The trees got tighter the longer they walked.

  Not in a slow way, like a forest deepening.

  In a sudden way, like the world decided it wanted walls.

  Air tastes wet-metal.

  Isaac kept his wings half open anyway, not for swagger, just because the branches were wrong, and he liked having something between his ribs and anything that moved.

  Zoya stepped over a root that wasn’t really a root, pointed down without stopping.

  “Skip that shine,” she said. “It’s pretending.”

  Isaac blinked.

  “Air tastes like coins.”

  Zoya huffed a laugh.

  “Great. Perfect. Ribs only.”

  Isaac looked.

  It was barely there, a thin wet glitter like someone had rubbed a thumbprint into the ground.

  “That’s not even a thing,” he said.

  Zoya snorted, one breath, and kept going.

  “That’s exactly when it’s a thing.”

  Isaac hesitated, then stepped where she stepped.

  “You say that like you’ve lived here your whole life,” he said.

  “I’m sixteen,” Zoya said, like that answered everything. “I’ve lived everywhere I didn’t want to.”

  He almost laughed, caught himself, then let it out anyway.

  It came out ugly.

  Zoya glanced back like she’d been startled by the sound, then pretended she hadn’t.

  A few minutes later the pyramid flashed between trunks again, a hard plane of colour where no colour should be that straight.

  Zoya saw it and didn’t look away fast this time.

  She stared, and Isaac could feel her trying to pretend she wasn’t.

  “So… what is it,” Isaac said, because silence invited thoughts.

  Zoya blinked like he’d poked her.

  “It’s a pyramid,” she said.

  “I know what shape it is.”

  Zoya’s mouth twitched.

  “I don’t,” she said, and it was quiet, almost annoyed at herself. “I mean I do, but I don’t.”

  Isaac waited.

  Zoya kept walking, but her voice went a little different, like she was talking around hunger, not at him.

  “In Brimwick they tell stories about things like that,” she said. “Old-world vaults. Temple doors. The kind with traps that only bite you if you’re greedy.”

  Isaac huffed.

  “So… all of them.”

  Zoya shot him a look, but it wasn’t sharp.

  It was almost excited, and she hated that he could see it.

  “I’m not excited,” Zoya said, too fast. “Okay I am, but shut up.”

  “I didn’t say excited.”

  “You were going to,” she said.

  Isaac smiled.

  “I was not.”

  Zoya muttered, “Liar,” like it was affectionate by accident.

  They walked.

  The air got thicker with colour.

  Not fog.

  Not mist.

  Just… life.

  Little bright things snapped through the canopy glow, fast and hungry, and the green-blue flash under their skin made Isaac keep his feet honest.

  Isaac kept tracking them with his eyes.

  Zoya saw it without looking at him.

  “That shine will take your ankle while you admire,” she said, and it wasn’t a scold, it was a trade. “You trip, I’m not hauling you and your entire wing situation.”

  Isaac huffed.

  “My entire wing situation.”

  Zoya glanced back, a quick grin that she killed immediately.

  “Yeah,” she said. “That.”

  The pyramid flashed again, closer now.

  Hard angles.

  Hard colour.

  Clean enough to feel wrong.

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  Zoya’s voice went softer, like she was talking to it without wanting to be caught doing it.

  “You know what I think it is,” she said.

  Isaac kept his eyes forward.

  “A murder-shape.”

  Zoya made a sound like she was offended on behalf of the concept of hope.

  “No,” she said. “A storage problem.”

  Isaac blinked.

  “A what.”

  Zoya lifted her hand and gestured through the trees like she was outlining a dream and a plan at the same time.

  “People didn’t build that to look dramatic,” she said. “They built it because they had something that needed to be kept. Something that doesn’t rot. Something that doesn’t leak.”

  Isaac’s jaw buzzed once, low, like the shape had heard her and approved.

  Zoya noticed the buzz.

  She looked at his face, then his wings, then back at the flash between trunks.

  “You feel it too,” she said.

  Isaac didn’t like giving her points.

  He still nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  Zoya’s eyes brightened for half a second, then she pressed her lips together like she’d made a mistake by letting it show.

  “Okay,” she said, too brisk. “Then we’re not crazy.”

  Isaac almost laughed again.

  It came out smaller this time.

  Zoya pretended she didn’t hear it.

  A shape unfolded from the bark ahead.

  Not small.

  Not delicate.

  It peeled itself off the trunk like it had been pretending to be part of it, and then it flowed around the curve with quiet confidence.

  Three feet of body at least, long and low.

  Four thick limbs spaced too far apart, each foot ending in dark hooked nails that bit the bark like it was soft.

  Its hide looked like wet copper when it caught the canopy glow, but when it moved, faint lines under the skin lit and dimmed in slow pulses, colour sliding along its ribs like something breathing through it from the inside.

  Its tail was too long for balance alone.

  A thin fringe of crystal-fine filaments ran the last third of it, trembling in the air, tasting pressure.

  The creature stopped.

  Turned its head.

  Two eyes, bright and steady, held Isaac’s face like a dare.

  Isaac stopped too.

  Slow.

  He kept his wings half raised, plates angled front, not threatening, just ready.

  Zoya leaned slightly, trying to see around him without stepping wrong.

  “That,” she whispered, and she sounded impressed in spite of herself, “is bigger than I wanted it to be.”

  Isaac kept his eyes on it.

  “What does it eat.”

  Zoya’s mouth twitched.

  “Probably bugs.”

  “Everything eats bugs.”

  Isaac kept his eyes on it.

  “Maybe us.”

  The creature’s throat flexed once.

  A small pouch under its jaw swelled, then flattened, like it swallowed light.

  The filaments on its tail quivered again.

  Then it slid around the trunk and vanished like it had never cared.

  Zoya exhaled.

  Not relief.

  Just… noted.

  Zoya didn’t look at Isaac right away.

  She watched the trunk like the thing might change its mind.

  Then, quieter, like it was a checklist and not a feeling:

  “Hands steady?”

  Isaac blinked once.

  Looked at his own fingers like he didn’t trust them.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I think.”

  Zoya nodded, like that was enough. Like it had to be.

  “Okay,” Zoya whispered, and forced it into a shrug. “Good. That means it’s not all chaos.”

  “Good,” Isaac said.

  Zoya glanced at him like she hadn’t expected him to agree so fast, then kept going anyway.

  “If it’s built,” she said, “it has a pattern. Patterns are… usable.”

  Isaac swallowed.

  “Usable.”

  They walked again.

  After a while the ground got annoying in the small ways.

  More slick patches.

  More roots that weren’t roots.

  Less open rib lanes.

  Zoya slowed, not from tired, just from watching.

  Isaac matched her without being told.

  Zoya pointed toward a ridge that sagged in the middle like a smile.

  “See that dip,” she said.

  Isaac squinted.

  “Yeah.”

  “Don’t go through it.”

  “Why.”

  Zoya crouched, picked up a pebble, tossed it.

  The pebble hit the dip and disappeared with no sound.

  Isaac stared.

  He waited for a splash.

  Nothing.

  Isaac watched the empty dip.

  “Good eye.”

  Zoya made a face like she hated being pleased.

  “Yeah, well, I like floors, okay.”

  “That,” Zoya said, watching the dip like it might blink, “is why I want the pyramid to be… solid.”

  Isaac’s throat worked.

  “A floor,” he said. “Yeah.”

  Zoya nodded once, and for a second she looked younger than sixteen, like the thought had warmed her.

  Then she killed it again.

  Her face went flat.

  Her hand found her linehook NMR wrist knot.

  Thumb to the knot.

  Two taps.

  Commit.

  They walked.

  Time got weird.

  Not dramatic.

  Just that slow realisation that you’ve been moving for hours and the place still feels like the same mouth chewing.

  Except the trunks had packed tighter.

  Except the colours had gotten louder.

  Except the small life kept showing up closer, braver, less afraid of them.

  Zoya stopped where the trunks opened just enough to breathe without brushing bark.

  Tetley padded up beside her and sat.

  Still.

  Listening.

  Zoya looked down at him.

  Then at Isaac.

  “Do you hear that,” she asked.

  Isaac held still.

  Listened.

  There was a sound, faint, rhythmic.

  Not water.

  Not wind.

  A soft tapping, distant, then gone.

  Isaac swallowed.

  “I hear it,” he said. “Rhythm. Like steps.”

  Zoya nodded slowly.

  “Same.”

  “Breath smooth?” she asked, like she was pretending it was just a checklist.

  Isaac blinked.

  “Yeah. I think.”

  “Okay,” Zoya said. “Then around.”

  She crouched, checked the ground with her fingers, then stood again.

  No panic.

  No yelling.

  Just decision.

  “We go around,” she said, like she’d already said it and he’d already agreed.

  Isaac glanced at the direction she meant.

  Longer.

  Denser.

  More unknown.

  He didn’t argue.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Around.”

  They started moving again, and then it hit.

  A smell.

  Sweet.

  Cold.

  So wrong down here, Isaac’s mouth filled with saliva like his body was trying to remember a life it didn’t have.

  Zoya stopped so fast Isaac almost bumped into her wings.

  Her eyes went wide for half a second.

  Then she crushed it.

  Like she’d never had a face at all.

  Isaac stared at her.

  “You smell that,” he said.

  Zoya’s throat worked.

  “Mm.”

  “That means,” Isaac said, then stalled. “Something.”

  Zoya didn’t look at him.

  She looked past him, through the trunks, like the smell had a direction.

  “It means,” she said, and her voice tried to be casual and failed, “that the Core is being funny.”

  Isaac waited.

  Zoya huffed, annoyed at herself.

  “Okay,” she said. “Yes. I smell it.”

  Isaac’s lips parted.

  “Food,” he said, then immediately felt stupid saying it out loud.

  Zoya shot him a look.

  Not angry.

  Just, don’t make me laugh right now, I’m barely holding it together.

  Isaac raised one hand, palm up.

  “I’m not,” he said. “Making it.”

  Zoya stared like she didn’t believe him.

  Then she sighed.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’m making it a thing.”

  Isaac blinked.

  Zoya stared through the trunks again, like she was trying to spot a memory.

  “It’s… familiar,” she said, and the word sounded like it cost her.

  Isaac didn’t push.

  He just nodded.

  “Okay,” he said. “Show me.”

  Zoya started walking, slower now, not because she was cautious, because she was trying very hard to pretend her feet weren’t excited.

  Isaac stayed beside her, wings angled just enough to make a lane, just enough to keep branches from brushing her face.

  Zoya noticed that too.

  She didn’t say thank you.

  She did nudge his wing plate lightly with her knuckles, like a quick tap on a doorframe.

  He took it as thank you anyway.

  Tetley slipped ahead, tail tips lifting, ears forward.

  He paused.

  Looked back at them once.

  Then moved again.

  Zoya’s eyes flicked to him.

  “He’s going,” she said, like she couldn’t believe she was saying it.

  Isaac’s mouth watered again.

  “Then,” he said. “We go.”

  Zoya nodded once.

  Then she muttered, more to herself than him, “Don’t be stupid. Don’t be stupid. Don’t be stupid.”

  Zoya huffed, almost a whisper.

  “I want it though.”

  Isaac leaned a fraction closer.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Want it. Still careful.”

  Zoya’s cheeks warmed.

  She didn’t look at him.

  “You don’t know that,” she said.

  Isaac swallowed.

  “I’m… learning,” he said.

  They followed the smell into the tighter trees, with Tetley leading like he owned the path, and Zoya letting herself believe, just a little, that the pyramid might be more than a threat.

  Not a miracle.

  A door.

  A real one.

  And when the trunks tightened again, Zoya tipped her chin toward the lane ahead, like it was the simplest thing in the world.

  “Lane.”

  Isaac shifted his wings, plates angling forward, and made himself big where it mattered.