October, 1097

The rhythmic beep of the monitors is the only sound in the ward.

I sit still in the plush visitor's chair, my hands folded in my lap. I do not leave her side. For days, the sterile walls of this room have been our entire universe as Miss Sussurro, mom and the medical team fought to force the Originium crystals in Opal's lungs into dormancy.

Under the blankets, Opal's chest rises and falls, slow and even.

Miss Sussurro steps inside the ward again, clipboard in hand, her eyes sweeping the readouts above the bed. She lowers it and gives me a single nod.

Opal is officially cleared for discharge.

I reach out, my fingers resting over Opal's. "Ready to go, Opal?" I ask, my voice bright as a chime. "The garden is waiting for us."

Opal nods.

We walk slowly through the landship's metallic arteries, our joined hands a steady anchor. I had sent a direct message to Miss Lena, Podenco, and Miss Beanstalk hours ago. I told them the truth about Miss Sussurro's prognosis. I told them about the months.

I brace my senses as the doors of the Convalescent Garden open. I expect rotting ash, bitter sorrow.

Instead, a wave of warmth washes over me.

The three of them are waiting.

If they're mourning, they refuse to let it show.

"Welcome back, Opal," Miss Lena offers a flawless smile.

Opal ducks her head, shy.

"Come here, you two!" Podenco calls, her tail swishing fast. "I have something amazing to show you!"

I guide Opal down the path, into the annexed section of the greenhouse. Podenco waits in front of her row of micro-climate pods, chin up.

"Look closely," Podenco whispers, motioning Opal up to the condensation-beaded glass.

Opal leans in. Inside the terrarium, a web of white fungal threads pulses with a faint bioluminescence. The glow lies pale against the dark soil of the enclosure.

"It glows in the dark," Opal breathes.

"It does!" Podenco beams, hands on her hips. "We finally got the humidity regulators perfectly balanced!"

"And if you think that's cool, look at these little guys!"

Miss Beanstalk vibrates with entrepreneurial energy as she steps out of her nursery pen. She crouches and lifts one of her metal crabs into the air. The little critter clicks its claws.

Opal's eyes go wide. She takes a tentative step closer, her chin on the head of her plushie, watching the crab flail its legs. A smile tugs at the corner of her lips.

"They're very polite," Miss Beanstalk promises, setting the crab back on the floor tiles to let it scurry in a chaotic little circle.

Miss Lena comes up the path with a tray, and the garden settles. Steeped chamomile and warm grain fill the space. She pours the golden-amber liquid into delicate cups and slides them onto the table beside a heaped plate of her signature cookies.

I sit next to Opal with my hands around the warm teacup. She takes a deliberate bite of the tart cookie, and the crumbs drop onto the golden-brown wood. The dread of the medical wards feels a long way off.

Then, Podenco reaches under the table.

She pulls out a pristine cardboard box and slams it down in the center of our table.

Pioneers of Columbia.

"All right," Podenco declares. "I have an empire to run, and a win streak to maintain. You two ready to go bankrupt again?"

I bristle, slamming my teacup down. I turn to Opal.

"We're not going bankrupt this time, Opal," I announce, pointing at the smirking Podenco. "We're going to buy entire districts before she can even roll the dice!"

Opal takes in the colorful paper currency and the plastic playing pieces spilling out of the box. Her eyes flick to me, then to Podenco. Something competitive sparks in her gaze.

"Okay," Opal whispers, her ears perking straight up.

The corporate warfare commences. Plastic dice clatter through the humid air of the greenhouse. We move our tiny pieces across the commercial skyline of the board.

But today, the dice are, miraculously, on our side.

Every roll lands us on prime real estate. Opal counts our colorful paper money bill by bill, her fingers trading it away for plastic houses. We lock down the commercial zones, building a wall of high-rent properties right in Podenco's path.

Podenco shakes the dice, her brow furrowed. She rolls.

Her plastic piece hops across the board and lands on our most developed, most expensive property block.

The garden falls dead silent.

Podenco stares at the board. Then down at her dwindling pile of paper currency, and then up at the plastic houses Opal had just placed on the square.

"What?!" Podenco gasps, throwing her hands up in the air. Her ears go flat against her head in theatrical disbelief. "I'm going bankrupt?!"

I shoot up out of my chair, my tail giving a swish that nearly knocks over my teacup.

"We did it!" I cheer, both arms over my head.

I turn to my right. Opal is staring at the board, her hands still hovering over the plastic houses. Then it lands on her: we won.

Her shoulders shake. The edges of her lips tremble upward and break into a wide smile. A giggle tears out of her throat, musical and uninhibited.

"Opal! We win!" I exclaim, bumping my shoulder against hers.

"We win," Opal echoes, her laughter ringing through the leaves of the Convalescent Garden.

I look up and catch Miss Lena's eye across the table. She's smiling, her eyes wet with tears she doesn't let fall. For today, at least, there is nothing in this garden but light.

The walk back from the Convalescent Garden to the quarantine ward is quiet, and it's a comfortable kind of quiet. Opal holds my hand, her other arm wrapped around her brown plushie.

We step into her ward. The air shifts back to ozone and bleach. I help her settle onto the mattress, my tail swaying.

Before I can even pull the blankets up for her, the doors slide open again.

Mom steps inside. She carries a small metal tray lined with measured doses of suppressants stamped with our logo, and a glass of water.

"Opal," mom says, her voice soft. "Time to take your meds."

Opal's ears flatten a fraction, but she gives a brave little nod and reaches for the small plastic cup.

I know this routine. The medicine is heavy, and it usually makes Opal drowsy.

I give Opal's hand one last squeeze and stand back up.

"I'll see you for dinner, mom." I give them both a small wave. "Rest well, Opal."

Mom flashes me a fond smile, and Opal gives a tiny wave of her plushie's paw as I step backward.

I need a change of scenery. The Archives and their silence will do.

I find her at our usual table.

Miss Adele sits with her magnifying glass over a wide topographical map.

I pull out the chair beside her and sit down.

"Miss Adele," I begin. The contour lines on her map swirl in tight rings. "Can you teach me about Wolumonde? About how a Catastrophe like the Great Rift can happen?"

Miss Adele lowers her magnifying glass. Her kind eyes meet mine with a quiet understanding.

"Of course, Lethe," Miss Adele says. She turns on her slate to a spread detailing the tectonic plates of the region.

She points at the jagged tear illustrated across the map.

"A Catastrophe like the Great Rift doesn't just happen on the surface," Miss Adele explains. "It is a violent, subterranean rupture. Deep beneath Wolumonde, the fault lines were subjected to massive, localized Originium pressure."

I lean forward, chin on my hands, absorbed.

"When the pressure became too great, the plates shifted catastrophically," she continues, tracing the jagged line. "It tore the land apart, creating a chasm so vast and deep that it swallowed the surrounding terrain and completely isolated the town. It severed their logistics routes and their communication lines, leaving them stranded in the wake of the earth's wrath."

The geological rendering sits there under the lamp. The planet itself can rip its own surface open and swallow a town.

I spend the rest of the afternoon buried in the maps, the banked heat of Miss Adele's presence beside me as she untangles the mechanics of the world for me.

Evening falls. The landship shifts into its night cycle, the crisp white lights dialing down to a bruised amber.

I wait near the primary intersection of the residential block. The air is quiet.

Footsteps echo down the hall. Slow. Dragging.

Lisa turns the corner.

She looks so small. Her nine tails, which usually sway with a music of their own, drag against the cold steel floor.

I drop my staff.

I rush forward and wrap my arms around her.

"Lisa." My voice cracks.

She doesn't hug me back. Her arms hang at her sides. She lifts her head slowly. Her eyes, always the brightest thing in any room, are hollow and swimming with tears she hasn't let go.

She looks at me, her lower lip trembling.

"Dr. Atro…" Lisa whispers. "…she is gone."

The dam breaks. She collapses forward, her face buried in the shoulder of my oversized jacket, her hands finally coming up to fist the fabric at my back. A sob rips out of her.

I don't say a word. I hold on, my face in her hair, and let the scorched bitterness of her grief wash over me as she weeps for the friend they couldn't bring home.

We don't stay standing. My legs give out under the weight of her grief, and we sink together onto the cold floor.

I don't let her go. My arms stay around her. We sit there a long time, the silence of the landship's night cycle broken only by her wet hiccups.

The ash of her sorrow sits on my tongue and I leave it there. I don't use my Arts to siphon it away. Amiya's lesson is clear in my mind. If I steal this grief from her, I steal the memory of Dr. Atro, too. So I hold her, and let my own warmth be the one steady thing against the storm inside her chest.

Eventually the shaking slows. Her exhale is long and ragged against my jacket.

I pull back just enough to see her tear-streaked face.

"What happened, Lisa?" I ask, barely above a whisper.

Lisa swallows. Her tails pull in tight around her legs.

"The town… they hated each other, Lethe. The Winterwisps and the Elafians… they were actively tearing themselves apart from the inside."

She stares at the floor between us, her hands gripping the fabric of her skirt.

"They have these massive, towering machines in the town," Lisa whispers, her eyes wide with a terror that is not in this corridor. "They call them Gramophones. They're giant Originium Arts conductors. They were supposed to be used for music Arts to keep the city safe from invaders. But when the riots started… they turned them into weapons."

The horror of it drips from her words.

"The Casters hijacked the towers. They used them to rain down massive, blinding strikes of Originium Arts directly into the streets," Lisa chokes out, her breath hitching. "It was deafening. The sky was just constantly flashing, and the ground wouldn't stop shaking. People were being incinerated by their own city's phonographs…"

"But the people…" Lisa continues, a fresh tear carving a track through her cheek. "The Winterwisp rebels… the Blood Shamans…"

The flavor in the air drops to absolute zero. Cold copper and rusted iron, so strong my teeth ache.

"They used their own blood to cast their Arts," Lisa sobs, her voice thinning to a whimper. "They didn't care if they died. When they fell… their bodies would violently erupt into these massive, toxic bursts of Originium Arts. They just exploded, Lethe. It didn't matter who was standing nearby. The guards, the innocent people trying to run, their own friends… the Shamans just blew themselves up to spread the infection and the fire."

I stare at my best friend. The bright girl who packed her woven wicker basket for a festival had been made to walk through a burning town where people were turning their own bodies into bombs.

"Dr. Atro…" I prompt gently, though it hurts to ask.

Lisa buries her face in her hands, her shoulders shaking with a fresh wave of sobs.

"She just wanted to help them," Lisa cries, the words tearing out of her raw throat. "She didn't care if they were Winterwisps or Elafians. She didn't care if they were Infected. She was just trying to pull the wounded out of the crossfire. But they were so blinded by their hatred… they didn't see a Medic. They just saw someone in the way."

She looks up at me, her eyes shattered by the senselessness of it.

"She was caught in the middle of a riot, Lethe. The town tore itself apart, and they took her with it."

The silence of the corridor presses down on us. Dr. Atro didn't die fighting a monster. She died because the people she was trying to save hated each other so much they stopped caring whether they lived or died. I don't understand it at all.

"I'm so sorry, Lisa," I murmur, my own tears finally spilling over to drop onto our joined hands.

"I was so scared, Lethe," she whimpers, leaning forward to rest her forehead against my shoulder. "I tried to use my Arts… I tried to slow them down, to make them stop hurting each other… but there was just too much hate."

"You were brave," I whisper fiercely into her hair. "You walked into the dark to find her. You did everything you could, Lisa. You survived."

I wrap my arms around her again, holding her against the cold steel of the landship. I can't erase the burning towers or the blood-soaked streets of Wolumonde from her mind, but I can make sure she never has to carry those ashes alone.

"Come. Lisa. Lethe. It is getting late."

The voice cuts through it.

I lift my head from Lisa's hair. Down the corridor, in the bruised light of the night cycle, stand mom and Miss Lena.

Mom steps forward.

"Have some dinner, and go to sleep," mom murmurs. She kneels beside us, one hand resting on my shoulder, the other cupping the back of Lisa's head.

Miss Lena steps up beside her. Her expression is a quiet promise of safety.

"We're leaving Kazimierz in a few days," Miss Lena says, her voice a melodic hum in the quiet corridor. "We are moving on."

The words settle over us like a warm blanket. The landship is going to keep moving, carrying us away from the dark.

Lisa sniffles, her breath hitching. She lifts her face from my jacket. Her eyes are red and swollen, her tails still limp against the cold floor.

I don't let go of her. I shift my weight and push myself up from the steel floor, one arm still around her waist. Mom's hand guides my shoulder, giving me the leverage I need as I help pull my friend to her feet.

"Come on, Lisa." I manage a small smile. I reach down and pick up my Arts Unit from the floor, my fingers curling around the handle. "Let's go get some food."

Lisa gives a tiny, exhausted nod. She leans her weight against my side.

Mom and Miss Lena don't rush us. They walk close, a quiet barrier around us as we make our way down the dim corridors of our home, walking together toward the promise of tomorrow.