They walked for blocks before Rhaene stopped.

  Not because she needed to, her body could keep going for hours yet, fueled by adrenaline and grief and the kind of stubborn rage that had kept her alive since childhood. But because her brain finally caught up with her body and screamed enough.

  She leaned against a wall, palms flat on the cold concrete, and took her first breaths since they'd seen the ruins.

  In. Out. In. Out.

  The city hummed around them, distant traffic, muffled shouts, the ever-present thrum of machinery. Normal sounds. Sounds that meant the world hadn't ended, even though hers just had.

  Arbor stood nearby, motionless, giving her space. His optics scanned the street, alert for threats, but his posture was soft. Waiting.

  Rhaene let out a long, shuddering breath.

  "What the fuck are we gonna do, Tinman?"

  Arbor's head tilted. "Clarify the parameters of the question."

  "I mean-" She pushed off the wall, gesturing vaguely at everything and nothing. "We got nothing. We got a name and a direction and a flower boy who looks like he'd faint if a strong wind hit him. We got no plan, no backup, no-" She stopped. Pressed the heels of her palms to her eyes. "We need to figure our shit out. That's what I'm saying. We need to figure our shit out before we run off half-cocked and get ourselves killed."

  Arbor was quiet for a moment. "That is... unusually self-aware."

  "Don't get used to it."

  Nerium, who had been hovering at the edge of the conversation, cleared his throat. "I, uh. I know a place. A cafe. Near the Academy. It's quiet, private- the owner doesn't ask questions. We could... sit. Talk. Plan." He glanced between them, hopeful and terrified. "If you want."

  Rhaene looked at him. At the earnestness radiating off him like heat from an engine. At the way he clutched his scanner like it was the only thing keeping him upright.

  "Lead the way, flower boy."

  Nerium nodded and started walking, his pace quick, purposeful. He glanced back once to make sure they were following, then disappeared around a corner.

  Rhaene moved to follow, but Arbor's voice stopped her.

  "A moment."

  She turned. Arbor stood motionless, his optics fixed on the spot where Nerium had vanished.

  "What?"

  "An observation." He paused. "Do you trust him?"

  Rhaene blinked. "The human? No way, man."

  "Then why bring him along?"

  "'Cause he's useful. 'Cause he knows things we don't. 'Cause..." She trailed off, frowning. "'Cause he was... friends or whatever with Cid. That's gotta count for something, right?"

  Arbor's processors cycled. "Friendship is not a guarantee of reliability. It can cloud judgment as easily as it can sharpen purpose."

  "Yeah, well, neither is paranoia, and you're not that good at hiding yours." She crossed her arms. "I know you tinman. You vouched for him, but you've been suspicious since he showed up. What's your read?"

  Arbor considered. "His story is verifiable. His emotional responses appear genuine. His skills are uniquely suited to our objectives." He paused. "However, the timing of his appearance is... convenient. He arrived at the scene shortly after we subdued the thugs. He claims to have been coming to Cid's apartment for three years. If that is true, why did we never encounter him before?"

  Rhaene's eyes narrowed. "You think he's working for the Boss? Like a distraction to throw us off. A red tuna or whatever humans say."

  "A red herring. I think we have insufficient data to reach a conclusion. I think we should proceed with caution." Arbor's optics met hers. "I think you should watch him. Closely. And I think you should be prepared for the possibility that he is not what he appears."

  Rhaene was quiet for a long moment. Then she nodded.

  "Gotcha." She pushed off the wall. "But for now, he's our only lead. We keep him close, we keep him watched, and we don't tell him anything we don't have to." She started walking. "Come on. Don't want to lose our flower boy."

  They rounded the corner to find Nerium waiting for them, shifting nervously from foot to foot. "I thought you weren't coming," he said. "I was about to go back and-"

  "We're here." Rhaene's voice was flat. "Lead on."

  Nerium led.

  Arbor and Rhaene followed, their eyes on his back, their minds cataloguing every detail, the way he moved, the way he checked over his shoulder, the way his hand never left his scanner. Potential threat. Potential ally. Potential something in between.

  No real way to know. So they just followed.

  The cafe was exactly the kind of place that shouldn't exist in Acedia, small, quiet, almost cozy, tucked into a corner of a building that had somehow survived since before the city decided to grow vertically and eat itself alive. Faded photographs of places that no longer existed hung on the walls. The chairs didn't match. The demon behind the counter had three eyes like Rhaene, but his were tired, half-lidded, the eyes of someone who had seen too much and decided to give up and just make coffee for the rest of eternity.

  He glanced at their group when they walked in and shrugged. He'd seen weirder groups. "Booth in the back. Don't cause trouble."

  They didn't intend to.

  The booth was worn leather, cracked in places, but it held all three of them. Rhaene sat with her back to the wall, eyes on the door. Standard practice. Arbor took the outside seat, his bulk blocking the view of their table from most of the room. Nerium slid into the middle, sandwiched between them, his scanner clutched to his chest like a lifeline.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  For a long moment, no one spoke.

  The silence wasn't empty. It was filled with everything, the echo of the explosion, the weight of the horn in Rhaene's pocket, the image of Aren's face every time she closed her eyes, the knowledge that they were here, alive, moving, while Cid and her little boy were...

  She couldn't finish the thought. Wouldn't.

  A cup appeared in front of her. She looked up. The tired demon had materialized with a tray, three cups, steam rising, something dark and bitter-smelling inside.

  "You looked like you needed it," he said. Then he was gone.

  Rhaene stared at the cup. When was the last time someone had just... given her something? No strings. No payment. Just because she looked like she needed it.

  She didn't drink it. But she didn't push it away either.

  Nerium broke the silence first, his voice a whisper. "I don't even know your names."

  Rhaene's eyes stayed on the door. "Rhaene."

  "Arbor." The robot's voice was flat, but not hostile.

  "I'm Nerium. I already said that. I'm repeating myself. Sorry." He was rambling again, the words spilling out like he couldn't stop them. "I just, I can't believe she's, I mean, I knew something was wrong when she didn't answer the door last week, but I thought maybe she was just busy, she gets like that sometimes, hyperfocused on an experiment, she forgets to eat, forgets to sleep, forgets that other people exist- "

  He stopped. Swallowed.

  "She forgot I existed a lot. That was okay. I didn't mind."

  Rhaene looked at him then. Really looked. At the too-large lab coat. At the singed edges from the chemical residue. At the eyes that were red and swollen but still somehow hopeful.

  "She never mentioned you," Rhaene said. The words came out before she could stop them.

  Nerium's head snapped up. "What?"

  "Cid. She never mentioned you." Rhaene's voice was flat, committing to the thing she had just said. "Given, I barely spoke with her. But even yesterday she didn't mention you."

  Nerium was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was smaller than before. "I wasn't really her friend, really. More so she tolerated my presence."

  "She tolerated everyone once or twice. That was her gift, as much as she put on a show of hatred and spite." Rhaene's hand moved to her pocket, touching the horn through the fabric. "But from what I know, if she actually let you keep coming back, that meant something."

  The silence that followed was different. Heavier, but not empty. Filled with something like grief, but also something like... acknowledgment.

  Arbor's voice cut through quietly. "We must get to planning. The thug mentioned a lieutenant. Cheshie. The name is unfamiliar to my databases."

  Nerium straightened, grateful for the shift to something practical. "Right, yeah. I've seen it. On delivery manifests. Cheshie signs off on Las-Venom shipments from at least three different suppliers in the Glitterdelve. I can access the full records from the Academy archives, delivery dates, quantities, even vehicle registrations sometimes."

  "You can get all that?" Rhaene's eyes were sharp now. Focused.

  "I've been tracking Cid's supply chain for years. Not to, I mean, I wasn't trying to, I just wanted to understand her work. What she was making. What she needed." Nerium flushed. "It sounds creepy when I say it out loud."

  "It sounds like research," Arbor said. "The application may have been personal, but the methodology is sound."

  Nerium blinked. "That's... surprisingly generous."

  "I am capable of generosity. It is simply not often efficient."

  Rhaene almost smiled. Almost.

  "The warehouse near the rail yard," she said. "Cheshie's main operation. What do we know about it?"

  Nerium pulled up his scanner, fingers flying across the surface. "Pre-collapse structure, originally a textile factory. Multiple floors, basement level, roof access. The blueprints should still be in the Academy's architectural archives, they keep records on every major building in the city for historical preservation purposes." He paused. "Well, 'historical preservation' is what they call it. Really it's so they know where to find the old maintenance tunnels when they need to move things without being seen."

  Arbor's optics brightened. "Maintenance tunnels."

  "Labyrinth under the whole district. Most of them are collapsed or flooded, but the ones that aren't..." Nerium met Arbor's gaze. "If we can find an entrance, we could get in without ever touching the ground floor."

  Rhaene leaned forward. "How long to get these blueprints?"

  "A few hours. Maybe less. I have clearance, I've done preservation work before, cataloguing endangered plant species in abandoned structures. No one questions me accessing old building records." Nerium was already standing, adrenaline overcoming his earlier shock. "I can be back before nightfall."

  "Sit down."

  He sat.

  Rhaene's voice was quiet but absolute. "You just watched your... whatever she was to you... you watched her apartment get turned into a crater. You're running on fumes and grief. If you go charging off, you'll make mistakes. Mistakes will get us killed."

  Nerium's jaw tightened. "I'm not-"

  "I know you're not." Rhaene's eyes softened, just barely. "But I've been doing this longer than you've been alive. I know what grief does to judgment. You want to help? You want to actually be useful? Then sit, drink your coffee, and let yourself process for five minutes before you run off and do something stupid."

  Nerium stared at her. Then, slowly, he picked up the cup in front of him and took a sip. His face scrunched, it was bitter, dark, probably terrible coffee by any reasonable standard.

  "It's bad," he said.

  "Yeah." Rhaene picked up her own cup. "It is."

  "The thug we interrogated mentioned that Cidney was their best cook. And that their Boss valued her abilities so much as to send a crew to retrieve her. This suggests that her value to the operation was significant. They would not have risked such an aggressive approach otherwise."

  Rhaene's grip on her cup tightened. "Meaning?"

  "Meaning that her death, if it occurred, was not the desired outcome. They most likely wanted her alive. The explosion was a contingency, not a plan." Arbor paused. "This does not change the current reality. But it may inform our approach. The Boss lost something valuable. He will likely be off-balance until the situation resolves."

  "So what you're basically saying is that we have a small window of instability or whatnot to act before we'll definitely get caught."

  "Precisely. Criminal operations of this scale rely on routine. Supply chains. Distribution networks. Lieutenants who report on schedule. We have disrupted that chain. We can exploit the window of this disruption."

  Nerium was listening intently, his earlier panic replaced by something like focus. "The Academy archives have records on all of it. Not just the buildings, the suppliers, the transport companies, the front businesses. If we can identify the weak points in his network, we can hit him where it hurts before we ever get near the warehouse."

  Rhaene looked at him. At this strange, brave, utterly out-of-his-depth human who had just lost the woman he loved and was already planning how to bring down her killers.

  "You're really something, flower boy."

  Nerium flushed. "I'm just, I have access. That's all."

  "Access and a reason to use it. That's more than most people have." She set down her cup. "Go. Get your blueprints. But take this." She pulled a small device from her pocket—a comm unit, battered but functional. "Arbor can track it. If you run into trouble, you hit the button and we come. Understood?"

  Nerium took the device, turning it over in his hands. "Understood."

  He stood, hesitated, then looked back at them. "I know you don't know me. But... thank you. For letting me help. For not just... leaving me back there."

  Rhaene met his gaze. "Don't care. Actions speak louder than words. We can have a heartfelt talk once this is all over."

  Nerium nodded, then slipped out of the booth and disappeared into the cafe's dim interior. The door chimed softly behind him.

  Rhaene stared at the space where he'd been. Then she looked at Arbor.

  "So. Thoughts?"

  Arbor's optics tracked the door. "His story remains verifiable. His emotional responses remain genuine. The timing of his appearance remains... convenient."

  "Yeah." Rhaene leaned back, rubbing her eyes. "I caught that too."

  "Will you watch him?"

  "Like a hawk." She let out a long breath. "But for now, he's all we got. We keep him close, we keep him watched, and we don't tell him anything we don't have to." She glanced at Arbor. "Sound good?"

  "Acceptable."

  The tired demon refilled their cups without being asked. The city hummed outside, indifferent to their grief, their rage, their desperate purpose.

  Finally, Rhaene spoke again.

  "She's really gone, isn't she? Cid. Aren. All of it."

  Arbor was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was softer than usual.

  "The evidence suggests that conclusion. However..." He paused. "However, I have observed that your sister is resourceful. And the child is... anomalous. Until we have definitive proof, the probability of their survival remains infinitesimally small, but non-zero."

  Rhaene looked at him. At the robot.

  "Based on what calculations?"

  "None whatsoever."

  "That's not logical."

  "No. It is not."

  Rhaene nodded and took another sip of the coffee.

  "This fucking sucks."

  She wasn't just talking about the coffee.