyfire states, dabbing her lips. "For someone wearing the Medic emblem of Rhodes Island, it is a glaring oversight, no matter how you spin it, Amiya. However…" She shifts her eyes toward me. "…she is attentive. She listens when spoken to, which is more than I can say for half the operational staff on this landship."

Amiya's eyes sparkle with quiet amusement. "Lethe has an incredible capacity for healing," she murmurs. "She may have started with picture books, but with a tutor of your caliber I have no doubt she'll catch up."

Ms. Skyfire clears her throat delicately and adjusts the collar of her coat.

"Well, naturally," she declares, lifting her chin. "If she is going to assist the Medical Department, she will understand the precise thermodynamic properties and the cellular degradation caused by the Arts, not just flip through diagrams."

I pick up one of the pastries and take a small bite. It melts on my tongue, a small luxury.

"I'll study hard, Ms. Skyfire," I promise. "I want to be useful to everyone here."

Amiya reaches over, her hand settling over mine. She doesn't say anything.

The air tastes like steeped tea and warm sugar, and underneath it, faint and unmistakable, the roasted spice of Ms. Skyfire pretending not to watch.

I don't reach for my staff. I don't need to.