The city folds around me like a hand learning a fist.
Streets spool out in straight lines that forget how to turn. Towers lift with no windows, just the idea of observation. The sky is the color of a paused screen. I know I’m not standing—my body is in a chair with needles in my crown and Dominic’s fingers locked around a cable at my wrist—but here I have feet, and they touch pavement that hums with a pulse older than electricity.
Kane steps from a doorway that wasn’t there, all shadow and red light. He looks like himself and like a rumor; every edge of him is over-explained. “You see?” he says, arms opening to the quiet. “I didn’t build this. I learned it. Then I taught it obedience.”
“You taught it fear,” I answer. My voice doesn’t echo. The city swallows it and keeps the taste.
“Sam
