By the time the light outside shifts toward full daytime, my nerves feel scraped raw. The air here changes without warning, not with the slow honesty of a setting sun over water, but with precise dimming that feels decided rather than earned. The city does it all at once, lights blooming to life in orderly rows, glass towers catching and bending the sky glow like polished gems. I don't trust this place.

  Thalia, she calls herself, moves ahead of me with purpose, her stride quick, shoulders squared, eyes forward. She looks like she belongs here in a way that makes my skin crawl. It's like the city recognizes her and steps aside. People pass us without more than a glance, their attention caught by glowing screens, floating signs, the quiet hum of whatever powers this unnatural place. No one looks at me twice, just like she said, and that bothers me more than being stared at would. In my world, strangers assess. But here, they assume.

  We stop in front of a building that rises like a slab of clean stone and light. No banners, no guards, not even a visible door until Thalia steps close and presses a small card against the wall. The surface ripples, hums, and then parts. I stiffen instantly, weight shifting to the balls of my feet, hand twitching toward where my blade would normally be if I were allowed to wear it. She said that would draw negative attention, and begged me to leave it back at her apartment. I really enjoyed hearing her beg.

  She reaches back and grabs my hand without warning.

  It's sudden enough that my body reacts before my mind can catch up. My fingers curl reflexively, grip tightening, muscles tensing as if to pull free or pull her closer, I'm not entirely sure which. I don't like being led. I am the leader. I don't like being touched without warning. But there are people nearby, eyes half on us, half on nothing at all. And whatever this place is, I can feel it watching.

  So, I let her pull me inside.

  The door seals behind us with a soft sound that makes my skin prickle. The air changes again, cooler, cleaner, and somehow stripped of any scent. I roll my shoulders once slowly in a stupid attempt to ground myself and remind myself to breathe. Thalia drops my hand immediately, as if realizing only then what she'd done. She doesn't look back at me, just keeps moving, heels of her shoes clicking sharply against the floor.

  The inside of the building is worse than the city outside. Everything is smooth and bright and exposed. Long tables made of what looks to be metal and glass line the room, covered in tools I can't even begin to recognize, surfaces glowing faintly with lines and symbols that shift when we pass. Lights hum overhead without flame or smoke. There are no shadows deep enough to hide in, and there are no corners that feel safe.

  I fucking hate places like this, places that are clearly designed to be able to see everything.

  We walk through the main room without stopping, Thalia navigating it like she's memorized every step. She doesn't slow or hesitate; she just pushes through a second set of doors toward the back of the room. I clock the exits as we pass them. There are far too many. This place is too open and too clean. This place would eat a man alive and not leave any mess to be noticed.

  I want to go home.

  When we reach the rear section, the space tightens, walls closing in slightly, machines clustered together like watchful animals. This room hums louder, the sound layered and restless. Screens of some sort line the walls, filled with crawling lines, flickering shapes, and endless columns of symbols that mean nothing to me but feel heavy with intent.

  Thalia exhales as if she's been holding her breath since we arrived. She sets her bag down, pulls her tablet free, and immediately starts working. Fingers fly across surfaces that respond like trained beasts, lights shifting, images changing, data flowing at her command.

  I watch her without meaning to. It isn't desire at first, not the sharp, instinctive kind I recognize, but something quieter and more dangerous: attention. Thalia's skin catches the lab's light in warm tones, tawny against the sterile white of the room, like she doesn't quite beling to the place no matter how confidently she moves through it. Her hair refuses order entirely, a riot of dark curls spilling down the middle of her back, escaping whatever half-hearted attempt she made to tame it. It looks soft and wild and alive in a way I can't quite put my finger on.

  She has a weight to her, real and undeniable, curves that fill the space she occupies instead of apologizing for it. I notice the way she stands, how she shifts her hips as she works, like she's bracing herself against a world that might push back. There's tension there, a guardedness I recognize far too well. People don't grow insecure in places that let them exist without judgment, and I've been judged my entire life.

  The glasses she wears surprise me the most. Gold frames, oversized, slipping down the bridge of her nose as she moves. They soften her in a way that feels nearly unfair, catching the glow of the screens and throwing it back in brief flashes of light. Behind them, her eyes are sharp and watchful, hazel threaded through with gold, like sunlight caught deep in water. They miss very little, least of all me.

  There's something diarming about the contrast; the mind built for machines and systems housed in a body that looks like it should belong somewhere warmer, messier, more human and free. She doesn't see herself the way the room does, I think. She doesn't realize she stands out here. Or maybe she does, and she doesn't care.

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  I look away before the thought finishes forming, unsettled by how easily my attention settled on her, by how naturally the world seems to narrow the space she occupies.

  She's different here. Not softer, not gentler, but sharper. More precise. Whatever uncertainty she carried in the ruins is gone, replaced by something steady and dangerous. Confidence. I've seen it before, usually in captains just before they make a call that changes everything.

  I don't interrupt. I don't ask questions. I sit when I'm told to sit, choosing a chair near the wall where I can see the door. The thing looks harmless enough, all sleek metal and padded surface, but I don't trust it. I test its weight carefully before committing.

  Thalia doesn't notice. Or maybe she just pretends not to. That might bother me more.

  The chair creaks softly under my weight, adjusting itself without my permission. I freeze, muscles locking, eyes flicking down as the seat shifts, contouring to my body like it's tasting me. I swallow the instinct to stand and pace. Panic wastes energy.

  Across the room, Thalia pulls up a wall of shifting lines that remind me uncomfortably of storm readings back on deck, the way the sea speaks if you know how to read it. These lines are sharper, angrier, clustered tight in places that make her brow furrow.

  She mutters to herself as she works, words slipping out too fast for me to catch. Fracture. Spike. Timestamp. Cross-reference. I don't understand the language, but I understand the tone. This isn't curiosity, it's confirmation hunting.

  I lean back slightly, testing the chair's limits, and feel something give beneath my hand. A lever. I glance at it, then at the rest of the chair. Adjustments make sense. Height, balance, maybe restraints. I've seen worse.

  I pull it.

  The chair drops back suddenly, far faster than I expect, the back slamming down as my balance vanishes. For half a heartbeat, I'm weightless again, stomach lurching, muscles scrambling for purchase as I fall into empty air that isn't empty at all. I land hard against the padded back, breath knocking loose in an undignified sound.

  I recover instantly, because that's what I do. I brace, haul myself upright, face carefully neutral. The chair settles as if nothing happened.

  Thalia stares at me. For one long, horrible second, she says nothing. Then she turns back to her screens far too quickly, shoulders shaking just enough to give her away before her laughter rings through the room like a bell.

  "Design flaw," I mutter.

  She clears her throat. "User error."

  I glare at the back of her head, then force myself to look away. Embarrassment is a weakness. I bury it where it belongs.

  The machines around us keep humming, indifferent to my wounded pride. One of the screens flashes red briefly before settling into a pulsing amber glow. Thalia stills completely.

  "That's not good," she says quietly.

  I straighten. "You going to tell me why?"

  She hesitates, just a fraction, but enough that I notice.

  "I'm seeing a disruption pattern," she says. "From earlier today. It wasn't classified as a quake, exactly. Too localized. Too sharp."

  My jaw tightens. "You're talking about me."

  Her fingers pause over the screen. She doesn't look at me when she answers. "Yes."

  I let that sit between us. In my world, being noticed like this gets men killed. Or hunted. Or both.

  "And what happens now?" I ask.

  She exhales slowly. "Now I try to figure out how much attention it drew."

  "And if it drew a lot?"

  Her silence answers that well enough.

  I study the screens again, the crawling lines and flickering symbols. I don't know how to read them, but I know a net when I see one being cast. This world measures things. Catalogues them. Puts them in boxes with neat labels.

  I have never fit in a box.

  "You should've left me in the ruins," I say, not accusing. Just stating a fact.

  She finally turns to look at me then, eyes sharp. "And let you die?"

  I shrug. "Wouldn't be the first time someone tried."

  Her expression tightens. Not guilt or frustration. Fear, maybe, tucked deep where she won't let it breathe.

  "I didn't bring you here to hand you over," she says. "If that's what you're worried about."

  I believe her. That's the problem.

  ***

  The lab feels smaller the longer we stay, like the walls are leaning in to listen. I shift in the chair, careful now not to touch any more levers, and keep my eyes on Thalia as she works. She's pulling data from deeper archives now, older records she said, her tablet projecting layered images that stack and merge until my head aches just looking at them.

  How does she do this all the time? I think to myself.

  Outside the narrow window at the back of the lab, the city glows brighter against the darkening sky. Lights trace paths through the streets like constellations brought to ground. Everything here moves with purpose, synchronized, as if chaos is something that happens to other worlds.

  I think of my ship, of rigging snapping in high wind, of decks slick with rain and blood, of stars that don't care whether you live or die. I think of falling through nothing into something that shouldn't exist. I think of my crew, the closest I had to calling people friends. I wonder what they're up to now. I bet Mara is running things. Jerrick better now be fucking anybody in my--

  "You keep looking at it like it's going to bite you," Thalia says without turning, bringing me back into the present.

  "I've been hurt by calmer things," I reply.

  That earns a quiet huff of laughter, quickly smothered. She taps a final command into the system, then leans back against the table, arms folding across her chest.

  "There was a record," she says. "Not public. Not flagged yet. But it's there."

  "How long until it is?"

  She meets my gaze. "Hours. Maybe a day, if I'm lucky."

  "And then?"

  "Then people start asking questions."

  I nod slowly. That tracks. In my experience, questions are just the polite word for trouble.

  "If they come looking," I say, voice low, "you walk away."

  Her eyes narrow. "That's not how this works."

  "It is where I'm from."

  "This isn't where you're from."

  "No," I agree. "But I am."

  Silence stretches again, heavier this time. She studies me like she's trying to solve a problem without the right pieces, and I get the uncomfortable sense that she's starting to realize how sharp the edges of that problem are.

  "We'll figure something out," she says finally, though there's less certainty in her voice than before.

  I don't argue. Hope is a fragile thing, and I won't be the one to break it yet.

  But as the machines continue their quiet watching, lines scrolling endlessly across glowing screens, I can't shake the feeling that my arrival here wasn't an accident. And whatever pulled me through worlds isn't finished with me yet.

  And I suspect, neither is she.

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