The fabric in Eira's hand still carried warmth when the door hissed open.
Ysel stood there, arms folded, her eyes sharp—not angry, but searching. Worried.
"You two were off-grid for nine minutes," she said. "You know that's long enough for the system to flag us."
Kael stood first. "We were careful."
"I know you were." Her voice wasn't biting, not exactly—but tight. "That's what scares me."
Eira slowly rose. "Scares you?"
Ysel stepped into the chamber. "Because careful people get confident. And confident people get seen."
Kael frowned. "You think we're reckless."
"I think you're vulnerable," Ysel corrected. "And Aurelis knows how to smell that."
Eira flinched—not visibly, but inside something recoiled.
"We're not falling apart," Kael said. "You think emotions are a weakness. They're not."
Ysel's face hardened. "They're dangerous. Not because they're bad—but because this city is built to devour them. The more you feel, the more it watches."
She paused. "That's why I'm saying this now. Before it's too late."
Eira looked at her, really looked—and saw it now. The tightness in Ysel's voice wasn't superiority. It was fear.
"Ysel," she said softly, "you're afraid we'll end up like someone you knew."
Ysel looked away.
Kael's voice gentled. "Who did you lose?"
Ysel didn't answer. Just turned to the door and murmured, "Everyone who loved out loud."
Ysel didn't return to the safehouse.
She needed movement.
The corridors on Level 9 weren't monitored at this hour—too close to the coolant grid. Damp floors, walls slick with filtered condensation. The city didn't like moisture. It made things unpredictable.
She liked this place.
Not for comfort.
For memory.
Her boots padded quietly down the curved hall, bypassing an old service node. She slipped a broken ID chip from her sleeve and tapped it against the panel. The screen blinked once. Denied.
She did it again.
And again.
On the fourth tap, the panel flickered—long enough to cast a distorted reflection.
Two figures. Her, and a boy behind her.
Just a glitch. A lingering echo from a recorded access log.
But it was enough.
Ysel stepped back. The air here always smelled like static. And soap. Too clean to be natural. She used to make fun of that. So did he.
Joren.
That had been his name.
She crouched beside the base of the wall where the panel met floor. Her fingers found the faint groove, still carved into the seam after all this time. A symbol—half a letter, unfinished.
His mark.
They'd made it during a systems blackout, just before they were supposed to split. She hadn't wanted to. He said splitting up was tactical.
She thought it was cowardice.
He'd smiled. "Not cowardice. Insurance."
He'd promised to come back.
She still remembered the weight of his breath behind her when he said it.
Ysel sat back against the wall, spine straight, arms folded. Still, always still. Stillness gave you room to remember.
He'd been louder than her. Warmer. Called her "cold-light." Said she didn't laugh enough. Always tried to get her to—jokes about how they'd hack into the memory dampeners and replace the administrator's core directive with piano music.
They had plans.
Big ones.
But Joren felt too much. That was his flaw.
They'd flagged him for emotional deviation before he ever got caught. Not for what he did—just for how he felt.
She saw the drone footage once. Not officially. She sliced through a memory partition to find it. Just static, a shout, then nothing.
The city absorbed him.
No mark. No trace.
Except this one.
She rested her hand on the carved half-letter.
"I'm not angry you left," she said aloud, voice barely above breath. "I'm angry you believed in us more than I did."
The panel blinked behind her again.
Present time, present place.
Back to now.
Back to risk.
Back to seeing the others she viewed as reflections—shadows of old mistakes she swore not to repeat.
Ysel stood. Tightened her coat. Set her jaw.
She wouldn't lose another set of names to the void. Not because she got sentimental. Not because she hoped.
Because this time, she would be the one who stayed behind to make sure the others got out.
Even if they never looked back.