The city looked different when you walked toward the tower instead of away from it.
From Twelve-Lower, it was just another spike of glass and metal on the horizon, an angry needle sticking out of the skyline.
Up close, it was a fact.
Unavoidable.
Aiden kept his head down and his hood up as he followed Tal's maintenance route, letting the building grow in his peripheral vision instead of staring at it directly.
"Last chance to pretend you changed your mind," Kael had said, ten minutes earlier, at the mouth of a narrow service alley.
He'd been leaning against a rusted pipe, bandaged hands tucked into his jacket pockets, trying to look casual.
The effort had only highlighted how much he wanted to grab Aiden and drag him back downstairs.
"Pretty sure this is your line," Aiden had replied. "You could vanish into the older blocks, live off bad coffee and good chaos, never see my father's face again."
Kael had snorted.
