July, 1098 — Home Once More

The tires of our ATVs roll over the steel ramp of the deployment bay. As the hydraulic doors of the landship hiss shut behind us, sealing away the wind and the overcast sky, Miss Mousse cuts the engine.

The rumble of the vehicle dies down, replaced by the low, steady vibration of Rhodes Island's primary engines humming beneath the floorboards.

It's the best feeling in the world.

I unbuckle my seatbelt with a satisfying click and push the passenger door open. The moment my padded sneakers hit the metal grating of the deck, the climate-controlled air of the bay washes over me. It smells of machine grease, filtered ozone, and safety. We're home.

I grab my bag and my Arts Unit, stepping away from the vehicle, and look across the busy hangar. My heart does a joyous flutter.

Standing at the far gate leading back to the primary corridors are two familiar silhouettes. Before I can process their faces, my Arts sweep across the open bay. Honey and sun-drenched fields wash over me, layered with steeped chamomile and lavender.

"Mom! Miss Lena!" I cry out.

I don't even wait for the rest of the team to grab their gear. I break into a sprint across the metal decking, my tail swishing behind me.

Mom steps forward, her arms open. I throw myself into her embrace, burying my face in the plum fabric of her tactical shirt. She wraps her arms around my shoulders, pulling me into a crushing hug that banishes the last shadows of the ruined towns and the damp caves.

"Welcome back, my little researcher," mom says into my hair, pressing a kiss against the side of my head. "Are you hurt? Did you eat properly?"

"I'm fine, mom!" I promise, squeezing her back just as tightly. "Miss Mousse made the best meals, and I stayed right behind everyone else during the fights!"

Miss Lena steps up beside us, reaching out to pat my shoulder. "Welcome home, Lethe. You all did wonderfully."

As the rest of our expedition team makes their way over from the parked ATVs, dropping their bags and Podenco's secured terrariums, the atmosphere in the deployment bay is light.

But as we gather around to recount our safe return, Podenco tilts her head, her ears twitching as she looks toward Miss Adele.

"Actually, Miss Eyja," Podenco pipes up. "Where are your little ones?"

My tail pauses mid-sway. "Little ones?" I ask, my brow furrowing, looking between Podenco and Miss Adele.

"Yes!" Lisa chimes in, stepping up beside me with a bright smile. "They're fluffy little beckbeasts! Miss Eyja calls them little sheep. They usually follow her everywhere!"

Mint nods from behind Miss Susie, her ears twitching in agreement.

I blink, let go of mom, and reach into my crossbody bag. Out comes my slate, and I scroll down the curated profiles until I land on Miss Adele's entry and scan the bullet points about tectonic plates and volcanic Arts.

"Uhm…" I look back up at them, holding the slate to my chest. "They're not in my notes…"

Miss Adele offers an apologetic smile.

"You haven't seen them yet, Lethe," Miss Adele explains. "We almost always meet in the Archives, and they're not exactly allowed inside the library aisles. The Chief Librarian is very strict about keeping animal fur away from the rare texts."

She pauses, her eyes shifting down to the misty blue liquid swirling within the halos of my Arts Unit.

"And… I was a little concerned you might siphon or feel something weird," Miss Adele admits, her tone dropping into a careful register. "Because they're little creatures. They don't possess complex human emotions. I wasn't sure how your Arts would react to their baseline, and I didn't want to risk overwhelming your senses with something foreign."

She had kept her pets away so my mind wouldn't stumble into something uncomfortable. But the realization that there are fluffy little sheep on this landship, and that I have been missing out on them, overrides any caution.

"Can… can I meet them, Miss Adele?" I ask, my voice breathless with anticipation. "I want to!"

Miss Adele's cautious expression melts into a gentle smile.

"Of course, Lethe," she replies.

"Wait right here," she continues, her eyes sparkling with a playful light. "I'll be back quick."

She turns on her heel and hurries down the corridor toward the administrative elevators, leaving me vibrating in my sneakers on the deployment deck.

"Be careful with your hands, though," mom warns, crossing her arms over her shirt. An amused smirk tugs at the corner of her lips.

"What do you mean, mom?"

"They can be quite toasty," mom replies.

Before I can decipher what she means by 'toasty', the soft ding of the administrative elevator echoes across the hangar. The steel doors slide apart, and Miss Adele steps back out onto the grating.

And following right behind her are the cutest things I have ever seen in my entire life.

They're little beckbeasts, but they look more like round, impossibly fluffy clouds of pitch-black soot. They have delicate hooves that click against the floor, and small curling horns resting on their heads. But the best part is their fleece. It isn't just dark — hidden deep within the thick fluff is a warmth like the dying embers of a campfire.

As they trot out onto the deck, physical heat washes over the sterile air of the hangar. My Arts brush against them, and there's no human dread or panic in it, just sun-baked brick and the uncomplicated instinct of wanting to snuggle near a hearth fire.

"What!" I blurt.

I drop to my knees on the cold metal, captivated, as the little creatures trot around Miss Adele's ankles letting out soft, endearing baaas.

"They're cute, aren't they?" Miss Adele smiles with affectionate pride. She reaches down, petting the top of one of the soot-black heads.

She looks at my outstretched hands, hovering centimeters away from the fleece, desperate to pet them.

"Be careful though. You might want to put on oven mitts, Lethe," Miss Adele warns with a giggle.

"I'll be fine!" I declare, unable to resist the gravitational pull of the fluff.

I reach out, pressing both of my hands into the thick fleece of the little sheep. The heat doesn't scorch my skin—it wraps around my fingers like a heated blanket. I let out a long, happy sigh, ignoring the warning, and pull the little volcanic fire into my chest, cuddling it tightly.

I close my eyes, my tail thumping against the floor. The emotion radiating from the creature is warm and innocent, and it fills my empathic senses, washing away the lingering exhaustion of the Victorian plains.

But then the noise of the deployment deck vanishes.

The thud of crates being moved, the overlapping chatter of returning Operators, even the distant clanking of the hangar — all of it goes silent.

"Lethe?" Mint says, her voice barely a whisper.

"Yes?" I mumble, reluctantly opening my eyes.

I look up from the fluffy creature in my arms. Everyone is just standing there. Mom's arms have dropped to her sides, her jaw slack. Lisa stares with her hands over her mouth, her nine tails puffed up. Miss Adele is frozen, her eyes wide, looking not at me but directly behind me. Mint looks fundamentally confused.

I blink, my brow furrowing, and turn my head to look over my shoulder.

Rolling playfully across the steel grating of the deck is a beckbeast. But it isn't little. It's easily the size of three of our ATVs—a towering mountain of black fleece.

As the colossal beckbeast rolls happily onto its back, kicking its hooves into the air, the reinforced metal decking groans and shudders beneath its weight. A wave of heat washes across the hangar, warming the air like a furnace.

It lets out a deep, booming, yet endearing baaaa that vibrates right through the soles of my sneakers and rattles my teeth.

I stare at the giant creature, my mouth opening and closing silently.

I look down at my hands. The liquid suspended within the halos of my Arts Unit isn't humming — it's swirling in a chaotic vortex.

"Uhm…" My voice fractures into a breathless wheeze in the silence of the room. I look back at mom, and then up at the rolling ball of volcanic fluff currently taking up half the loading bay. "Is… is that mine?"

No one answers. We all just stand there in the deployment bay, paralyzed, watching a giant beckbeast happily roll around on the floor.

"Lethe? Are you okay?"

Mom drops down to her knees beside me, her hands gripping my shoulders. She looks between my wide eyes and the mountain of volcanic fluff dominating the hangar.

"Yes, mom, I feel fine," I breathe out, recovering from the shock. "I'm just… very surprised."

Beside us, Podenco abandons all caution. She steps right up to the giant creature and sinks both of her hands deep into the fleece.

"What? I can actually touch it?" Podenco yelps, her tail wagging furiously. "It's so fluffy!"

Before anyone else can step forward to test the physics of the giant sheep, the sharp ding of the elevator echoes across the deployment bay. The doors slide apart with a hiss.

Dr. Warfarin bursts onto the deck, her coat billowing behind her, clutching a heavy-duty, black-crossed emergency trauma kit in both hands, her eyes scanning the bay. She stops dead in her tracks.

Her eyes sweep over our uninjured expedition team, land briefly on me, then pan upward to take in the impossible mass of the giant beckbeast rolling happily on the floorboards.

She lowers the emergency trauma kit to the deck. She pinches her temples with her free hand, closing her eyes as she lets out a long sigh that seems to carry the weight of centuries.

Dr. Warfarin groans, her dry voice echoing across the quiet hangar. "Kal goes to play war in Londinium, and she leaves me in charge of a giant petting zoo? Here I thought there was an actual medical emergency."

She finally looks up and glares at the mountain of volcanic fleece. "I'm going to have to draw extra later to make sure your Oripathy is stable."

"What?! But I didn't even do anything!" I protest.

Lisa steps forward, her tails swaying in a bewildered rhythm. "Dr. Warfarin… what is this exactly?" she asks, pointing a finger at the giant, happy beckbeast.

Dr. Warfarin lets out another exhausted sigh and crosses her arms over her coat, her eyes locking onto me.

"It's Lethe's Arts," Dr. Warfarin states flatly.

"My Arts?"

"You're a Djall with high Arts assimilation," Dr. Warfarin says, gesturing toward the giant creature. "You shouldn't just be able to feel and manipulate emotions. A powerful Djall can project their or their targets' deepest emotions into an illusory Arts."

She pauses, her eyes sweeping over the soot-black fleece heating the entire hangar.

"Though, calling it 'illusory' is an understatement," Dr. Warfarin corrects herself, shaking her head. "As far as reality is concerned, it's a real, existing physical manifestation."

I look at the Arts Creation. My Arts had decided to reflect my desire to hug the little critter by manifesting a version of the creature large enough to hug a landship.

I didn't just feel the emotion. I accidentally built a three-story-tall beckbeast out of it.

For a long second, nobody moves.

Then the academic restraint that usually governs my tutor evaporates.

Miss Adele's hearth doesn't just catch — it blooms. She drops her satchel onto the metal grating, abandoning her composed elegance, and runs toward the wall of volcanic fleece.

"Oh, I simply cannot hold back," Miss Adele says. She throws her arms as wide as they will go and presses herself into the fluffy side of the creature. "It's a big, little black sheep!"

The giant beckbeast lets out another booming baaaa that rattles the catwalks above us, leaning into Miss Adele's tiny embrace with an affection that radiates furnace heat.

Miss Adele turns her head, her face flushed with delight, and looks over at Mint, who is just staring at the physics-defying monster.

"Mint!" Miss Adele calls out, her voice bright and breathless. "Mint, please, take some pictures of this!"

Mint jolts out of her trance.

"R-right! Pictures! The structural integrity of an Originium-manifested biological entity!" Mint stammers. She fumbles with her pockets, pulling out her communicator and snapping rapid-fire photos of our tutor hugging a three-story-tall cloud of fleece.

After a few toasty minutes, the heat radiating from the Arts Creation forces Miss Adele to step back. She pats the giant fleece one last time before turning around, clearing her throat and brushing a stray piece of hair from her cheek as she reconstructs her scholarly composure.

"That was wonderful, Lethe. Thank you," Miss Adele says, her airy melody returning. She offers me a professional smile. "But… perhaps it's best if you dispel the Arts Creation now, before it accidentally crushes a transport or melts the floor."

I blink, looking from her to the giant beckbeast, and then down at my own hands.

"I… I don't know how to do that!" I admit, my voice pitching up in panic. "I didn't even know I made it! How do I turn it off?!"

Dr. Warfarin steps forward. "It's an emotional projection, Lethe," she says, her voice strained. "Just pull the tether back. Stop feeding it the emotion of 'cute and fluffy.' Just drop the feeling."

"Okay! Okay, I can do that," I say, nodding.

I grip the black shaft of my Arts Unit with both hands, squeeze my eyes shut, and focus on the radiating feeling of affection I had poured into the creature. One deep breath, and I mentally grab hold of that warm, fuzzy emotion and yank it backward, cutting off the supply.

The giant beckbeast destabilizes. It doesn't gracefully fade away like a mist. Instead, the volume of concentrated thermal energy and soot-black fleece collapses inward for a fraction of a second, before popping.

BOOM.

A concussive shockwave of harmless but hot air explodes across the deployment bay. The force of the backdraft knocks me flat onto my rear against the metal decking.

The thermal expansion of the popping construct hits the hangar's ceiling sensors.

Wee woo. Wee woo. Wee woo. The apocalyptic wail of Rhodes Island's primary fire alarms shatters the peace of the bay. The emergency strobe lights flash red. Above our heads, the industrial fire suppression nozzles deploy with a synchronized, mechanical clack.

A torrential downpour of high-pressure chemical foam and icy water rains down upon the entire deployment deck.

"Cold!" I shriek, scrambling across the wet grating as the freezing water soaks through my jacket. Beside me, Lisa lets out a dismayed yelp as her nine brushed tails flatten into sad, dripping mops.

A few paces away, Dr. Warfarin stands still under the downpour, her coat plastered to her frame and dripping. She raises a soaked hand to her forehead, pressing her fingers against her temples.

"I'm going to submit a formal request," Dr. Warfarin mutters, her voice a defeated rasp over the wailing fire alarms. "To have Kal personally dock my pay. Because if I'm getting paid, it means I'm technically obligated to deal with this."

The alarms keep wailing, the foam and icy water keep coming down. I sit miserably in a puddle, my jacket soaked through to my bones.

Through the icy deluge, a soft giggle cuts cleanly through the sirens. I look over. Miss Adele is drenched, the chemical foam dripping from her curling horns, and she doesn't seem to care in the slightest.

To my right, Mint lets out a high-pitched yelp and drops to her knees on the wet grating, curling into a defensive ball over her journals, acting as a physical umbrella for her field notes.

Miss Susie just stands there in the middle of the downpour, looking defeated, her hair plastered flat against her cheeks and forehead. The toasted sugar coming off her has gone soggy and resigned.

Miss Grani, however, doesn't even flinch. She wipes a glob of white foam from her cheek and laughs out loud, unrestrained.

"Good job, team!" Miss Grani cheers, gesturing proudly toward the dripping, foam-covered vehicles parked behind us. "That's definitely one way to wash the ATVs!"

Beside her, Miss Mousse takes a careful step backward.

"Uhm… be careful, everyone…" Miss Mousse warns, holding her gloves up to shield her face. "The floor is very slippery…"

A spray of water hits my side. I turn my head in time to see Lisa executing a full-body shake. Her nine tails whip back and forth in a blur, sending water and white foam flying in every direction. She bubbles with unbothered cheerfulness as she fluffs her soaked fur back up.

Podenco side-steps Lisa's splash zone, wiping her wet hair out of her eyes and fixing me with a smirk.

"Well, Lethe," Podenco notes, her soaked tail giving a deliberate wag as she looks at the chaos I had just accidentally unleashed upon Ms. Closure's ceiling sensors and the medical heads. "This is definitely going to be legendary in the internal rumors."

"Indeed," Miss Lena's serene voice chimes in.

She stands amidst the disaster, her clothes soaked, her tranquil persona intact, and looks up at the ceiling sprinklers with a soft sigh.

"This is exactly why Kal'tsit should approve the bathhouse construction," Miss Lena muses calmly.

A shadow falls over me, blocking the worst of the downpour. I look up.

Mom is standing directly over me. Her translucent weatherproof coat is doing exactly what it was engineered to do, the water and foam beading up and sliding off the reinforced fabric.

She looks down at me sitting in the puddle of foam. Honey and sun-drenched fields wrap around my shivering frame, but her eyes are narrowed into a stern, practiced glare.

"Well, Lethe," mom says, crossing her arms over her plum tactical shirt. Her tone leaves zero room for argument. "You conquered the plains. But if you catch a cold here in the hangar, you're definitely getting grounded."

Before I can open my mouth to protest the unfairness of being threatened with grounding over an accidental, giant-fluff-induced fire alarm, Dr. Warfarin cuts me off.

"Now, get out of here," Dr. Warfarin orders. "Before I have to explain to Kal why half of the Medics she left on the landship all clocked in sick from hypothermia."

I don't need to be told twice.

I scramble to my feet, my soaked sneakers squeaking against the metal, and grab my Arts Unit, shielding it against my chest as if that could somehow save it from the deluge it has already endured.

"Let's get you all cleaned up," mom says. She reaches out, her hands gently but firmly gripping my shoulders.

We make our hasty retreat from the deployment bay. The blast doors hiss shut, mercifully cutting off the rain, but the damage is already done.

We form a pathetic, dripping procession as we walk down the pristine, climate-controlled corridors of the landship.

Every step I take produces a loud, squelching squeak. Lisa walks beside me, her usually immaculate tails dragging on the floor grates, leaving a continuous trail of soapy water. Miss Susie shivers, her arms wrapped around her soaked sweater as tiny sparks of static pop off her flattened hair.

Naturally, we draw the attention of everyone.

Logistics personnel pause mid-stride, lowering their digital slates to stare at us in bewilderment. A group of Reserve Ops huddled near the cafeteria entrance stop their chatter, their eyes going wide as they watch our triumphant expedition team marching through the halls looking like we had been dragged backward through an industrial wash.

Hiding is impossible.

Making the spectacle more noticeable are Miss Adele's little beckbeasts.

The tiny clouds of fleece trot happily alongside her. Because their bodies radiate a constant volcanic heat, the water and chemical foam trapped in their fluff is boiling off. They hiss, leaving a billowing cloud of warm steam trailing in their wake.

With every bouncy step they take, their tiny hooves stamp round, foamy wet puddles across Rhodes Island's sterilized floorboards. They let out soft, contented baaaas, oblivious to the trail of steaming chaos they are painting down the hallway.

I shuffle a little faster, keeping my eyes glued to the squeaking toes of my sneakers.

"Don't worry about the sensors, Lethe." Lisa walks by my side and bumps her shoulder against mine.

"But replacing all those sensors has to cost a lot…" I can feel my hard-earned savings evaporating into thin air.

"Well, the Elite Ops and Field Ops level a training room, or blow up a bulkhead every other day," Lisa says, her tone remaining bright and cheerful. "Ms. Closure is used to it by now, I'm sure."

I stop dead in my tracks.

"What?" I gawk at her.

"That's just part of the job description!" Miss Grani adds enthusiastically.

She marches just ahead of us, unbothered by her wet tactical coat.

I turn my head toward the pillars of medical responsibility in the corridor — mom and Miss Lena — eyes wide and pleading, hoping they'll tell me Lisa and Miss Grani are just teaming up to tease me.

But mom just looks at me and lets out a weak, strained smile.

Beside her, Miss Lena doesn't seem fazed in the slightest. She continues her serene, dripping march down the corridor, undisturbed by the casual confirmation of daily structural explosions.

"Oh…"

I pull my wet jacket tighter around my shoulders, hoping I never need to be anywhere near a training hall.

A long, scalding shower washes away the freezing foam and the damp chill of the Victorian plains. I dry off and slip into my casual wear — the light grey oversized fleece hoodie with the sleeping black kitten graphic on the chest. The fleece feels like a physical embrace.

We gather in one of the landship's cozy break rooms. The space is warm, smelling faintly of the tea Miss Lena freshly brewed, which Mint is holding.

Over in the small kitchenette, a professional culinary summit is taking place. Mom, Miss Lena, and Miss Mousse are huddled around the counter, deep in discussion about what to cook for our post-expedition feast.

"We have some fresh poultry from the logistics restock," Miss Lena suggests. "Perhaps a light herb roast? It would be gentle on the stomach after so many days of field rations."

Miss Mousse nods eagerly, her two tails swaying in a synchronized rhythm behind her. "I… I can prepare a sweet glaze for it!" she offers, bubbling with culinary excitement.

"Perfect. I'll get the vegetables prepped," mom agrees, reaching for a cutting board.

Sitting on the other sofa beside Miss Adele, Miss Susie perks up.

"I can help, too," Miss Susie offers, already starting to push herself up from the cushions.

Mom tenses up and whips her head around so fast her hair nearly smacks her in the face.

"Susie, it's okay," mom declares. Her voice is polite. She holds both hands up in a placating gesture. "You take some rest. We got this."

Miss Susie blinks, her ears folding down a fraction, and sinks back into the sofa cushions — toasted sugar, innocent.

"Okay," Miss Susie smiles softly. "Just let me know if you need any help."

I sit there, burying my chin into the collar of my fleece hoodie, and stare at my friends, brow furrowing. Miss Susie is gentle with her hands; she's the best barber on the landship. Why would mom treat a simple offer to chop carrots like a localized Catastrophe warning?

Before I can even ask, Podenco leans over, pressing her face into my ear.

"When Miss Susie cooks," Podenco whispers, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial hush, "it usually ends up inedible… or she destroys the equipment."

I stare at Podenco, my eyes blowing wide, then look past her to Miss Susie, smiling on the sofa, unable to reconcile the two realities.

"But…" I whisper back. "She cooked for us when we were camping."

From my other side, Mint leans over, boxing me in.

"She was just boiling water essentially, Lethe," Mint adds under her breath.

Mint is right. Back at the camp, Miss Susie hadn't cooked anything from scratch. She had poured filtered river water into our heavy-duty Rhodes Island pot and waited for it to bubble before tearing open packets of pre-made dry rations and instant ramen blocks.

I look at the heavy-duty appliances lining the kitchenette and sink deeper into my hoodie until only my eyes and my horns are visible. Mom was trying to prevent Ms. Closure from billing us for an electrocuted microwave.

The image of an electrocuted microwave fades as mom keeps chopping, replaced by another concern — one that has bothered me since our soaking wet escape from the deployment bay.

I poke my head back out of my fleece collar and look around the break room, watching the adults prep the herb roast in the kitchenette while my friends relax on the sofas.

"Also… I never asked," I speak up, my voice muffled by my hoodie. I look at Mint and Lisa. "Everyone says LMD a lot, like when Miss Adele teaches me about operations and when Ms. Closure screams in the comms… Is LMD just a fancy, official way to say internal credits?"

Mint shifts on the sofa, her eyes shining with the same scholarly thrill she gets when she finds a unique rock formation.

"Oh no, Lethe," Mint corrects me gently, raising a finger like a professor delivering a lecture. "That's the Lungmen dollar."

I blink, tilting my head. "Lungmen dollar?"

"Yes!" Mint nods. "Since the nomadic city of Lungmen is a central international trade hub, its currency is widely accepted across many nations. It's the standard baseline for international transactions. Even though all nations have their own local currency, most corporations and mercenaries prefer to deal in LMD."

Mint begins to count them off on her fingers, her ears twitching with every new fact. "For example, Victoria uses the Victorian pound. Leithanien has the Leithanian ducat. The Columbian Union uses the Columbian dollar! And Yan itself actually uses Yanese wen."

I sit there absorbing the sudden economics lesson, thinking about the internal credits I hoard to buy plushies and snacks from the landship's vending machines.

"But…" I ask, looking down at my hands. "Why don't I earn LMD then? I have an official Rhodes Island ID card. I went on an expedition. Why is my account just filled with internal credits?"

The rhythmic chopping of vegetables in the kitchenette stops.

Mom turns around from the counter, wiping her hands on a small towel.

"Well, Lethe, Oripathy treatment is expensive," mom explains, leaning her hip against the counter. "Most Infected Operators use a significant part of their salaries to pay off their medical debt to Rhodes Island, but they do get paid the remainder in actual LMD so they can support their families or buy things in the outside world."

She walks over, gently tapping the top of my lopsided horns with her knuckles.

"But for younger Operators like yourself, whose shore leaves are monitored and escorted by adults," mom continues, her voice dropping into a loving but uncompromising tone, "you don't exactly need a wallet full of international cash. Rhodes Island provides for all of your basic needs, your medical care, and your meals."

"So," Lisa adds in from beside me, her tails swaying happily. "We just use internal credits for the vending machines and the engineering kiosks! And when we do get safe shore leave, like Trimounts or Siesta, the logistics department provides us with actual LMD for the trip if we apply for it!"

I nod. "Well. As long as my internal credits can get me the plushies from Ms. Closure's store, I don't see why I need LMD anyway."

Lisa giggles from beside me, while Podenco just shakes her head.

The rest of the evening bleeds into a peaceful rhythm. The culinary summit concludes with success. Mom and Miss Mousse bring out a platter of herb-roasted poultry, glazed with a sweet, savory reduction. We gather around the low tables in the break room, the clatter of silverware and the golden flavors of safety filling the air.

As we eat, mom and Miss Lena sit across from us.

"So," mom asks, resting her chin on her hand as she looks over our team. "Tell us everything. How was the great Victorian expedition?"

The room erupts into overlapping chatter. Mint pulls out her journal, eagerly detailing the subterranean limestone watersheds and the bioluminescent crystalline refractions on the giant Originium slugs. Miss Susie and Miss Adele share the encounter with the masked Caprinae and her musical Arts, while Lisa and Podenco proudly recount how we neutralized the hidden Gaulish rebel caches.

When it finally comes to my turn, I nervously poke my index fingers together, avoiding mom's eyes as I confess how I forced the suicidal rebels to surrender by projecting the lethargy of eating her unseasoned boiled broccoli.

Mom pauses, a piece of roasted poultry hovering halfway to her mouth. She lowers her fork, fixing me with an unimpressed stare, though I can taste the amusement bubbling under her honey.

But as the stories wind down and the plates are scraped clean, the break room settles into a quiet lull.

I take a sip of my water and look around the cozy room, and then my eyes drift toward the door leading out into the landship's corridors. It's too quiet out there.

My mind flashes back — the whispers of the Operators, the drone footage on the slate. The skeletal remains of the colossal Victorian landships. The bruised, bleeding sky.

I lower my cup, the cold realization dawning on me.

"Mom… Miss Lena," I begin, my voice dropping, hesitant.

"What is it, Lethe?"

"Amiya and the Elite Ops… are they in Londinium already?"

The break room goes silent.

Mom doesn't answer immediately. She looks at Miss Lena, sharing a brief, silent conversation, then turns back to me.

"They are," mom answers softly, her voice steady and honest. "They're in the city with Closure, Doctor and Dr. Kal'tsit."

"What about us?" I ask. "What's the landship doing?"

Miss Lena reaches across the table, her hand resting over mine. The warmth of it pushes back the creeping dread.

"We're currently holding our position just outside Victorian borders," Miss Lena explains. "Our primary directive right now is to act as a safe haven. We're receiving and resettling any refugees and wounded who manage to escape the city limits."

I take a shaky breath and give mom a firm nod.

"Okay. We will be ready for them."

It's been almost a week since we got back home.

I sit cross-legged in the center of my mattress, surrounded by my mountain of stuffed animals. Resting atop the dorsal fin of my shark plushie is the newest addition to my collection: the fluffy orange Vulpo plushie. It was the very last one on Ms. Closure's shelf, and I had saved up just enough to grab it.

I adjust the Vulpo so it doesn't slide off the shark, but my focus isn't on my cotton-filled sanctuary.

My eyes are glued to the slate on my lap. For the past hour I've been scrolling the Rhodes Island internal network, refreshing the news boards and the supply lists over and over, hoping for even one real update about Londinium.

But there's almost nothing.

The official channels have gone completely quiet. The only information bleeding through the blackout comes from the fragmented stories of Victorian refugees seeking shelter in the medical bays. The intake logs are full of harrowing whispers — a bleeding capital, artillery fire shaking the earth, the control of the Military Commission's occupation.

Miss Lena and mom don't allow me anywhere near the intakes.

After all, my people are tearing the refugees' home apart.

The pneumatic hiss of my dorm door sliding open shatters the silence. My head snaps up.

Mom steps over the threshold, and the climate-controlled chill of the dorm washes away. My Arts catch the protective wave of her — a sun-drenched field, warmth, honey.

She's wearing her off-duty clothes, but the exhaustion lining her eyes tells me she's been pulling double shifts in the wards again.

"Good morning, Lethe," mom says, her voice soft, carrying the familiar cadence that grounds my racing heart.

"Good morning, mom…" I look past her, staring out into the empty corridor of the dormitory block. "Why is it so quiet?"

Mom sighs. She walks over to my bed, the mattress dipping as she sits down next to my fortress of plushies, and brushes my fringe out of my eyes.

"The Battle of Londinium is ongoing, Lethe…" mom explains, her tone dropping into a grave register. Her hand drops to rest over mine, thumb rubbing circles against my knuckles. "The outer counties are absorbing most of the refugees fleeing the crossfire. And information inside the capital… is scarce right now. The communications are jammed."

I look down at the screen, the white text of the refugee intake logs blurring. Amiya, Dr. Kal'tsit, Doctor, Ms. Closure and the Elite Ops are all walking into that apocalyptic wasteland of shattered warships and bruised skies.

"They are safe, right, mom?"

Mom's expression softens. "Lethe, you have to trust them," she says, fierce and quiet. "They're the strongest people we know."

I slide off the edge of my mattress, reach for the dark crossbody bag on my desk and sling it over my shoulder, then pick up my Arts Unit.

"Well, mom," I announce softly, offering her a small smile as I adjust my jacket. "Time for me to get to work soon."

Mom stays seated on the edge of the bed, her expression softening with a loving curiosity. "How are you doing in the garden, Lethe?"

I pause, my fingers tracing the black shaft of my staff. The Convalescent Garden used to be a quiet sanctuary where Podenco would tend her flora and Lisa would weave flower baskets. But the atmosphere has shifted.

"Well… the garden right now is mostly just people coming in to take a walk and destress," I explain. "But the air… it's heavy, mom."

I swallow, the phantom flavor coating the back of my tongue just from thinking about it. "They all taste like… chewing on cold, rusted tin foil. They're terrified."

I reach up with my free hand, fingertips brushing the curve of my horns.

"And… I can tell some of them are unsure about me," I admit, my chest tightening with a hollow ache. "When I walk past the benches to check on the planters, that anxiety sours into fear. They look at my horns and my tail, and they taste like bitter lemon rind and cracked ice…"

Mom stands and closes the distance between us in two strides. She pulls me into a crushing hug.

"Don't let it affect you, Lethe," mom says, her arms wrapping around my shoulders like a shield. "You're my daughter. And you're a Rhodes Island Medic. You wear that cross to heal, not to hurt. Don't you ever let anyone make you feel otherwise."

I close my eyes, melting into her embrace, and wrap my free arm around her waist, burying my face in the familiar fabric of her shirt.

"I know, mom. Besides, Mint and everyone else are still very nice to me. They don't look at me any differently at all."

Mom pulls back just enough to look me in the eyes, her expression fierce and proud.

"And they never will," she promises.

I look back at the fortress of plushies dominating my mattress.

"Well, since you're off-duty today, mom," I announce, gesturing toward my bed with a hopeful smile. "You can stay here with my plushies if you want. They're excellent company, and they're very good at keeping the nightmares away."

Mom lets out a soft chuckle and reaches out, ruffling my hair.

"I will take that under consideration," mom replies, her tired eyes crinkling at the corners. She gives my shoulder an encouraging nudge toward the door. "Now go to the garden before you're late for your shift."

"Laters, mom."

"Laters, Lethe."

The doors hiss shut behind me, sealing the quiet, honey-scented warmth of my dorm.

The air of our home is thick, saturated with the restless energy of the ongoing Londinium crisis. Operators rush past me with tight jaws and urgent strides.

I keep my head down and my eyes focused on the floor, forcing my legs to carry me forward.

Eventually the sterile metal bulkheads give way to a familiar set of reinforced doors. They hiss apart as I approach, and the anxious atmosphere of the landship is swallowed by the best atmosphere in the world.

"Good morning, everyone!" I call out, my voice carrying clearly through the broad-leafed ferns and hanging ivy.

"Good morning, Lethe!"

A bright voice answers from a nearby planter. Miss Beanstalk pops up from behind a row of tall, flowering shrubs, waving. Roasted seeds and sun-baked hay wash over me, crisp and hardworking.

A few paces deeper into the sanctuary, working near the central floral feature, are Podenco and Miss Lena.

Podenco looks up from a cluster of seedlings, a cheerful smile breaking across her face as her tail wags.

Standing beside her, pruning a trellis of blooming vines with practiced grace, is Miss Lena. She turns her head with a welcoming greeting.

I settle into the mundane rhythm of my shift, crouched near the supply cabinets with a digital clipboard in hand, counting the inventory of fresh potting soil, nutrient solutions, and spare pots. The hum of the garden, laced with Podenco's yuzu and Miss Lena's lavender, is an anchor.

The hydraulic doors of the Convalescent Garden hiss open.

I don't look up immediately, assuming it's just another exhausted operator or a resettled civilian seeking a quiet moment among the ferns.

"Welcome," Miss Lena greets.

As I tick off the last bag of fertilizer on my screen, my Arts brush outward to gauge the newcomer. I brace for the usual cold, rusted tin foil that clings to the Victorian refugees.

But the second my senses touch the man, my blood runs cold.

He tastes all wrong.

There's no fear. No exhaustion. No sorrow. Instead, a void hits the back of my tongue — ancient surgical steel, embalming fluid, and congealed blood shut in a lightless crypt for centuries. It's like staring into the eyes of a preserved corpse.

I drop my clipboard. It clatters against the floor.

"Miss Lena!" I scream, trying to push myself up to warn her. But no voice comes out.

The world doesn't just fade — it shatters like thin glass hit by a hammer.

The earthy humidity of the Convalescent Garden, the green ferns, the warmth of my friends — all of it incinerated.

I'm in the middle of nowhere. Or rather, the middle of a nightmare.

The quiet of Rhodes Island is replaced by roaring. The sky is choked with black smoke and falling ash. I'm kneeling in the dirt behind a pile of scorched metal rubble. Blood-red Originium Arts projectiles shriek over my head and explode against the crumbling buildings around me.

I try to lift my hands to grab my Arts Unit, to shield myself. I try to scramble backward.

I can't.

My arms move, but not how I want them to. My breathing is heavy, and out of my control. There's no fighting it… I'm trapped behind a pair of eyes that aren't mine, experiencing a terror that belongs to someone else.

I'm a passenger inside my biological mother's body. I am Lethia.

Another volley of blood-red Arts shatters the barricade to my left, showering my—her—arms with debris and scorching heat.

A blur of motion cuts through the smoke.

A woman rushes forward, sliding across the blood-stained dirt. She vaults over the rock and rubble I'm hiding behind and drops into a crouch beside me.

Even through the chaos and the smoke, my Arts know her. Burnt ozone and panic ride on top, but underneath: sun-warmed linen and polished oak.

It's Ms. Raidian, her uniform torn and dusted with soot.

"Lethia!" Ms. Raidian gasps, her hands gripping my mother's shoulders. Her eyes are wide with relief. "You're safe!"

My mother's voice tears out of my throat, trembling with a terror I can feel vibrating in her chest.

"Raidian. What's happening!" Lethia cries out, her hands closing on Ms. Raidian's arms.

Ms. Raidian shakes her head, her breath catching as another explosion rocks the ground beneath us.

"I'm not sure…" Ms. Raidian chokes out, her voice barely carrying over the roar of the battlefield. "…but Theresis… his forces breached the landship…"

"How?" Lethia's voice cracks. "Our defenses?"

"I don't know…" Ms. Raidian replies, her grip on Lethia's shoulders tightening. She pulls my mother forward, forcing her to stay low against the smoking rubble. "We need to get back to Rhodes Island, our landship."

We scramble through the burning ruins, Ms. Raidian pulling my mother along the shattered streets of the town. The air is choked with ash and the metallic tang of spilled blood. Every step is driven by survival.

A silhouette rounds the corner of a collapsed building.

It's a Sarkaz mercenary. His armor is scorched, his eyes wide with fermented zealotry. He roars, raising an iron sword above his head to strike us down.

I flinch, a scream dying in my throat, but Ms. Raidian doesn't blink.

With a flick of her wrist, a drone floating over her shoulder darts forward — a sleek device shaped uncannily like a metallic fish. A projectile shoots from its tube of a mouth and hits the Sarkaz squarely in the chest.

The force staggers him, knocking the breath from his lungs and stalling his downward strike.

In that fraction of a second, I feel it.

It's the same empathic Arts that course through me, but more refined, and carrying an agonizing weight. My mother's mind throws its channels open, plunging into the freezing abyss of the attacker's consciousness.

But she doesn't siphon his pain.

Through my mother's eyes, I see a memory ripped from the mercenary's soul — a female Sarkaz, much younger, with a bright smile but a clipped left horn.

"I'm sorry I have to do this," Lethia whispers. The thought echoes inside my own mind, hollow with guilt.

She rips the image from his memory and projects it outward, wrapping the tether into a hallucination that overrides his reality.

The mercenary freezes. The zealotry in his eyes shatters into uncomprehending shock. The iron sword slips in his grip, the tip clattering against the scorched ground.

"Sis?" the attacker gasps, his voice fracturing into a breathless wheeze.

He stares into the ash-choked air in front of him, seeing a ghost my mother painted over his vision.

"Sis? You're alive?" he chokes out, tears cutting through the soot on his face. He drops his weapon, stumbling forward on trembling legs. "What are you doing here?"

He reaches out with both hands, calloused fingers trying to grab the empty air.

We're watching a man break down, crying out for a sister he lost, manipulated by the very Arts I use to heal. The rotting nausea twisting in Lethia's stomach mirrors my own.

"Lethia, focus…"

Ms. Raidian's voice cuts through the smoke. She grips my mother's arm and pulls her away, keeping them moving.

The tether snaps. Lethia pulls her mind back, leaving the mercenary weeping on his knees in the burning street.

"Sorry…" Lethia gasps, her chest heaving as she breaks away from the man. She tightens her grip on Ms. Raidian's hand and forces her legs to carry them into the smoky shadows. "Let's get out of here…"

We keep moving through the burning ruins, our steps driven by survival.

Through the billowing curtains of black smoke, a towering silhouette cuts through the haze.

"I see our landship," Lethia gasps, her voice raw from the smoke.

Ms. Raidian looks up, wiping soot and blood from her cheek. "It still looks intact," she breathes, her grip on my mother's hand tightening. "There's hope for us…"

The hope doesn't last a second.

The air in the burning plaza drops. The heat of the flames is swallowed by a void — the same taste that paralyzed me in the Convalescent Garden.

A figure steps out from the shadow of a destroyed rover, moving with a soundless glide.

I stare at him through my mother's eyes, horror paralyzing my lungs. He's draped in a tattered black cloak that billows like shredded wings in the ash-choked wind. Beneath the hood, his face is obscured by a bleached bone mask shaped like an elongated, beast-like skull and crowned with twisted horns. Asymmetrical dark armor guards his shoulders, adorned with the skeletal remains of dead branches.

In his right hand he holds a long, slender sword that glints with a cold lethality.

"Confessarius Guard!" Lethia screams.

Lethia rips her hand out of Ms. Raidian's grasp and shoves her away with every bit of strength she has.

"Raidian, run!"

The Confessarius Guard doesn't rush. He tilts his horned head, his empty black eye sockets locking onto us.

"A Djall," he says, his voice smooth, echoing from behind the bone mask with a hollow chill. "What a pity, fighting for a dying cause. Worry not, we can make you see the Regent's way."

"You will not!" Lethia snarls, stepping backward to block the narrow path between him and the stumbling Ms. Raidian.

"Lethia!" Ms. Raidian lunges forward to grab my mother, refusing to leave her behind.

"Run, please…" Lethia begs, tears carving tracks through the soot on her face. She doesn't look back at her; she keeps her eyes on the masked executioner. "…take care of Lita for me…"

The battlefield stops for me. Lita? Is that… me…?

Before my mind can process the weight of the name my mother gave me, the Confessarius Guard moves.

He raises the sword. The motion is so fluid it looks like a surgical stroke.

"The Liberi can run," he says, his voice carrying the weight of the grave. "But she will not run far enough."

The blade flashes, cutting cleanly through the ash-choked air.

Ah! A shearing pain tears through our right shoulder. The strike is so fast it burns white-hot, nearly forcing my mother's consciousness, and mine, into a blackout. Hot blood splatters against the scorched earth.

"Lethia!" Ms. Raidian screams.

My mother staggers, her hand flying up to clutch her bleeding shoulder. "Run! Please!" She puts every last bit of her fading strength into the command.

Ms. Raidian's presence fractures, sun-warmed linen and polished oak splitting apart. With a reluctant sob, she turns and vanishes into the black smoke, leaving us alone with the executioner.

Lethia forces her head up and glares at the masked Confessarius Guard.

"Emotions… don't work on you," my mother grates out, her voice trembling with pain but laced with defiance. "But how about something physical for you!"

My mother's mind shifts. She gathers her need to protect Ms. Raidian and her daughter and compresses it into a concentrated core. From the passenger seat of her consciousness, I watch her visualize the shape of her will.

The Originium energy in the burning plaza coalesces. A construct rips into reality before us — an upright ash-grey beast, its frame deceptively skinny but corded with predatory muscle. Misty blue bat-like wings erupt from its back, and its faceless beaked head is obscured by a flowing mane of misty blue hair.

The beast throws its head back and shrieks, rattling the shattered rubble around us.

Without hesitation it lunges, closing the distance in a blur, swiping its elongated claws at the Confessarius Guard's skull mask.

The executioner doesn't flinch.

He doesn't step back. He doesn't brace for impact. With a casual flick of his wrist, he brings his sword up.

Clang.

The blade meets the beast's claws with a screech. He parries without shifting his stance.

"Unfortunately, you gave me no choice," he murmurs, the words drifting from behind the bone mask like a winter draft. "What a pity."

He steps forward with liquid grace, slipping past the beast's guard, raising his arm.

He thrusts the blade forward.

No! A cold blooms from the center of her ribs, radiating outward, snuffing out the warmth of her will to live. The air leaves her lungs in a wet gasp. The phantom pain in my own chest is so agonizing that my mind tears itself in half.

My mom crumples. Her legs give out, her knees slam against the scorched, blood-stained stones of the plaza, and she slumps forward. The flames of the town, the explosions, the scent of ash — all of it muffles, slipping beneath a rising tide of ringing static.

"Li… li…"

The words bubble up through the metallic tang of her own blood. Our vision blurs, the edges of the burning plaza eaten away by a creeping darkness. The weight of death pulls her under, severing the tethers she fought to hold onto.

As my vision narrows into a tunnel of darkness, a shadow blurs across the periphery. The Confessarius Guard begins to turn away from our falling body.

Schhhhk. I faintly see him jerk. He falls forward, crashing into our fading view.

Protruding from his back, having cleaved through his asymmetrical armor, is a claw dripping with dark blood. The grey beast swiped its talons straight through him, striking the executioner down alongside her.

Its final duty fulfilled, the manifestation loses its anchor. The grey beast shatters into a cloud of glowing misty blue dust that rains down over the blood-stained plaza like falling snow.

The darkness swallows the ash-choked sky. The pain, the fire, the roar of the battlefield evaporate into a cold silence.

But right before the memory severs, a warm ember pushes through the freezing void. It tastes like honey… like my mom now. A last broadcast of unconditional love, wrapping around me just as the connection dies.

"Lita…"

The whisper echoes in the abyss. And then the hallucination shatters.

I gasp, my lungs burning as if pierced by freezing steel.

The abyss dumps me back into the waking world. My knees hit the damp, soil-scented tiles of the Convalescent Garden.

"Mom!" The scream tears out of my throat, my hands clawing at my chest, expecting the gaping wound the executioner's blade carved into us.

But there's no blood on my turtleneck.

As my vision clears, the green ferns and humid canopy of the sanctuary come into focus. But standing over me is not Miss Lena. It's Ms. Dobermann.

Her whip is uncoiled, the segmented metal dragging against the floor tiles. Her usual cracked black pepper and espresso has gone hostile, locked down.

Behind her, weapons drawn and stances wide, are Vigna and Miss Grani. Both are wound taut with adrenaline. They're looking directly at me.

"What…" I choke out, scrambling backward on my hands and knees until my shoulders hit a planter. "What happened?"

Ms. Dobermann's eyes are narrowed, cold and calculating.

"You are under arrest, Lethe," Ms. Dobermann commands, her voice cracking across the garden like the whip in her hand.

"What?" The word barely leaves my trembling lips.

Past the barricade of Vigna's lance and Grani's polearm, the sanctuary is in ruins. Broad-leafed ferns are slashed to ribbons, and several pots have been smashed into the dirt.

Standing near the edge of the foliage, trembling, is Podenco. Her yuzu and green tea has soured into a freezing spike of shock, and she's staring at me with wide, horrified eyes. Beside her, Miss Lena covers her mouth, her lavender crushed into weeping petals.

Near the center of the garden, a small group of Metal Crabs huddles in a defensive formation. A streak of fresh blood smears across the metallic shell of the front-most crab.

Miss Beanstalk is nowhere to be seen.

"You attacked Beanstalk," Ms. Dobermann states, her tone leaving no room for argument. "Come with us. Dr. Warfarin will conduct your medical and psychological evaluation in the high-security ward."

"What! No!" I scream, my hands flying to my chest, my fingers searching for the black shaft of my Arts Unit. "I didn't! There was a Confessarius Guard! A masked Sarkaz executioner! I swear! I saw him!"

"There's no one else here, Lethe," Miss Grani says, her voice trembling a fraction, stripped of its bouncy confidence.

I whip my head around, searching the shadows of the ivy and ferns for the refugee who walked in before my vision.

But I don't see the Confessarius Guard.

Looming in the humid shadows of the garden, silent, is an ash-grey beast.

It's the same manifestation I watched my biological mother, Lethia, summon in my nightmare.

And dripping from its elongated claws is fresh, wet blood.

I had done it again. Trapped inside that nightmare vision, I broadcast my mother's lethal protective instinct and ripped her Fear Beast into reality.

And it hadn't struck a Confessarius Guard. It had struck Miss Beanstalk.

I'm the monster in the garden.

The second my mind recognizes it, the tether anchoring the beast snaps.

The blood-stained construct shudders, loses cohesion, and shatters into a cloud of glowing misty blue dust.

I sit in the dirt, my hands trembling, staring at the empty space where my monster had been.

"Please… lock me up…"

I don't reach for my Arts Unit; the black shaft stays in the dirt. Pushing myself up from the damp soil, knees shaking, I keep my empty hands raised and visible.

"Lethe!" Podenco yelps, stepping forward, her hands reaching out toward me.

"Don't come any closer!" I scream, the words tearing out of my throat in a panicked sob. "Please…"

Podenco freezes mid-stride, her shoes skidding. Her ears droop flat against her hair and her eyes brim with unshed tears. Miss Lena is weeping behind her, but I can't look at either of them.

I can't let them near me. If my mind slips again, I could tear my family apart.

I lower my head, letting my asymmetrical fringe hide the terror in my eyes, and step away from the shattered ferns and the blood-stained dirt, falling into line behind Ms. Dobermann's rigid silhouette.

Miss Grani and Vigna fall into step on either side of me, weapons drawn, escorting the monster out of the sanctuary.

We march out of the doors, leaving the earthy humidity behind. The climate-controlled chill of the landship's main corridors bites at my skin. Every step feels like I'm dragging lead weights chained to my ankles.

"Where…" I whisper as we march, my throat lined with crushed glass. "Where's Miss Beanstalk?"

Vigna walks close beside me. Her voice softens a fraction, losing its tactical edge.

"She's in an emergency ward," Vigna says quietly. "Caladria is there with her. She's alive."

"Oh…" I choke out.

A tear slips down my cheek, tracing a hot path over my jaw and dripping onto the collar of my jacket. I squeeze my eyes shut and force my legs to keep moving forward.

We navigate deep into the medical deck. The air grows sterile, smelling of antiseptics, bleached linens, and cold steel. The overlapping chatter of the landship dies out. Ms. Dobermann stops in front of a reinforced blast door at the end of the hall. It's the high-security ward.

The hydraulic seals hiss, and the heavy metal door slides apart.

I walk inside. It's a clinical cell — a bed bolted to the floor, seamless steel walls, nothing that could be used as a weapon. I step into the center of the room, wrapping my arms around my own shoulders, my tail curling around my leg.

Vigna pauses at the threshold, her hand resting on the door panel.

"Dr. Warfarin will be here shortly," Vigna states, her voice back to its guarded cadence.

Vigna steps back, and the steel door slides shut. The mechanical clank of the external locks engaging echoes inside the small, sterile room.

I curl up there in the white light, alone with the monster inside my head.

After a few minutes, the clank of the external locks disengaging shatters the silence of the high-security ward. The seals hiss, and the blast door slides open.

Dr. Warfarin steps over the threshold.

There's no fear in her. No pity, either. Just clinical focus.

She stops in the center of the room, her red eyes locking onto me where I'm curled up on the floor.

"Don't look so despondent," Dr. Warfarin commands, her voice crisp against the walls. "Tell me everything, Lethe."

I squeeze my eyes shut, burying my face in my knees. The phantom blade in my chest still burns like ice against my ribs.

"I'm crazy…" I choke out. "I hurt Miss Beanstalk… I'm a monster…"

"That's not what I asked," Dr. Warfarin snaps. Her tone lacks any warmth.

I take a breath, the antiseptics of the cell stinging my nose, and force myself to lift my head and look at her. Trembling under the white lights, I open my mouth and begin to explain.

I tell her about the roar of Babel. I describe the ash-choked sky and the blood-red Originium Arts raining down on us. I tell her how I was trapped behind the eyes of my biological mother, Lethia, watching Ms. Raidian forced to run away.

Then I tell her about the executioner.

"There was a Confessarius Guard, at least my mom… Lethia said that…" I whisper, my voice fracturing. "He wore a bleached bone mask… and he moved like he was already dead. He stabbed her. He stabbed my mom right through the chest…"

Tears carve hot tracks down my cheeks as the last piece of the memory falls from my lips.

"Before she died… she begged Ms. Raidian to take care of Lita. And then she projected the beast. The ash-grey one with the misty blue wings… the one that attacked the garden," I sob, my hands gripping my own shoulders. "I am Lita. I am Lethia's daughter."

Dr. Warfarin freezes. She doesn't say a word. She just stands there in the center of the cell, and the metallic tang around her thickens into a dense weight that presses down on the air.

The silence stretches. The only sound is the ragged rhythm of my own breathing.

Finally, Dr. Warfarin's eyes narrow. "What happened before?" she asks, her voice dropping into a hushed octave.

I blink, my tear-blurred eyes staring at her. "Before?"

"Before the memory triggered," she clarifies, taking a step closer. "Genetic memories of that magnitude do not surface in a garden, Lethe. Something forced the resonance. What happened the second before your mind shattered?"

I swallow hard, forcing my exhausted brain to rewind. I think back to the humidity of the garden. Miss Beanstalk waving from the planters. Podenco and Miss Lena pruning the vines. Me, holding my digital clipboard.

And then, the doors hissing open.

The suffocating void.

"A refugee walked in…" I gasp, the blood draining from my face. My heart hammers against my ribs. I look up at her, terror paralyzing my lungs. "Dr. Warfarin! He tastes exactly like the Confessarius Guard! He felt like freezing surgical steel and congealed blood!"

Dr. Warfarin doesn't flinch.

She raises her hand to her communicator, turning her back to me. The metallic tang coming off her snaps into lockdown mode.

"PRTS," she barks, her voice carrying uncompromising authority. "Give me every recording of who went through that door."

"Dobermann. Whislash," she continues. "Take whatever Reserve Ops and Field Ops are on standby. Total lockdown of the landship, effective immediately. Secure all sectors. We have a high-level infiltrator on board."

Dr. Warfarin turns back to me. "Lethe," she says, pointing at the floor beneath me. "You stay exactly here."

I scramble up from the cold floor.

"I can track him down!" I cry out, taking a step toward the door. "Dr. Warfarin, please! He doesn't have a normal emotional resonance! I'd know him the second I got close!"

"Absolutely not," she snaps, shutting me down like a blast door slamming.

"But I can help! I need to fix this!" I plead.

"You're in no condition to fix anything, Lethe. That's why you're staying in this cell," she says, her voice lowering. She steps forward, backing me down. "You just suffered a catastrophic neural resonance. You manifested a lethal Arts Creation that nearly killed one of our own Operators."

"Get anywhere near that Confessarius," she continues, her words biting like a scalpel, "and the proximity to his resonance could shatter your sanity. Or worse — your survival instincts trigger that Arts Creation again in a crowded, locked-down hallway. You're a liability to yourself and everyone else on this landship."

The adrenaline drains from my chest. I stumble backward, my shoulders hitting the wall of the cell.

"I…" I stammer, my hands dropping to my sides.

"You sit down, and you do not move," she orders, her coat billowing as she turns on her heel.

She marches to the threshold of the high-security ward and punches the override code into the wall panel without looking back.

"That's a direct medical order, Lethe."

I'm left alone in the white light, locked in sterile silence while the same kind of monster that killed my biological mother stalks the halls of my home.

I sit on the bolted steel bed of the high-security ward. I don't know how long it's been since Dr. Warfarin left me alone in this white cell. Minutes? Hours? There's nothing to do in here but keep picturing the monster I made, over and over.

Then a shuffle echoes from the corridor outside.

The blast door muffles the noise, but the air in the room shifts. I taste the crystallized sugar of Lisa, layered with the yuzu and green tea of Podenco.

But there's a third flavor mixed in with my best friends — polished aluminum and peppermint, methodical and stressed.

"Sheesh," a muffled voice I don't recognize complains through the steel. "Why is Rhodes Island's encryption so secure?"

"Miss Almond, can you unlock it?" Lisa's voice chimes in. Even through the door, her tone rings with determination.

"Of course! I just need time," Miss Almond replies. "You two are going to get me into so much trouble. We're under a ship-wide lockdown!"

"Not if we save Rhodes Island!" Podenco declares fiercely.

My heart lurches. I scramble off the bolted mattress and rush for the door, hands raised, ready to slam my palms against the metal and beg them to open it.

But my sneakers skid to a halt just before the steel panel.

I take a step backward and look up into the upper corner of the cell.

Glowing there with a steady red light is a high-security surveillance camera. Dr. Warfarin is watching. Or PRTS is recording. If the door opens, Command will know.

"Lisa! Podenco!" I cry out, pressing my face as close to the seam of the blast door as I dare. My voice fractures into a plea. "Stop! You have to stop!"

The clicking of Miss Almond's decryption tools pauses on the other side of the steel.

"Lethe?!" Lisa's voice presses against the metal.

"You have to run away! Right now!" I beg them, tears welling up and spilling down my cheeks. "Dr. Warfarin ordered me not to leave! There's a camera in the corner recording everything! If you open this door, you're going to get arrested too!"

"We don't care about getting arrested, Lethe!" Podenco yells back.

"You don't understand!" I sob. "I don't have my Arts Unit! I left it in the garden! If that Confessarius finds us, I can't shield my mind! I will turn into a monster again, and I might hurt you! Please… please just leave me in here where it's safe!"

"I have it with me, you dummy." Podenco's voice filters through. "You dropped it in the garden, after all."

"Besides, Miss Eyja and Miss Erika approved this!" Podenco declares proudly.

I blink, stunned. Mom and Miss Adele authorized breaking me out of a high-security cell during a ship-wide lockdown? My strict mother — who mandated my broccoli intake — and my brilliant Leithanian tutor officially signed off on defying Dr. Warfarin's direct medical orders?

"They did?"

There's a suspicious pause on the other side of the door.

"Well," Podenco amends, her tone dropping into a defensive mumble. "Not yet. But they will! We have a command center set up in the Archives!"

I let out a ragged breath. They're going rogue?!

"We need you, Lethe," Lisa's voice cuts in, hardening into a shield. "The Reserve Ops and everyone are strong! But we're understaffed, and there's a super bad guy roaming our hallways."

"You can recognize him," Lisa pleads through the door. "And more importantly, you have that Beast thingy!"

The second she mentions it, the phantom image of the ash-grey beast with misty blue wings flashes behind my eyes — elongated claws dripping with wet blood.

"No! I don't know how to summon it!" I scream, scrambling backward. I wrap my arms around my knees, my chest heaving. "Or command it! It hurt Miss Beanstalk! I can't control it, Lisa!"

"We trust you, Lethe." Podenco's words are soft. There's no hesitation in her voice. No lingering fear of the blood-stained soil.

Before I can formulate a response, Miss Almond lets out a triumphant gasp. "There! Got it!"

The mechanical clank of the high-security locks disengaging echoes through the cell. The pneumatic seals release with a hiss of pressurized air, and the thick blast door slides apart.

The white light of my clinical cage spills out into the dim medical corridor.

Standing on the threshold is Miss Almond, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow as she stows her decryption terminal. Beside her are my two best friends.

Podenco doesn't hesitate. She ignores the surveillance camera in the corner, steps into the cell with her yellow ribbon fluttering, and thrusts her hands forward.

Held in her grip is my Arts Unit. The liquid suspended within the magnetic halos swirls with a quiet, steady mechanical rhythm.

I look at the staff, and then up at the determination in my friends' eyes.

"If you trust me…"

"Of course we do." Podenco's voice doesn't waver. She holds the dark, familiar shaft of my Arts Unit out further, offering it to me.

I take a slow breath, the antiseptics of the cell stinging my lungs, and reach out. My fingers brush the cold metal.

I wrap both hands around the shaft.

"Thank you…" I whisper. My voice fractures into a watery breath, but I grip the staff to my chest, anchoring myself to the present.

Beside the doorway, Miss Almond lets out a stressed huff and glances up at the blinking light of the security camera.

"You three owe me a month's worth of cafeteria lunches for this," she declares in a tight, hurried whisper. "Premium tier, no packed sandwiches. Do you have any idea the kind of firewalls I just had to brute-force? If Dr. Warfarin finds out I spoofed her high-security feed, she's going to personally hang me upside down from the catwalks by my toes."

She zips her toolkit shut with a rip.

"Now let's get out of here, before PRTS realizes the camera loop is fabricated," she urges, gesturing toward the dim medical corridor.

I step over the threshold of the cell, my padded sneakers hitting the hallway grates, and look up at her, my tail giving a nervous swish.

"Miss Almond," I ask, my grip tightening on my staff. "Are you coming with us?"

Miss Almond freezes. She stares at me as if I had just suggested we take a stroll into an active Catastrophe.

"Oh, nah," she rapid-fires, shaking her head as she takes a deliberate step backward. "I'm heading straight back to Engineering, and I'm locking the doors behind me. I fix elevators and communication relays, Lethe. I don't do hand-to-hand combat with assassins."

Beside me, Lisa takes a deep breath. Her nine fluffy tails sway in a slow, calculated rhythm as she looks up at the older Operator, her blue eyes widening.

Miss Almond's eyes snap to her. She throws both hands up in a cross, a rigid physical barricade.

"And no, Suzuran," she commands, pointing a warning finger at my best friend. "Don't you even try the eyes on me again. I'm not going to cave in. Twice in one day is my limit for defying the Medical Department."

Lisa stops. The tactic evaporates, and she smooths the front of her skirt.

"Okay." Lisa's voice rings with unfazed politeness. She steps back and offers the engineer a deeply respectful curtsy. "Thank you so much for your help, Miss Almond. We will make sure to bring you the best lunches!"

Miss Almond turns on her heel, her boots thudding against the metal grates of the deck. As she hurries away toward the nearest secure intersection, she mutters a rapid string of words under her breath that sounds distinctly Iberian.

"¡Carajo! ¡Qué tan boba para caer en eso!"

Beside me, Podenco slaps a hand over her mouth, stifling a giggle at whatever colorful phrase the engineer just used.

"Laura, you are in so much trouble this time," Miss Almond groans to herself, rubbing her temples as she disappears around the corner.

The silence of the high-security ward rushes back in to fill the empty space.

"Well," Podenco says, dropping her hand from her mouth. "Let's get to the Archives."

We don't waste another second.

We hurry down the corridors, moving as quickly and quietly as possible. The ship-wide lockdown Dr. Warfarin initiated is absolute. The normally bustling arteries of Rhodes Island are unnaturally empty. The overhead lights have dropped to their tactical settings, casting long shadows across the walls. The doors at the major intersections are sealed tight, and there isn't a drone or a roaming Operator in sight.

The silence is thick with the phantom tension of a high-level infiltrator stalking our home.

As we navigate deeper into the medical wing, approaching the primary surgical theaters, a wave of protective honey and sun-drenched fields cuts through the empty corridor. It's warm, unapologetic, undeniable.

I slow my steps, my heart giving a nervous flutter.

Standing just outside one of the closed surgery rooms is a familiar silhouette, leaning against the sterile white wall, her eyes shut.

Mom.

Her arms are crossed over her chest, and resting in her grip is her specialized focal staff. The mechanical puzzle-cube at its crest shifts and clicks with a restless energy.

As we stop dead in our tracks, mom opens her eyes.

"I knew it," mom says, her voice echoing cleanly in the empty hallway. She doesn't sound angry.

Beside me, Lisa steps forward, her hands fidgeting with the hem of her skirt.

"Miss Erika," Lisa stammers. "We just… we needed to get Lethe, because…"

Mom pushes herself off the wall, standing tall and imposing in her combat gear. She doesn't wait for Lisa to finish.

"Whatever you three are up to," mom states, her voice dropping into an uncompromising command, "you need adult supervision."

I stare at the resolve in my mother's eyes. The weight of the Confessarius stalking our home doesn't vanish, but with her standing here, it feels bearable.

"Okay…" I offer her a small, relieved nod. "Thank you, mom."

Mom gives me a brisk nod in return and takes the point position.

"Stay close, and keep quiet," she orders, her voice dropping into the hushed register of a Combat Medic.

We fall into a tight formation behind her, navigating the maze of Rhodes Island's middle decks. The blast doors block the primary intersections, forcing us to detour through the narrow secondary maintenance corridors.

After what feels like an eternity of dodging sealed bulkheads, we reach the reinforced doors of the Archives.

Mom presses her override clearance into the panel. The doors unlatch with a heavy clunk, and we slip inside, sealing the corridor behind us.

The Archives are submerged in shadow. The towering aisles of bookshelves are lit only by the emergency floor-track lighting. The familiar scent of old paper and binding glue fills the air.

We hurry down the main aisle. As we round the corner into the deep-storage geology section, I spot a familiar silhouette.

Huddled on the floor, boxed in by a precarious fortress of thick textbooks, is Mint.

A battery-powered reading lamp is clipped to the spine of an encyclopedia, casting a pool of white light over her lap.

"Mint?" I call out, pitching my voice into an urgent whisper.

She doesn't respond. The crisp mint leaf and parchment coming off her is flatlined into hyper-focused academic isolation.

I take a few steps closer, stepping over a discarded stack of geological surveys.

"Mint?" I say, a little louder this time.

Mint flinches. "Waaah!" she yelps, jumping straight up into the air.

Her jolt knocks the reading lamp askew. The tower of textbooks collapses, sending an avalanche of hardcovers sliding across the floorboards with a series of echoing thuds.

Mint scrambles backward against the bookshelf, clutching a journal to her chest like a shield. Her wide eyes dart through the dim light before locking onto us.

"Oh!" Mint gasps, her shoulders slumping in relief as she recognizes our faces. She lowers the book, blinking in confusion. "Lethe? Lisa, Podenco, Miss Erika… what are you guys doing here?"

I stare at her.

"What are we doing here?! The landship is in lockdown, Mint!"

Mint's ears give a bewildered twitch.

"Lockdown?"

"There's an infiltrator!" I whisper fiercely, keeping my voice low as I step closer to the collapsed pile of books. "We need to deal with him before anyone dies."

"Infiltrator?!"

"Yes," Lisa says, stepping up beside me, her voice hardening into something solid and unyielding. "We need to come up with a plan."

Mint stares at us for a split second. She looks at the serious expressions on our faces, the drawn Arts Units, and mom's tactical posture. She swallows her fear and nods, pushing herself up from the floorboards.

"Okay!" Mint declares in an urgent whisper. "Count me in. Where could he hide?"

I reach into my bag and pull out my slate. My thumbs fly across the screen, opening the structural schematics of Rhodes Island. The screen casts a blue light over our huddled faces in the dark aisle.

I pull up the landship layout, swiping to display the three primary cross-sections: the upper decks, the middle decks, and the lower decks.

Mint leans over the slate, her eyes darting across the blueprints. "Lower decks?" she suggests, pointing at the industrial schematics at the bottom of the screen. "Engineering and our primary engines are down there. A saboteur would definitely target there, right?"

I stare at the blue lines of the middle decks, tracking the path from the Convalescent Garden to the medical wards.

"But why was he in the garden on the middle decks, then?" I ask, my brow furrowing. "If he wanted to blow up the engines, he should have infiltrated the lower hull directly. The garden is right next to the medical and living sectors."

"Besides," mom adds. "Maintenance crews stay on duty through a lockdown, so there's quite a lot of Goliath workers down there right now. They're strong, and they know the engineering corridors better than anyone. An infiltrator wouldn't want to risk getting cornered by them in a closed space."

I look up from the slate, blinking. "What's a Goliath?"

Mom shifts her focal staff. "Unlike a Djall like you, Lethe, or Vampires like Ms. Closure and Dr. Warfarin," she explains quietly, "Goliaths are a non-Royal Court aligned Sarkaz branch. They are massively built and durable. Most of the frontline Sarkaz mercenaries you see are Goliaths."

The words drop into the dim aisle.

Unlike Djall or Vampires.

"…he isn't a saboteur," I whisper, the blood draining from my face. My hands shake, nearly dropping the slate. "He has to be an assassin."

"An assassin?" Podenco breathes. "But who is he trying to assassinate? Doctor and Dr. Kal'tsit are in Londinium!"

I stare at the map of the middle decks. I think about the Confessarius. I think about the Sarkaz Royal Court, the bloodlines, and the ancient politics that had murdered my biological mother.

Who else on this landship is a high-ranking Sarkaz bloodline connected to Dr. Kal'tsit and the medical department?

"Dr. Warfarin!" I gasp, terror seizing my lungs. I look up at mom and my friends, my eyes blowing wide in the dark. "He has to be after Dr. Warfarin!"

"Oh no!" Mint says. Her mint leaf and fresh parchment spike with worry. "Where is Dr. Warfarin right now?"

Lisa taps her chin. "She has to be on the bridge on the upper decks. She initiated the ship-wide lockdown. Command protocols dictate she would coordinate the security response from the primary bridge."

"Then she's heavily guarded," mom says. "The bridge is the most fortified sector of Rhodes Island, and PRTS controls all physical access vectors. Even a Confessarius couldn't just walk in."

"Then we should focus on hunting down the assassin himself," I declare, my voice steadying in the dim light of the Archives.

Mint adjusts her grip on her book, her eyes lighting up with an investigative thrill. "Maybe we can trace where he went from the garden?" she asks, pointing toward the corridor. "Shall we head there?"

I blink at her in confusion. "How?"

"You know!" Mint gestures vaguely, wiggling her fingers. "Can you not, like, taste the air? Follow his emotional trail?"

I shake my head. "Not unless someone's close by," I explain. "My Arts don't leave physical footprints like tracking mud. The resonance dissipates once the person leaves. If he's already gone, the garden will taste like the flowers again."

"Then we just go around the landship until we find him!" Podenco declares.

"Wait," Lisa interjects. Her crystallized sugar sharpens. "We could find where the refugees are hidden. If he's an infiltrator, he might be trying to blend in with the displaced crowds to avoid PRTS, or he may be waiting out the lockdown near their temporary quarters."

It makes sense. The Confessarius Guard had slipped onto Rhodes Island right under our noses. I think the only way he could have gotten past our checkpoints was by hiding among all the scared Victorian people pouring into our triage bays.

"Good idea," I agree, offering Lisa a firm nod. "Let's."

Mom steps forward, moving to the front of our small formation.

"Be very, very careful, everyone," mom warns. Her voice drops into an uncompromising octave that demands obedience. "We're hunting a ghost. Stay behind me, watch your corners, and do not engage unless I tell you to."

We give mom tight nods in unison.

The reinforced blast doors of the Archives hiss open just enough for us to slip through. We step out of the scent of old paper and back into the dim, locked-down arteries of the landship.

The journey through the middle decks is a nerve-wracking game of cat and mouse. Even with the ship-wide lockdown in effect, armed Reserve Ops and security drones are sweeping the primary intersections. Mom leads us, her seasoned instincts guiding our path. We stick to the shadows, pressing our backs flat against the cold bulkheads and holding our breath whenever the thud of a patrol's boots echoes down an adjacent hallway.

A large squad of armored Defenders marches past the main medical wing, forcing mom to gesture us into a narrow, unlit maintenance corridor.

The space is tight and claustrophobic, smelling of ozone, coolant pipes, and industrial lubricants. I grip the black shaft of my Arts Unit to my chest, trying to steady the hammering rhythm of my heart.

"Lita." The whisper is faint. It doesn't echo off the metal walls — it drifts directly into the hollow of my skull, carrying the smoky weight of the burning plaza.

I flinch, my sneakers stuttering against the floor, and squeeze my eyes shut, shaking my head. I must just be stressed, I tell myself, forcing the air into my lungs. The resonance from the garden must still be rattling my brain.

I open my eyes, looking at my friends to ground myself. Everyone else is still focused. Lisa takes the center of our formation, her eyes darting to scan the dark pipes and overhead gratings. Podenco and Mint flank her, their own focal units held at the ready. No one else heard it.

"Lita."

The whisper brushes against my mind again, louder this time. Lethia's voice? Mom…?

I stop walking. My spine turns to ice, and my tail drops.

Ahead of us, my current mom stops dead in her tracks.

Mom turns around, looking past Lisa and the others, her eyes locking onto mine.

"Lethe?" mom asks, her voice a gentle murmur cutting through the dark.

"Mom…" I whisper, taking a hesitant step forward.

But before my foot can even hit the metal, the world blinks.

The dim lighting of the maintenance corridor evaporates. The stench of industrial lubricants and coolant pipes is wiped away. The honey of mom, the sugar of Lisa, the yuzu of Podenco, the mint of Mint — all of it gone. Plucked out of existence in a fraction of a millisecond.

I stumble forward, catching my balance. The air that hits my lungs is different — clean, warm, smelling of old coffee and worn metal.

I look around. I'm standing in a brightly lit hallway. The pristine bulkheads of Rhodes Island have been replaced by utilitarian steel panels and exposed wiring. It's the old landship.

"Mom? Lisa? Podenco? Mint?!" I call out, spinning around to search the empty, illuminated corridor. I freeze.

I can speak. Looking down at my hands, I'm so small… I'm just wearing a simple Sunday dress.

I'm not myself.

A solid weight crashes gently into my back.

It isn't a lethal strike or an ambush. It's a clumsy collision, as if someone had rounded the corner far too fast and tripped over their own feet right into me.

"Lita!" The voice rings out, bright and breathless, full of fondness.

It's the same voice that had whispered to me in the dark of the maintenance corridor. It's the same voice that had screamed for Ms. Raidian to run away in the ash-choked ruins. But here it's stripped of the blood, the terror, and the dying rasp. It's alive.

I spin around, my small hands clutched to my chest.

She's standing right there. Smiling.

My empathic Arts brush against her, and a wave of emotion crashes over my senses. It tastes like a warm embrace, carrying the same unconditional love that had pushed through the freezing void just before she died. She tastes like mom…

I stare at her, my mouth opening and closing. Looking at her is like looking into an older mirror. She has my misty blue eyes, but above her crown rests a pair of smooth, symmetrical horns. Her woodsmoke-grey hair is shorter than mine, pulled back and tied into a practical nape ponytail that rests against her neck.

She's wearing a long grey dress that flows around her ankles, layered beneath a tailored black jacket. Emblazoned on the left shoulder is a triangular emblem that reads Babel.

My biological mother. Lethia. And she's looking right at me.

"Mo… mom?" I reach out, my small hand hovering in the brightly lit air.

She's so much taller than me. In this memory my perspective is shifted downward — I have to crane my neck all the way back to look up into her eyes. In this hallucination, I'm a little girl again.

Lethia smiles. The love radiating from her washes over me, drowning out the shadows of the maintenance corridor I had just been standing in.

"Want to go meet Theresa today?" Lethia asks, her voice light and melodic.

"Theresa?" The name drops into my mind like a lead weight. Theresa. The ghost of Babel. The name Dr. Kal'tsit had forbidden me from ever speaking aloud on Rhodes Island.

"Yes!" Lethia laughs softly, her smile bright and untainted by the ash and fire I know is waiting for her in the future. "Everyone's just relaxing today. No serious stuff."

Before my mind can process the gravity of where I am, Lethia reaches down. She grabs my hand, her palm warm and safe against my skin.

"Come on!" she chimes.

She pulls me along, and I'm forced to match her strides down the steel-paneled corridors of the old landship.

As we walk, a shadow falls over us. A skinny Sarkaz man with an easygoing posture is walking down the hall in the opposite direction.

My Arts brush against him as he approaches — well-worn leather, lubricant oil, and a quiet, steadfast loyalty.

"Good morning, Scout!" Lethia calls out.

The man pauses, offering an easy smile that reaches his eyes. "Good morning, Lethia and Lita," he replies, his voice carrying a calm depth.

My hand tightens around Lethia's fingers.

Scout?

I remember staring at the names of the fallen on the obsidian wall. Ace. Scout. The heroes who had bled out in the ruins of the Ursus city to protect Doctor and the landship.

His name was on the obsidian wall! How…

I just stare at him. Lethia squeezes my hand, looking down at me with a soft scolding.

"Say good morning, Lita," Lethia chides, nudging me forward just a fraction. "Where are your manners?"

I swallow the lump in my throat. I force myself to act like the little girl my biological mother expects me to be, fighting back the tears stinging the corners of my eyes.

"Good… good morning, Mr. Scout," I stammer, my voice fracturing over the weight of the greeting.

He lets out a low chuckle. "Taking Lita on a tour?" Mr. Scout asks, his tone easy and familiar.

Lethia squeezes my hand, her smile brightening. "Yep. Just going to meet Theresa. Hopefully, Amiya is there. Having a playmate is good for both of them."

Amiya… She's our CEO… no… she is… a child… What was I thinking?

"I think she might be," Mr. Scout replies, adjusting the strap of his gear. He looks down at me, his eyes crinkling at the corners with a parting smile. "Enjoy your time there, Lita. See you later, Lethia."

"Laters," Lethia replies happily.

"Thank you… Mr. Scout," I whisper.

I watch his silhouette turn and disappear down the brightly lit corridor.

As we keep walking, the hum of Babel's old engines vibrates beneath the soles of my shoes. The air is safe, thick with the honey of my mother's love.

But then a loud bang rips through the air.

I flinch. It doesn't sound like it belongs in the corridor. It's far away, distorted and muffled, like it's echoing from deep underwater — a phantom impact that makes the edges of the brightly lit steel bulkheads shudder, glitching with a localized burst of static.

"Lethe! What are you doing! Open this door! Where are you going!"

A voice bleeds through the glitching walls. It's weak, fractured, thick with a breathless panic that shatters the peaceful hum.

Lethe…

The name drops into my mind, foreign, yet it tugs at the core of my chest. My vision blurs for a fraction of a second. The brightly lit steel panels of Babel warp, threatening to give way to narrow, unlit metal and dark pipes. Lethe… who is Lethe again…?

I look down at my hands. They're so small. I'm just wearing a simple Sunday dress. Where is my oversized Rhodes Island jacket? Where is the black shaft of my Arts Unit with its swirling, misty blue liquid?

What… what is Rhodes Island again?

The landship… Babel's landship is named Rhodes Island right? Think… Le… Lita, think…

The stench of industrial lubricants and coolant pipes ghosts over the scent of old coffee.

I tighten my grip on Lethia's fingers.

"Mom?" I ask. "Do you hear that?"

Lethia pauses. She looks at me. Not a flicker of concern crosses her face.

"Hmm? Lita?" Lethia tilts her head, a confused smile touching her lips. "Hear what?"

The utilitarian doors hiss apart, and mom guides me inside by the hand.

The room we step into is a clean command office. Hexagonal lighting fixtures illuminate a sleek white meeting table that dominates the center of the room. Along the back wall, a bank of monitors displays topographical maps and cascading tactical data in cool blue hues. Yet despite the cold efficiency of the space, a small glass vase rests on the table, holding a vibrant bloom of orange flowers that breathe a touch of life into the sterile air.

Standing near the edge of the long table is a Sarkaz woman.

She's holding the hand of a small Cautus girl.

What bleeds off the woman isn't just warm — it's an ocean of unconditional love and aching sorrow. It feels like standing beneath a sun trying to warm a freezing world.

She's beautiful. Long pinkish-white hair cascades down her back, contrasting against black horns crowned with gold accents that frame her head. She's dressed in a white dress layered over a stark black collar, the fabric flowing with a regal grace that seems to swallow the harshness of the tactical room.

"Good morning, Lethia," the woman says. Her voice is soft, carrying a melodic cadence that settles the nervous flutter in my chest. "Good to see you again."

She turns her pink-hued eyes down toward me. Her gaze is so full of warmth that I want to lean into it.

"And morning, Lita," she smiles. "You have grown up."

Lethia gives my hand a reassuring squeeze. "Morning, Theresa," my mother replies. She glances down at the girl holding Theresa's hand. "And morning, Amiya."

"Good morning," I add. I step forward and offer Theresa a deep bow.

Theresa's smile brightens, the sorrow behind it parting like clouds. She looks down at Amiya.

"Amiya, mind if you show Lita around for a bit?" Theresa asks.

Amiya looks up, her expression serious but agreeable. "Okay."

She steps forward and takes my hand. Her palm is warm, and her grip is surprisingly firm.

But the second our fingers interlock, the white table fractures into a burst of static, and the scent of a crowded, wounded medical ward overwrites the air.

"Here, Lethe, a Lungmen bun."

An older Amiya flashes before my eyes. She's standing in the quiet darkness of a medical bay, her face lit only by the glow of the monitors, holding out a warm pastry in a crinkling paper bag, offering it to me.

Lethe.

I blink hard, stumbling backward just a fraction. The smell of the Lungmen bun and the antiseptics evaporates, slamming me back into the brightly lit office.

Amiya pauses, looking at me. Her blue eyes are filled with a quiet, confused concern.

"Lita?" Amiya asks.

I take a shaky breath, my fingers tightening around hers. My mind feels like it's being torn in half.

"Oh, nothing," I whisper, forcing a reassuring smile onto my face to hide the glitch in my reality.

I let Amiya lead me toward the far side of the command table, leaving the two adults to speak.

As we step away, the warm atmosphere between Lethia and Theresa shifts.

"Theresis is consolidating his forces in the outer ruins," Theresa begins, her voice dropping into a grave octave. "The Royal Court is fracturing further…"

Theresa continues, closing her eyes. Sorrow settles over the room like ash. "My brother believes slaughter is the only path to our salvation. But every life we lose… Babel or Military Commission… is a piece of Kazdel's soul dying."

"You have us, Theresa," mom assures her, her voice ringing with a fierce loyalty. "I'm sure… we can end the war… but Doctor… can we trust him?"

Amiya tugs on my hand, leading me away from the sorrowful tactical discussion between mom and Theresa.

She guides me toward the edge of the sleek white meeting table. Up on her tiptoes, her ears twitching, she points toward a small cluster of items resting near the monitors — a polished river stone, a little woven trinket made of dried grass, and the glass vase holding the orange flowers.

"I found these outside," Amiya whispers, her voice brimming with earnest pride. "To make the room look nicer for Theresa."

"They're beautiful, Amiya," I reply softly. I nod along.

Then, suddenly.

The air in the brightly lit office drops.

Amiya freezes. The vibrant orange flowers in the glass vase wither, crumbling into dead, grey ash.

A horrific, suffocating void floods my senses. It tastes exactly like ancient, freezing surgical steel, embalming fluid, and old, congealed blood that has been trapped in a lightless crypt for centuries.

"Good. Now let's go to Londinium."

I can't move. The brightly lit command office shatters like a broken mirror.

And then, there's nothing.

Absolute, pitch-black darkness swallows me.