The Builder Faction headquarters had a new, tiny, and very curious shadow. Nara, having decided that she was now my official apprentice (a promotion I had given her), followed me everywhere. My duties as a scout, now intrinsically linked with my duties as a guardian, had been confined to the "safe" areas of the Faction Core.
This morning, that meant the main courtyard, a vast, open-air plaza where the faction's heavy-lifters were kept and maintained.
"They're so sleepy," Nara whispered, her voice filled with awe.
She was staring at the Stone Automatons. They were massive, bipedal constructs, easily twelve feet tall, forged from the same obsidian and granite as the city's foundations. Unlike the god-like, sentient Summons, these were just... workers. Golems. They moved with a slow, ponderous, and utterly silent grace, lifting unfathomably heavy blocks of stone and carrying them to the workshops. They were, as Nara had perfectly described, like sleepy, stone giants.
She was fascinated, darting behind a pillar to watch one pass, her giggles echoing softly in the huge, quiet space. The sound was so out of place here, so full of life, that it made even Fen, who was overseeing a repair on one golem's arm, crack the faintest, almost invisible smile.
The moment was calm, domestic. It was the first time in weeks my shoulders hadn't been tense, the first time the cold knot of grief and suspicion in my gut had finally, blessedly, uncoiled.
A junior Builder, an acolyte I'd only seen in passing, walked by, carrying a stack of fresh blueprints. He was a young man, probably not much older than I was, with a nervous, perpetually harried look. He saw me, the Master's new "scout," and his eyes widened slightly. He offered a quick, deferential nod. "Scout-sama," he mumbled, his gaze fixed on the floor.
I nodded back. "Morning."
His gaze then lifted, past me, and landed on Nara as she popped out from behind the pillar.
The man froze.
It wasn't a simple double-take. It was a full, system-crashing, biological stop. The blueprints slipped from his grasp, scattering across the stone pavers. His face, which had been a placid, neutral mask, drained of all color. His eyes widened, not with surprise, but with a sudden, sharp, unmistakable fear. He looked at Nara like he had just seen a Lineage Monster materialize in the heart of his own workshop.
"Uh..." he stammered, his body trembling. He scrambled to gather the blueprints, his hands fumbling, his eyes never leaving Nara. He didn't say a word. He just gathered his papers, shot one last, terrified look at me, and then all but ran, disappearing into the archives.
The entire exchange took less than ten seconds. But it was enough.
The warmth of the morning vanished, replaced by the familiar, cold chill of suspicion. That wasn't a normal reaction. That wasn't just "oh, a kid." That was "oh my god, a live bomb."
My paranoia, my new and sharpest instinct, took over. I turned to Nara, forcing a smile. "Hey, Nara. Why don't you go see if Fen needs help? I think his hammer looks a little... un-shiny."
"Okay!" she chirped, and ran off to bother the most patient man in the world.
The moment she was gone, I followed the acolyte.
I found him in the archives, the same cold, sterile data-vault I had visited before. He was frantically re-rolling the blueprints, his hands still shaking.
"You," I said, my voice a low, hard command that stopped him cold.
He spun around, his face pale. "Scout-sama! I-I didn't... I mean..."
"You know that girl," I stated. It wasn't a question. "You recognized her. Or, at least, you recognized what she is." I took a step closer, my new black-and-gold cloak, Silas's cloak, settling around me. I let the authority of it, the implied authority of the man who had given it to me, press down on him. "You looked at her like she was a ghost."
"I... I don't know what you're talking about," he whispered, his eyes darting to the exit.
"My mission," I lied, the words coming with a chilling, newfound ease, "is a full survey of all city assets and anomalies. That child is an anomaly I am currently investigating. Her origin is a matter of Faction security. You just saw her and looked like you were about to be deleted. You will tell me what you know. That is an order."
The acolyte was trapped. He was caught between the vague, terrifying rules of the Faction and the immediate, very real presence of the Master's new, dangerous pet—the man who had absorbed a Founder's echo and lived. He made his choice.
"She's... she's from the Neutral Sector, isn't she?" he stammered, his voice barely audible.
"Yes," I confirmed.
His face crumpled in on itself, a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. "It's impossible," he whispered, shaking his head. "It's just... it's impossible. She can't be here."
"Why?" I pressed, my voice like ice. "Why is it impossible?"
"Because," he said, his voice cracking, "children from the Neutral Sector... they... they shouldn't exist anymore."
The words hung in the cold, sterile air, devoid of all sense.
"I... I used to work in the Records Division," the acolyte explained, his words tumbling out in a frantic, hushed confession. "Under Chief Gideon. I saw the logs. I saw the municipal registry. It's... it's a closed book. It's been a closed book for years."
He looked at me, his eyes wide with the terror of a man repeating a heresy. "The registry says the last registered birth in the Neutral Sector was over a decade ago. Ten years! Right after... right after the West Wall collapsed. After the..." He trailed off, too scared to even name the event. "After that, the registries just... they just stopped. No new births. No new arrivals. No new entries, at all. The entire sector was statistically sealed. Sterilized."
He was panting, as if the confession had taken all his air. "That girl... she can't be more than seven. Eight at the most. She can't exist. Her existence is... it's impossible according to the city's records."
I stood there, the blood draining from my own face, the acolyte's words echoing in the vault.
Statistically sealed. Sterilized.
This wasn't just neglect. This wasn't just forgetting to turn the lights on. This was a deliberate, systemic, and cold-blooded policy. They hadn't just left the Neutral Sector to rot; they had ensured it would die out, that it would produce no new generation. It was a slow, quiet, bureaucratic genocide.
And Nara... Nara was a biological miracle. A seven-year-old impossibility.
She wasn't just a lost kid. She was a living, breathing contradiction to the entire, rigid, logical system that this city was built on. She was a glitch in the code, just like me. But she wasn't a data-error. She was a life-error.
And I knew, with a sudden, chilling certainty, what this city's Founders did to errors. They "managed" them. They "sealed" them. Or, if they were deemed too dangerous... they deleted them.
I turned and walked away, leaving the terrified acolyte alone in the archive. I walked back out into the courtyard, my mind a raging storm. My protective instinct for Nara, born in that alley, had been just that—an instinct. Now, it had hardened. It was no longer just kindness. It was a conscious, defiant choice.
She was an anomaly. A child who shouldn't exist. A flaw in their perfect, sterile system.
My fist clenched at my side.
"Then the system is wrong," I whispered to myself.
I saw Nara still "helping" Fen, her bright, innocent laughter a beacon in the cold, stone courtyard. I was going to protect that light, no matter what.
I walked toward my room, my mind racing, the blueprint fragment of the Core Foundation feeling heavier than ever in my pocket. I had to think. I had to piece this all together.
I reached my door.
And my heart stopped.
Lyra was waiting for me. She was standing perfectly still, her hands clasped in front of her, her face a mask of the most absolute, placid neutrality I had ever seen. This was not the Lyra who had teased me about pancakes. This was not the Lyra who had gently comforted me in my grief. This was the Attendant. The perfect, loyal construct.
"Kael-sama," she said, her voice a flat, perfect monotone that sent a shiver of pure dread down my spine.
"The Master has requested your presence. Immediately."
They knew.