Ren's hands were numb from gripping the rail.
The fog pressed like damp cloth against the hull and the Sussurro Curioso rode it low, baling silence into the seams.
Somewhere beneath the humming fabric, the tune of the Cantors still trembled in his bones.
"Drop the auxiliaries," Lin snapped, voice thin with the kind of focus that smells like oil and winter. "We need signature down."
Lin moved with the speed of someone who'd practiced panic.
He slashed lines, yanked cords, and the spare balloons sagged like wounded birds.
The crew worked as a single clumsy muscle; Kira's fingers found knots with a mechanic's certainty.
"Why burn them?" Ren asked, leaning in until the wind fought his teeth.
"They scent heat and lift," Lin said, hands never idle. "We cut thermal profile. They track residue, not watches. We wash your trace."
Ren's chest tightened around the pendant.
The fossil scale under his collar was a quiet, hot stone and the tuner in his pocket ticked with a worried stutter.
The bracelets Li had given him clinked softly as his wrists brushed the rail—tiny anchors to a home he'd left with a promise in his mouth.
"Do it quick," Kira muttered, sweat pricking her temple. "We don't want to become more interesting."
The Sussurro Curioso sank a finger's breadth into the fog.
The world narrowed to ropes, wet wood, and rope-smell breath.
The atmosphere tasted like metals and distant rain.
Ren's pulse thudded, a ragged drummer under his ribs.
The Echo in his head hummed a thin warning—one of those machine-notes that feels like a ledger being opened.
SUPPRESSION?
ALTERNATIVE: CONTROLLED OUTPUT.
Ren's mouth was froth of ideas and adrenaline.
The simplest thought leapt forward: use the form, flash strength, draw the Guild away.
It shone like a brazier of stupid bravery.
"No," Lin said before Ren spoke.
The word clipped him like a thrown rope. "You are not a decoy."
Ren blinked. "They'll follow a signal."
"And they'll follow you into a net," Lin returned. "Idiot plan. Your form is a beacon. It's your last card. Guard it."
Kira's jaw tightened. "He's not a firefly to be waved. He's our passage."
Lin reached into his satchel and handed Ren the small tuner Kira had made—brass clicking against leather.
"Breathe in, not out," he said. "Contract. Pull the resonance to a pinhole. You'll hurt; that's the price. But noise kills more than stealth."
Ren set the tuner to the smallest notch like a man choosing which rib to leave unbroken.
He pressed his palms to his knees and tried to fold his energy tight as a coin.
The muscle beneath the scar at his jaw clenched as if remembering the saw's bite.
"Anchor on the deck," Kira ordered. "Think of Li's bracelets. Think of repaired wings. Hold to something that's not you."
He cupped the fossil beneath cloth and felt the pendant's faint heat prick, as if the scale were a coiled thing waiting.
The Cantor's melody pushed at his mind like a wave against a sea-wall.
Ren let the wall become his bones.
"Contract harder," Lin urged in a low thread. "Empty the channels of tone. Let the tuner hum instead of you."
The tuner chirred and a low, tight pressure crawled through Ren's limbs.
Muscles went numb with the strain of holding power inside.
Sweat carved rivulets down his temple.
The Echo stamped a clinical note in his skull:
SUPPRESSION FORCED.
DAMAGE TO ENERGY CHANNELS: 5% AND RISING.
TIME LIMIT: 1 HOUR.
The digits glowed like red teeth.
Pain flared—a white flare behind the eyes, then a black, hollowed ache where breath wanted to explode.
To hold back felt like pinching an ocean with both hands.
"Breathe through your nose," Kira whispered, voice close and small. "Count to three and bite down. Don't sing back, Ren. Don't invite them."
Lin's hands moved with the method of a clockmaker; his eyes checked the sky's readouts and the Guild's position.
"They're sweeping. They'll pass over—breathe."
The Guild's hull swept above them, a polished shadow on white fog.
Lights skinned across the Sussurro Curioso like inspection lamps.
Ren's chest burned; each exposed nerve felt the Guild's sensor as if it were a cold tooth at the base of his spine.
The device on the Guild's prow—tiny, mechanical, polite—kept a metered tic-tac.
Ren felt that tick in the bones between his teeth.
The tuner squealed, a metal whisper that sounded too loud in the hush.
The Cantor closest below lifted its head and the song folded, searching.
Lin's hand found a cord and pulled it with the speed of a man cutting ties.
The Sussurro Curioso lunged, ballast letting the hull climb.
The cantors skimmed, eyes like pools of falling stars, and the Guild's sweep grazed them—close enough to feel wind like breath on skin.
Kira's knuckles whitened on the rail.
"Tie every knot twice," she breathed. "Don't let a loose end make a story."
Lin's mouth was a tight line.
"We passed," he said, and exhaled a breath that shook his shoulders.
The tuner spoke no more; its tiny light steadied.
The Echo sent a softer, cautious note: suppression holding.
Ren nearly let his shoulders drop.
The ache in his temples throbbed—proof the cost had been paid.
Each second of suppression nicked channels like a file on bone.
The Echo had been explicit about consequences; the ledger in his head listed them in small bites.
A collective relief moved through the crew like steam.
Lin checked seams and valves with the practised calm of a man who measures luck in inches.
Kira scrubbed hands that smelled of rope and salt and the little metal taste of fear.
"Good job," Lin muttered, but his eyes remained watchful, scanning for the tiny ticking beats that told of trackers.
Ren nodded once and rubbed the pendant through cloth until the fossil's crescent smoothed.
Li's bracelets tapped faint music as his wrists moved; a fold of memory of the old man's fingers on the map steadied him.
The fog around them thinned to wisps and life felt a notch brighter.
The Guild ship shifted, a slow hunched drift as if moving on to other business.
The Sussurro Curioso hummed itself into a cleaner breath.
Then—
A small, human sound cut the calm.
One of Lin's spare hydrogen balloons, tied to the stern with a knot hastily set during the dive, creaked as it warmed in residual heat.
Fabric stretched thin.
A thin, precise P-O-P cracked the air—a single punctuation.
The noise snapped like a whip.
Engines on the Guild's hull cut.
A clean silence fell that tasted like ink.