Chapter 21: Asha Surrenders Command

The cold hit like something physical, the kind that lives in old brick and doesn't leave. Mara's breath came out white in the darkness of the narrow passage between the LUMEN building's fire exit and the wall of the adjacent warehouse, and she counted to herself — not from anxiety but from habit, the same way she counted stairs and steps and the seconds between lightning and thunder — and reached twenty-eight before Asha's hand closed briefly on her arm, signalling stop.

Twenty-seven seconds. Nox had said twenty-seven.

They stood still in the dark. Brekke, on Mara's arm, had not moved since she stepped off the bus. He weighed almost nothing — he had always weighed almost nothing — but she was aware of him with unusual precision, the specific pressure of his feet, the direction his head was turned.