The sponsor panel flashed red above JJ's wrist.
PRIMARY VESSEL SELECTION REQUIRED
The words pulsed with the calm cruelty of a machine that had found a form to complete.
JJ backed away from it.
The panel followed.
"I hate your system," she said.
The King smiled from the center lane. "A common response from people facing responsibility."
"A common response from people being threatened."
"Responsibility often arrives with teeth."
The thing wearing Ty's skin pushed itself fully upright. The broken cuffs hung open from its wrists. Black smoke spilled from the metal and curled around its fingers.
The spectral hand tried to pin it again.
The body leaned aside.
Ty felt the dodge inside his own bones, like a door opening in his ribs a heartbeat after someone else had walked through it.
The body laughed.
"You feel that? I move, you learn. You move, I learn. We are going to become very familiar."
Ty lifted his skeletal hand.
Red light crawled along his forearm.
