Every Astral officer in Bellglass Square turned toward Nessa.

For one suspended instant, nobody moved.

Then the technician with the black extraction case pointed directly at her.

"Detain her."

Nessa did not wait to learn whether he meant politely.

"North bridge," she snapped.

Ilya was already moving.

He cut left through the evacuation crowd, leather satchel clutched against his ribs. Tavi followed, one hand pressed over the coat pocket containing his damaged chronometer and the black-stone disk hidden inside it.

Rhydian stayed beside Nessa.

Three Astral officers pushed through the stream of fleeing residents toward them.

Nessa swept both hands outward.

Illusionary copies of herself burst across the square.

Seven Nessas scattered in different directions, each wearing the same dark coat, each carrying the same expression of irritated panic.

They could not shove anyone aside. They could not block a sword or hold a door. But they could make fourteen officers waste two precious seconds deciding which woman to chase.

"Subtle," Rhydian said.

"I was aiming for useful."

They ran.

Behind them someone shouted, "Quill! Stop!"

That was worse than being called woman or suspect.

They knew her name.

Nessa vaulted a fallen market sign and caught up with Tavi at the northern edge of the square. The north bridge itself was being sealed by Astral officers, just as Ilya had warned.

Ilya did not head for it.

Instead he ducked behind a shuttered tea stall built against the bridge's stone approach.

"Here."

A waist-high maintenance grille sat behind stacked empty crates.

"That is your service route?" Tavi asked.

"You expected chandeliers?"

Ilya dragged one crate aside. Rhydian seized the other and moved it physically clear. Beneath them, rusted bolts held the grille in place.

Footsteps hammered closer.

Nessa glanced back.

The technician with the case had not joined the pursuit.

He stood near the center of Bellglass Square, watching.

Still smiling.

The six altered crystals burned warm against Nessa's ribs.

Not one had activated.

They were simply reacting to the case as it moved farther away.

"He's leaving," she said.

Rhydian followed her stare.

The technician was walking toward the sealed north bridge while officers converged on Nessa instead.

"Then this is diversion," Rhydian said.

"Ours or his?"

"His."

Ilya finally wrenched the grille loose.

"You may debate tactical ownership underground."

Tavi dropped through first.

Ilya followed.

Nessa crouched beside the opening, but Rhydian caught her attention rather than her arm.

"Go."

"You're coming."

"Obviously."

The contract mark remained cold.

Nessa descended the iron ladder.

Rhydian came after her and pulled the grille back into place from below just as boots struck the stones above.

The maintenance passage beneath the north bridge was barely tall enough for Rhydian to stand straight. Old water pipes ran along one wall. Through narrow gaps between structural plates, Nessa could see the luminous cloud sea thousands of feet beneath Vespera.

Bellglass groaned above them.

The bridge itself remained steady.

For now.

"Which way?" Tavi whispered.

Ilya pointed along the tunnel.

"It reconnects with the northern service stair beyond the checkpoint."

"Meaning we can get ahead of the technician?"

"If he uses the bridge."

Nessa touched the inner pocket containing the six crystals.

Their heat had lessened but had not disappeared.

"He is."

Rhydian looked at her.

"You can still sense the case?"

"Not direction exactly. More like... proximity. The farther he gets, the colder they become."

"Then we follow without confronting him."

Tavi snorted.

"That sounds suspiciously sensible."

"Try not to be alarmed."

They moved quickly through the service passage.

The farther they went, the more Nessa noticed something unsettling about the crystals.

Five cooled gradually.

One did not.

She stopped.

"Wait."

Tavi nearly walked into her.

Nessa opened the fastened inner pocket and counted by touch before removing anything.

Six crystals.

Mirelle's debt-stay card.

Tavi's folded note.

Everything remained where it belonged.

She drew out the warmest crystal.

It was the third fragment, the one that had activated beside Tavi's black-stone disk beneath Bellglass.

Its surface remained dark.

No projection formed.

Yet it was hotter now than it had been in the square.

Rhydian frowned.

"The technician is moving away."

"Then this isn't him."

Tavi's hand went to his coat pocket.

A faint ticking came from inside.

Everyone heard it.

He slowly withdrew the damaged chronometer.

Its casing was still latched imperfectly. The black-stone disk remained hidden behind the lowered gears. The hands still pointed to the thirteenth hour.

One crescent shone.

Then a second crescent flickered.

Tavi stopped breathing.

The second light went dark again.

"That was new," he said.

Ilya stared upward through the metal ceiling as if he could see Bellglass Square above them.

"Another seal?"

"Not open," Rhydian said. "If the indicators truly correspond to seals, a flicker may mean strain rather than breach. We do not know."

Nessa held the warm crystal near Tavi's chronometer without touching it.

The second crescent flickered again.

The crystal gave a pulse against her fingers.

"It's reacting to the disk."

"Or both are reacting to something else," Rhydian cautioned.

A shout echoed faintly from the tunnel entrance behind them.

Nessa returned the crystal to her inner pocket, refastened it, and Tavi put the chronometer back into his coat.

"Mystery later," she said.

They reached a vertical service stair and climbed.

Ilya lifted a maintenance hatch a fraction, checked the street beyond, then opened it fully.

They emerged into a narrow alley north of the sealed bridge.

The technician was forty yards ahead.

He was alone now.

The Astral officers had remained behind to hunt Nessa.

The black extraction case swung at his side.

Nessa's six crystals warmed sharply.

"There," she whispered.

The technician turned a corner.

The four of them followed at a distance through the upper district's silver-lit streets.

Unlike Bellglass, this quarter had not been ordered evacuated. Carriages rolled past. Moonlamps burned over balconies. Wealthy pedestrians complained about bridge closures without realizing that an old woman a few streets away had just lost her son from her mind.

The technician entered a narrow administrative building marked with the seal of the Astral Department of Civic Continuity.

Ilya made a disgusted sound.

"Of course."

"You know it?" Nessa asked.

"Officially, they preserve public records after disasters. Unofficially, I requested access seven times before my dismissal. Seven denials."

Rhydian studied the building.

"Front entrance is guarded."

Tavi looked upward.

"Roof?"

"Also guarded," Rhydian said.

Nessa smiled.

"Good thing we're not going through either."

The rear wall faced a narrow delivery court. Two clerks stood near a locked service door, smoking beneath a moonlamp.

Nessa built an illusion at the far end of the court: a stack of document boxes tipping from a loading cart.

The boxes appeared to crash noisily across the stones.

Both clerks turned.

One swore and went to investigate.

The second remained by the door.

Nessa added an illusion of a supervisor stepping from the opposite alley.

"You. Help him before those records get wet."

The clerk straightened instantly and hurried away.

Tavi stared at Nessa.

"You forged a supervisor?"

"I forge childhoods for rich people. Middle management is easy."

Rhydian's mouth twitched.

The service door was physically locked.

Tavi knelt before it.

"Clockmaker," he said before Nessa could ask.

He removed a thin tool from his coat and worked the mechanism. Twenty seconds later, the lock clicked.

They entered.

Inside, the building smelled of wax, paper and antiseptic silver.

The six crystals in Nessa's pocket pulled hotter.

This time the sensation was unmistakably directional.

Down.

They descended two flights into a basement corridor.

Rows of numbered doors lined the walls.

Behind one came voices.

The technician's voice.

"Bellglass sample confirmed compatible."

Another speaker answered, female and calm.

"And Quill?"

Nessa stopped cold.

The technician replied, "Responded exactly as predicted. All six fragments recognized the harvest vial."

Tavi's face went white with anger.

Rhydian raised one finger for silence.

The woman asked, "Did she see the star?"

"Yes."

"Good. She was meant to."

Nessa felt something drop inside her stomach.

They had not discovered the operation.

They had been shown it.

The technician continued.

"She followed?"

"She will."

The woman sounded almost amused.

"Her brother already proved the bloodline's secondary compatibility. The sister is the key."

Tavi's hand closed around his coat pocket.

Nessa barely noticed.

Rhydian had gone utterly still.

"Prepare the second seal," the woman said. "But do not open it until Chancellor Arcturus gives the order."

Nessa looked at Rhydian.

Solenne.

Not proof that she personally controlled everything.

But the Chancellor's name had finally entered the conspiracy on the other side of a closed door.

Then the technician said, "And the Keeper?"

A pause.

The woman's answer came softly.

"If Noct reaches the lower archive, let him. He deserves to learn what he was before we erase him again."

Rhydian stopped breathing.

From Tavi's coat came one sharp metallic tick.

The voices behind the door went silent.

The handle began to turn.