The Gate would close with the sun.
Lucky, then, that Eitan somehow dismissed Lyra early.
I was in my room now, alone, with a few hours to kill. Time had never felt heavier.
The nerves were getting to me. What the hell was I supposed to wear to the city's worst-kept secret? Was there some kind of dress code for illegal black markets built into the bones of a dead city? Did I need a mask? A weapon?
Should I even be going?
My stomach twisted.
I glanced down at the photo on my desk.
Anya and me. Back when things felt simple. Back when I thought I knew her.
The one she gave yesterday.
I picked it up. Ran a thumb along the paper's edge. Actual paper. Printed. Real.
No one printed anymore. Not since the war. Not since the networks swallowed everything. No one bothered to hold memories in their hands when they could lock them behind screens.
But she did.
She wanted me to have it.
To remember.
I looked at her smile, caught in mid-laugh, one arm slung casually over my shoulder like she owned the world and had decided to share it with me for a while.
I reminded myself why I was doing this.
So that we could both live. Together.
Or at least... so I could find a way to follow her.
What had Cayos meant about her past?
My leg bounced nonstop. Nerves? Adrenaline? Maybe something closer to hunger. The kind you only feel when something's been taken.
How was I supposed to pay for anything in the Gutter? Digital currency was everything now. Regulated, tracked, policed. But in a place like the Gutter?
Maybe something older. Rarer.
Maybe something like a photo.
I clenched it tighter.
I didn't believe in gods. Not really. But I still found myself praying, to anyone who might be listening. That I could save her. That we'd find a way to make it out. That we could still have something like happily ever after.
Who knew. Maybe someone was listening.
Maybe that's what scared me most.
I had to keep reminding myself what was at stake.
I threw on a black hoodie, pulled the hood up. Dark jeans, worn boots. I looked in the mirror and tried to imagine what I'd look like down there, among criminals, scavengers, Marked-for-hire.
I didn't look dangerous. I looked like a scared kid trying to look dangerous.
Too late to fix it now.
I glanced at the time again. Sunset was close.
One last look at the photo.
I slipped it into my pocket. Chest tight. Fingers numb.
Then I walked past Lyra's door.
Paused.
Thought about knocking.
Didn't.
She'd try to stop me. Or worse, try to follow.
And this wasn't her road to walk.
Not yet.
—
I had made it. I was at the plaza in my car.
The gate hadn't closed yet. Its reverberating hum was stronger here. My mouth was dry and I was only just realising that I hadn't eaten anything all day trying to follow Cayos.
"Hungry?"
Cayos asked, from the backseat.
I jumped. Nearly hit the horn.
He was sitting behind me, legs crossed like he'd been there for hours. The leather of his coat creaked faintly as he shifted, just enough to meet my eyes in the rear-view mirror.
"You-how did you-"I twisted around.
"Where the hell did you come from?"
He tilted his head. "I asked if you were hungry."
My stomach answered before I could. A low, ugly growl.
Cayos smiled, tapping once on the window. "Then let's eat. I know a place."
He opened the door and stepped out into the plaza like it belonged to him. Not a glance back to see if I'd follow.
I hesitated. My fingers clenched around the steering wheel. I looked up at the Citadel.
Still open.
Still waiting.
I looked down at the photo Anya gave me. Her and I, in that field. Frozen. Before everything cracked.
I got out of the car.
"Weren't we going to the Gutter?"
His smile just grew with that. I just followed.
For the first time, I wondered what his Vow was.
He'd appeared outside the gym like smoke through a crack. Slipped into my car without opening a door. Always seemed one step ahead, like he didn't move through space the same way the rest of us did.
Teleportation? Mind-reading? Or something stranger?
No. Not mind-reading. It felt… looser than that. Like he heard things not spoken aloud. Hadn't he said something about echoes?
Maybe the thoughts echoing through ones mind?
I glanced at him as we walked.
Cayos moved like he didn't care who was watching, yet always knew they were. Every step was casual. Human. But I couldn't shake the feeling that I was walking beside something much older.
Could he hear me now?
Could he feel the question forming?
What kind of truth did you promise the Reverie… to be given power like that?
What kind of Vow had Cayos made, that could warp reality itself?
—
The hum of the gate finally stopped with the sun having gone down. We were now in the outer districts of Halden.
We passed the edge of the city like crossing into a memory.
Aboveground, Halden's outer districts always looked rough around the edges, industrial scars wrapped in concrete and wire. But even then, it still had clean streets, surveillance drones, noise ordinances. No one ever called it a slum.
It was one of Halden's proudest boasts, The only post-war city without slums. A utopia, on paper.
We stopped at what looked like the ruins of an old transport hub. Overgrown, fenced off with cracked signs warning of structural collapse. Cayos slipped through a bent section of railing and descended a narrow stairwell slick with condensation and graffiti.
The stairs groaned beneath our feet. Reaching for the photo in my pocket, I expected rot. Shadows. Maybe even blood.
—
The air changed. Got thicker. Louder.
And then-
Light.
Colour.
People.
I stopped cold at the bottom of the stairs, blinking like an idiot.
We weren't in ruins. We were in a city.
A real one.
The tunnel opened into a vast, sunken dome, stacked with makeshift homes and glowing signs, layers of life built into every inch of the old subterranean structure. Neon lights buzzed in every corner. Market stalls spilled into each other, selling steam-fried dumplings, bootleg implants, hand-carved music boxes. Strung lights and recycled banners crisscrossed overhead. Murals covered every flat surface: wings, hands, wolves, gods.
Music drifted through the air, two competing songs from opposite balconies, overlapping in a strangely pleasant dissonance. And the smell. Grilled meat, incense, machine oil. Everything. All at once.
And through the centre of it all ran a river.
Maybe ten feet across. Slow and quiet, But not forgotten.
The banks weren't natural, they were concrete, sloped and stained, with raised ledges on either side where people sat or walked like it was a boardwalk. The water shimmered faintly under the neon haze, catching flashes of pink, gold, and blue from the signs above. Pipes emptied into it at odd intervals, but the smell was clean. Purified. Tamed.
Skiffs floated lazily down the centre, ferrying crates and passengers, some rigged with tiny lights that cast soft ripples across the ceiling above. Someone had even painted murals on the ledges. Wings, vines, old faces. A memory of sky on stone.
Bridges stretched across it at irregular points, most no wider than two people side-by-side, strung together with scavenged cables and grated platforms. Children ran over them barefoot. Lovers paused at the centre. One old man fished with a neon-threaded line, humming off-key to the river's rhythm.
It was surreal.
This was supposed to be the gutter. The decay. The rot hidden under Halden's spotless skin.
But this? This was life.
I stood there, staring down at the water as it passed. Not rushing. Not still. Just… moving.
Everything down here moved.
No blood in the streets. No hushed violence. No teeth bared in the dark.
There were families. Children with neon-tipped hair chasing each other through steam clouds. A couple slow dancing beside a broken vending machine. An old woman laughing so hard she had to lean on a walker made of pipework and bike handles.
"I thought-" My voice caught. "I thought the Gutter would be…"
"Worse?" Cayos said, stepping beside me, his tone unreadable.
I didn't answer. I didn't need to.
He looked out over the lights. "Everyone thinks that. They hear Gutter and picture rot. Crime. Darkness. And sure, it's all here. But so is everything else."
I turned slowly, taking it all in again.
"I always wondered," I said, "how Halden managed to stay so clean. No homelessness. No slums."
Cayos gave me a look, calm and sharp. "It didn't. They just paved over the broken parts and pretended they never happened."
Maybe Halden wasn't clean. Just censored.
"And this is what's underneath."
He nodded. "This is what's left when you push everything down."
I looked up. No sky, just girders and steel beams, flickering signs that climbed so high they vanished into shadows. Somewhere up there, the clean world still hummed, blind to the truth beneath its feet.
A kid zoomed past us on wheeled sneakers, laughing as he narrowly avoided a skewer cart.
I stared.
"This place is…"
"Alive," Cayos finished.
My stomach growled again, louder this time.
Then he grinned.
"I told you, I know a place," he said, already walking.
I followed.
What else was Halden hiding?
How deep did it go?
How did Anya fit into this?