Page 98 of Pocket Wife

“One hour,” she says. “You gave me one hour.”

“I did.”

“Now I need you to help me fight.”

I lift her hand to my mouth. “Then we fight.”

We walk toward the meeting hall together, fingers linked, no longer two separate people trying to survive a war. We are partners, and partners do not let each other face the dark alone.

CHAPTER 33

LUCY

By the time I return to the meeting hall, everyone has learned a new word to hate.

Abandoned.

Someone has written it across the center board in heavy chalk.

Helix says: abandoned cultural property.

We can prove: civic record still in use.

They can hurt: removal from Solaris Valley.

I stop before the board and stare at the word until it stops frightening me and starts making me angry.

The hour away has not solved anything. It has not fed me, healed my side, or removed the pressure waiting on the other side of the door. But it has returned one thing Helix keeps trying to take from me.

I am not only a witness.

Not only a resident.

Not only a threatened name in a contested file.

I am alive.

And so is the valley.

Rethan comes to stand at my side. He does not touch me in front of everyone. He does not need to. His presence settles beside mine like a promise already made.

Jessa hurries over with two slates tucked under one arm. “The neutral preservation officer reached the cistern. The cylinder is still sealed. Torren is being unbearable.”

“That means he is scared,” I say.

“He told the officer not to breathe too close to it.”

Rethan nods. “A reasonable instruction.”

I look up at him.

He looks back, perfectly serious.

For one brief moment, laughter nearly escapes me. It does not last, but it reminds the room how to breathe.

Then Adjudicator Salo’s face appears on the main tribunal display. Director Kaun’s seal glows beside him. Advocate Sen occupies the third panel, composed and pale as frost.

“Miss Hartwell,” Salo says, “Helix’s preservation priority claim has triggered an emergency status review. Before the registry can be classified for custody, the tribunal must determine whether it is a civic record in active continuity or an abandoned cultural artifact.”