I incline my head once. “Then we should move before the city remembers it owns roads.”
She glances down the steps where media clusters are already rearranging themselves around the newest feeds. “Do you actually know where we’re going?”
“Yes.”
That startles her. “You do?”
“Neutral transfer port on the western ring. Coalition processing can route civilian petitions there faster than the main orbital hubs. Pellorin implied as much while pretending not to help.”
Her mouth twitches. “I like him despite his vibe.”
“His vibe is mostly legal contempt.”
“Exactly.”
For the first time since the verdict, something like ease touches the edge of the moment. Fragile. Temporary. Real.
I offer her my hand.
Not because she needs help with the steps.
Because I want to ask cleanly.
She looks at it for half a second, then places her hand in mine.
Her skin is cool from the evening air. Her grip is firm.
Behind us, the tribunal glows white and gold against the darkening sky, beautiful in the dishonest way monuments often are. Ahead of us, the city is loud and fractured and full of people trying to decide what justice looks like when it finally arrives carrying receipts.
We turn away from the building together and start down the steps.
CHAPTER 31
SELENE
By the time the third delegation shows up, my tea is cold, the lamp on the corner of my desk has started that faint electrical buzz it makes when it’s been on too long, and the stack of reform proposals in front of me looks less like paperwork and more like an elaborate threat.
Outside, rain needles softly against the windows of the apartment the relief network found for us in neutral territory—high enough above the transit lanes that the city noise comes up blurred and distant, all engine-hum and occasional siren-wail, like the world happening through a wall. The glass is dark with weather. Every few minutes a mag-rail streaks past in the distance, silver-blue light cutting through the wet night before disappearing behind the neighboring tower blocks.
I sit at the narrow table in socks and an oversized sweater that still smells faintly like clean starch and the dry mineral scent of the building’s laundry system. My braid is half-fallen apart. My eyes burn. My lower back aches in that deep, low way I’ve learned not to ignore anymore. There are three compads open in front of me, one projection field hovering over the table in translucent columns, and enough annotated casualty-disclosure language on-screen to make a lesser person fake their own death.
The buzzer sounds again.
I stare at the door for one beat too long.
From the kitchenette, where he’s rinsing out a mug, Rhyx glances over his shoulder. “You do not have to let them in.”
His voice does that thing it always does in quiet rooms—fills them without crowding them. Low. Controlled. Worn around the edges by the day.
I drag a hand over my face. “I know.”
“You say that every time.”
“Because every time it remains technically true.”
A corner of his mouth shifts. Not quite a smile, but the shadow of one. He dries his hands with a towel, folds it once with ridiculous precision, and leans against the counter like he’s trying very hard not to loom while still being approximately the size of a transport problem.
The buzzer goes again.
