I wasn’t ready for what that meant—but the truth settled in my chest like something I might one day dare to hold.
Chapter Eight
Learning the Shape of Home
Lina
The first morning I didn’t wake to the sound of running, I didn’t know what to do with myself.
No shouted orders. No engines coughing to life. No wagons groaning as someone coaxed them into motion. Just the slow, steady hum of the mountain—air moving through vents, pumps cycling, distant voices layered over stone like a low kind of music.
For a few seconds, I lay still in the alcove, staring at the carved ceiling above me.
The last time I’d slept without knowing exactly where my boots were, the cyborgs were battling gangers to evacuate survivors so they could rebuild Chicago. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Boots, I thought, reaching for them out of habit.
They sat exactly where I’d left them the night before, lined up under the lip of the sleeping shelf. No one had moved them. No one had moved me.
My ankle twinged when I swung my legs down, but it wasn’t the crippling spike of pain from before. More complaint than refusal.
Progress.
Outside the alcove, Rygnar’s quarters were quiet. The partition stood half-drawn; beyond it, the door’s status light glowed a soft green. He was already gone.
Of course he was. The man ran on duty and tea.
I splashed water on my face from the basin, the chill biting pleasantly at my skin. A faint plume of steam rose from the nearby vent channel. Everything here was warmed from inside—air, stone, water—like the world had grown a second heart under the mountain and decided to share.
I pulled on my borrowed clothes and shrugged into the short jacket Mara had scrounged from stores. The weight of the empty courier tag chain sat light against my collarbone, a ghost of a job I wasn’t doing anymore.
Not today, I told it. Today I’m not a signal. I’m a guest. Or something like it.
The corridor outside buzzed softly with morning. Mesaarkans and humans passed each other in the narrow space without flinching, body language careful but relaxed. Someone laughed three doors down, the sound echoing oddly against the rock.
I stood there a moment, feeling the weight of my own indecision. I could stay in Rygnar’s quarters and pretend I was still convalescing. No one would question it. They’d probably prefer it—one less variable to track.
But sitting still had never made me less of a target.
It just made me an easier one.
I turned toward the infirmary.
The medical wing smelled like antiseptic, stone dust, and something sharp and green—herbs from the garden,drying on braided cords near the vents. Mara stood at a central station, sleeves rolled, her dark hair tied back with a strip of woven cloth. She glanced up as I stepped through the entry curtain.
“You’re early. Either you slept well, or not at all.”
“A little of both,” I said. “I thought I’d see if you needed another pair of hands.”
Her eyes flicked to my ankle, then back to my face. “You shouldn’t be on it all day.”
“I can sit and sort things,” I said. “Or write labels. Or listen to you complain about everyone’s injuries and nod in all the right places.”
Her mouth twitched. “Tempting.”
She hesitated one heartbeat longer, then jerked her chin toward the far shelves. “We got a supply delivery from the lower caches. It’s all mixed. Packets, vials, bandages. If you’re determined to be useful, you can help me put it in some kind of order.”
“I specialize in some kind of order,” I said. “Show me your system.”
