The building was quiet by midnight.
Neva had checked the pack rotation, checked the eastern boundary sensor, checked Bram's door — the specific half-open angle he needed, the lamp on its lowest timer setting, the sound of his breathing from the hall. Everything in its place. Everything accounted for.
She went to the roof anyway.
The access door opened onto a flat expanse of EMBER Studio's top floor, bordered by a low concrete parapet and a water tower that had not been functional since the building was converted. She had found the roof on her second day in the city, the way she found exits — before she needed them, while she still had time to make the finding deliberate.
She had stood up there in the cold and looked at the river and the bridges and the lit grid of the city spreading o
