The walk from the harbor blurred into restraint and motion.
Hands on my arms. Not violent. Not kind. Correcting my balance when my legs threatened to fold, tightening when I slowed.
The port quieted as we moved.
Chaos collapsing into order behind us. Shouts dulled—not gone. The sound bent around our passage, voices lowering as eyes followed. By the time the House of Alento rose ahead, squat and pale against the darkening sky, the harbor had relearned its rhythm.
Amber was carried ahead of me, her stretcher swaying with each step.
Alive.
The word repeated, fragile.
Luna walked somewhere to my left. I couldn't see her past the soldiers' shoulders, but her presence pressed against my awareness like a held note.
Why us?
The question threaded itself through every step. Not why she had intervened—that answer had already carved itself into me.
But why keep us?
What did she need from two half-broken Awakenings pulled from a dock soaked in blood?
And the Guild—
My thoughts snagged there.
"They were dead when I arrived."
The words replayed, too clean. Too final. I had seen movement. Heard breath. Agony stretching instead of ending.
Had she done it?
The image tried to form—small hands, precise, finishing what chaos had started—not with rage, not with mercy, but with quiet finality.
Something inside me braced as the House of Alento swallowed us whole.
Its doors opened under command, not welcome. Warmth leaked out—oil lamps, bodies, breath—but it wasn't relief. It was containment. The interior had been stripped of its gentleness. Benches overturned. Curtains torn down. Beds pushed aside to make space for soldiers, crates, lines of authority.
People knelt against walls.
Staff. Healers. Volunteers.
Hands bound. Eyes lowered.
Traitors, by proximity if not by action.
The soldiers didn't hesitate.
They took us apart.
Rough hands stripped blood-soaked fabric from my body. Not hurried. Efficient. Water followed—cold, then scalding, then cold again—scrubbing dock grime, blood, salt, and something darker from my skin.
I bit down on sound as brushes scraped too hard, as fingers pressed bruises I hadn't known I carried.
Except—
The pain didn't arrive.
I waited for it—for the protest, for bruises to bloom, for pain to remember me.
It didn't come.
The cold bit into my skin, but beneath it—
Whole.
Muscles responding. Breath steadying faster than it had any right to. No cracked ribs screaming when I inhaled. No familiar ache blooming behind my eyes.
I stared down at my hands as they shoved me forward, water dripping from my fingers. They didn't shake.
The realization unsettled me more than the violence had. This body had always negotiated with pain. Now it didn't ask permission.
Nearby, Amber cried out.
The sound cut sharp.
She surfaced into consciousness halfway through the washing—eyes flying open, breath tearing, her body bucking as hands held her down.
"No—" Her voice fractured. "Please—"
Fear flooded her face, naked and immediate. She thrashed once, weakly, then froze as a female soldier barked at her to stay still.
Her eyes found me through the small window between the washrooms—just faces, framed in steam and wood.
Recognition flared—and terror sharpened with it.
"Gin?" The name trembled out of her. "Gin, what—"
A hand clamped over her mouth.
"Quiet."
She sobbed against the grip, breath hitching, eyes glassy and lost.
I tried to move. Didn't get far. Pressure on my shoulder. Enough.
When they finished, we were clothed again—not our clothes, but rough, uniform garments that erased shape and status alike. The clothes were light and worn thin, white once—long ago—but now dulled by too many washings and too little care. Then they marched us through the House, past rooms I recognized twisted into holding spaces.
Everyone was here.
Every healer. Every aide. Every volunteer who had ever offered water or bandages without asking who someone had been.
All suspects.
Amber was shoved forward just as Miguel's voice broke through the murmur.
"Amber."
The name carried relief so raw it hurt to hear.
She twisted toward it, breath catching hard enough to fold her in half.
"Dad—!"
They collided awkwardly within the limits of their bindings, her forehead pressed to his chest, his chin resting against her hair. His hands shook as they tried to steady her shoulders.
"I'm here," he murmured. "You're safe. You're safe."
A lie that kept her standing.
A soldier struck the wall with the butt of his spear.
"Keep it down."
Miguel flinched but didn't let go. Amber clung to him, tears soaking into his tunic, her body trembling with delayed shock.
Amber and I were pushed past them before I could say anything.
Before Amber could look back, the corridors narrowed.
Torches replaced lamps. Stone replaced wood. The House's lower levels pressed inward, not secret—just secluded. A place where sound thinned and people were kept apart.
Luna waited there.
She stood apart from the soldiers, red blindfold stark against the torchlight. Still. Untouched by the movement around her.
Her head turned as we approached. Not toward my eyes.
Amber stiffened as soldiers dragged her.
Luna didn't look at her.
"Here." A pause. Deliberate. "They stay."
The soldiers obeyed without question—though their murmurs followed us, low and tight, already weighing how much pain it would take to loosen answers.
The warehouse closed around us—dim, bitter with dried herbs, rot threaded through brine-soaked wood. Crates were stacked everywhere, stenciled and worn, meant for aid shipments that now served other purposes.
Two soldiers moved at Luna's silent cue. Boots nudged crates into place, wood grinding against stone until something resembling order took shape.
Luna sat. Another crate was set in front of us.
She didn't look back when she lifted her hand. The soldiers withdrew. The door closed behind them with a dull, final sound.
I lowered myself carefully, Amber's weight pulling me down, the rough planks scraping through damp cloth.
They shoved us inside together. The door slammed shut with a finality that vibrated through my bones.
Darkness pooled.
Amber sagged against me, breath ragged, fingers clutching my sleeve like it was the only real thing left.
For the first time, something leaned on me—and in the middle of the ruin, it felt like a small, warm comfort.
Night crept in through narrow slits high in the wall.
Amber's voice shook against my chest.
"Gin… what's happening?"
I drew a breath, slow, careful.
"I don't know. But we're alive."
It sounded thinner than I wanted.
The silence after that wasn't empty. It was preparation.
Whatever she was about to say wasn't a proposal.