Thorne didn’t move. The canopy wing stayed. “That’s why you’re here,” he said, and then nudged the girl with his elbowbefore tilting his chin at Sirena. He was cueing her responses; I logged the manipulation, not the gallantry.
“I’ve lost part of my mind.” The girl said it in a rush, like she was worried no one would believe her.
“Which . . . part?” Sirena asked.
The girl gave a helpless laugh. “I don’t really know.”
I logged it as both comforting and concerning. Systems remember by what they route around.
But if one is unaware one has a system, you call the detour the road...
“It’s just gone,” Sophia continued. “Everything from my childhood is hazy—and then there are long gaps. I know how to do things, like, cook an omelet? But I couldn’t tell you how I learned.”
An unknown identity is a risk surface; I needed more data. I decided to look closer.
“Center up,” I told Sirena, soft, in-ear. “Square your shoulders. Put the pendant on her.”
She adjusted—and the girl came into focus.
“I don’t remember my parents,” Sophia said. “I’m—I’m not even sure Sophia is my name.”
The pendant’s camera tilted as Sirena looked at Thorne. “And how did she get here?”
“I would rather not talk about that,” Thorne said. History variable: he preferred control of the narrative.
I zoomed the girl’s face across every database I could touch.Face match: none.Impossible. That meant something else was wrong.
“Stall,” I told Sirena.
“And howlonghave you been here?” Sirena asked fluidly, twirling a finger around, ambiguous as to whether she meant the club or Thorne’s care. Thorne set a stone-gray hand on the table between them; it fixed the negotiation in his ground.
“She would rather not talk about that, either.”
Sophia tilted her head, ducking back, giving me more angles and data—but nothing became clearer.
Landmarks didn’t agree—eyes to ears to nose bridge. I peeled back the lighting and checked where surgeons leave whispers: fine tension at the outer canthi, faint swelling under the eyes, a hairline that interrupted and resumed, ear cartilage with symmetry it shouldn’t have, until I came to the only answer that made sense.
“She’s been altered,” I told Sirena. “Multi-region and recent. Periocular tightening, possible canthopexy. Ear work—concha/tragus shaping. Hairline revision. Nasal bridge looks grafted. Databases can’t miss what never existed. She’s a face that never lived.”
The pendant cam jumped as Sirena reared back.
“Excuse me?” she said aloud.
The gargoyle took it the wrong way. His wing tightened, protective. Log: Sophia attachment probability 0.84 and rising.“Just because you’re a telepath doesn’t mean you’re entitled to know everything?—”
“No, no.” She waved him down and put a finger to her ear. I saw the motion in the pendant feed; the accelerometer spiked inside its sapphires. “And you’re sure?” she pressed.
It was the only answer that fit. “Yes.”
“You brought the clanker, didn’t you?” Thorne growled behind her. “To my establishment?”
She snapped her fingers at him without looking. “He’s a valued teammate, and your invitation was so non-specific there was a 90% chance you were inviting me to an orgy. Go on?”
“Work done,” I continued, businesslike. “Multiple sites. Periocular and ear clues date it as recent.” Then what she really wants answered: “She’s young. Mid-twenties. No orbital plates, no zygomatic fixation, no fracture remodeling—no traumasignature. Same hand, staged sessions. This wasn’t correction. It was camouflage.”
Her heart rate spiked and then steadied.
“That’s...” Sirena began, but drifted off, so I finished it for her.
