Rain hammered the warehouse roof like it had something to prove. Not the gentle percussion from earlier—this was anger. Each drop hit the rusted metal hard enough to echo, filling the space with a steady, relentless drum that made thinking difficult and silence impossible. The place smelled like wet iron and burnt wiring. Old machines sat dead in the corners, stripped for parts years ago, leaving only skeletal frames and exposed circuitry. Water leaked through cracks in the ceiling, pooling in the uneven floor.
Seraph sat near the window, back against the wall, watching the distant lights of the High City blink through the haze. Her gloves were off—rare, vulnerable—and she traced the faint burn scars running across her palms. Old wounds. From the Resonance Riots, back when she still believed the Church was worth defending.
Across the room, Ilias paced. White hair damp and sticking to his forehead. Golden eyes shadowed with exhaustion. Face cut, bruised, swollen on one side where a merc had clocked him two days ago. He couldn't stay still. Kept kicking a loose bolt on the floor, watching it skitter across the concrete, over and over.
A Tense Conversation
"You should rest," Seraph said finally. Her voice was flat, measured—the tone she used when she was trying not to feel anything.
"Yeah, sure." Ilias kicked the bolt again. "And wake up with a Sanctifier blade in my throat."
She didn't answer. What could she say? He wasn't wrong. The mercs had found them two days ago—three of them, heavy armor, Church insignias filed off but still visible if you knew where to look. One of them, a big guy with a scarred face and a voice like grinding metal, had nearly caved Ilias's chest in before Seraph put half his mask through the back of his skull with a sonic disruptor.
The kid had fought back, though. Reflexes faster than she'd expected. No training, no discipline—but power. Real, raw, terrifying power. And that scared her more than the mercs ever could.
"You're getting better," she said after a long pause.
Ilias snorted. "That your polite way of saying I almost blew us both up?"
"It's my polite way of saying you didn't."
He stopped pacing. Looked at her. Almost smiled. "You're a terrible liar, you know that?"
"I'm an excellent liar," she said. "I just choose not to waste it on you."
That earned a real smile. Small. Brief. But real. The tension in the room cracked, just enough to breathe.
Reverb's Arrival
The door creaked open. Reverb stumbled in, coat soaked through, goggles hanging loose around his neck. His usual smirk was gone. He looked rattled, which was new. Reverb didn't rattle.
"We've got a problem."
Seraph didn't turn from the window. "We always have a problem."
"Yeah, but this one's breathing down our comms."
He tossed a small device onto the makeshift table—a cracked monitor jury-rigged to a salvaged transmitter. The screen flickered to life, displaying an intercepted frequency. Church encryption. High-level Church encryption. Seraph's encryption.
Her stomach dropped.
Ilias stared at the screen, then at her. "You've been pinging them?"
"No." She said it too fast. Too defensive.
"Then why does it sound like they're tracking your signal?"
The silence that followed was loud enough to drown out the rain. Seraph's jaw tightened. She'd been sending coded messages for three days—carefully, sparingly—trying to negotiate extraction for Ilias. A way out before the Church officially labeled him a "resonant threat" and deployed the full weight of the Sanctifiers. She'd been careful. Used old protocols. Dead drops. Frequency-hopping encryption.
But if they were tracing her signal… She'd handed them their location herself.
The Confrontation
The room felt smaller. The walls closer.
"You tried to save me," Ilias said quietly. His voice was steady, but his eyes burned. "And you almost got us killed."
"I did what I had to."
"No." He stepped closer. "You did what you always do. Follow orders no one's giving you anymore."
Her hand twitched toward her blade. Not to draw it—just habit. Muscle memory from years of training that said threat, respond, neutralize.
But he saw it. He saw everything.
"Don't," he said, voice low and hard. "Don't look at me like I'm your mission."
Something inside her cracked. Just a little. Just enough to hurt.
"I'm trying to keep you alive," she said, and the words came out sharper than she meant. "You think this is easy? You think I want to be here, hiding in a warehouse with a kid who doesn't know what he is, hunted by the only people I ever—"
She stopped. Swallowed. Looked away.
Ilias stared at her for a long moment. Then, quieter: "The only people you ever what?"
She didn't answer.
The Streets of the Morrows
Outside, the rain kept falling. While they sat in silence, the streets below were waking up. The Morrows never really slept—just shifted. Day noise became night noise. Legal deals became illegal ones. Church hymns faded, replaced by the low hum of choir dust dealers whispering prices in the alleys.
Choir dust. Synthetic resonance scraped from dead Tuned. Ground down, refined, sold in tiny vials that glowed faint green in the dark. The Church called it heresy. The poor called it mercy.
A girl—maybe sixteen, maybe older, hard to tell down here—leaned against a rusted fire escape, eyes too tired for her face. She held a vial up to the light, watching it shimmer. She whispered a prayer. Not to any god. Not to the Source. Just to the quiet between her own heartbeats.
The Knock
An hour later, when the rain had eased to a drizzle, a knock echoed from the side entrance. Three sharp taps. Pause. Two more.
Reverb checked the security feed, frowned. "Gang colors. Crimson Jacks."
Ilias's face changed. "Let him in."
Seraph's hand moved to her blade. "You know this guy?"
"Yeah." Ilias crossed to the door. "He saved my life once."
"That doesn't mean he won't sell you out now."
"I know." He unlocked the door. "But he won't."
The door slid open, and in walked a man built like a riot shield. Broad shoulders. Thick arms covered in scars and ink. Red bandanna tied around his head, colors of the Crimson Jacks worn openly despite the Church's crackdown on gangs. He had a grin too confident for the situation, and eyes that had seen too much to be surprised by anything.
"Damn, Ilias." His voice was deep, rough, warm. "You look like you lost a fight with a freight train."
"You should see the train," Ilias shot back.
They hugged—quick, rough, real. The kind of hug that said I thought you were dead without needing words.
Seraph watched, tense, scanning for weapons. The gang leader—Kojo—noticed. Of course he did.
"Relax, soldier girl." He raised his hands, showing empty palms. "I left my toys at home."
"Bullshit," Seraph said flatly.
Kojo laughed. "Okay, most of my toys."
But his eyes lingered on her. Not attraction. Not threat. Recognition.
And in that moment, Reverb saw it. The faint shimmer in the air around Kojo's throat. A distortion—subtle, almost invisible, but there. Like his voice was vibrating at a frequency slightly off from normal human range.
Reverb's fingers twitched toward his scanner.
An Offer
"So," Kojo said, clapping Ilias on the shoulder. "Heard you've been making noise. Big noise. Council's got half the city looking for you."
"Yeah, well." Ilias shrugged, tired. "I'm popular."
"Popular's one word for it." Kojo's grin faded slightly. "Dangerous is another."
"You here to lecture me?"
"Nah." Kojo glanced at Seraph, then back to Ilias. "I'm here to offer you a way out."
Seraph's eyes narrowed. "What kind of way out?"
"The kind where he doesn't end up in a Church black site or a Cult ritual chamber." Kojo leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "The Jacks have been moving people out of the city. Untuned, mostly. People the Church wants gone. We've got routes. Safe houses. Contacts on the outer settlements."
"And you're offering this out of the goodness of your heart?" Seraph asked, voice dripping skepticism.
Kojo's grin came back. "Hell no. I'm offering because Ilias pulled my little sister out of a collapsed building during the Riots. Saved her life. Far as I'm concerned, I owe him."
Ilias blinked. "Mira's okay?"
"She's alive. Which is more than most people can say." Kojo's expression softened, just for a second. "You did that. So yeah—I owe you. And I pay my debts."
The Urgency
Reverb cleared his throat. "Not to interrupt this touching reunion, but we've got a bigger problem."
Everyone turned to him.
He pointed at the screen. "The Church signal? It just went active again. And it's not just tracking anymore. They're triangulating."
Seraph's blood went cold. "How long do we have?"
"Twenty minutes. Maybe less."
Kojo straightened, all business now. "Then we move. Now."
"Where?" Ilias asked.
"Somewhere they won't look." Kojo pulled out a small device—a frequency jammer, Church-grade. "Somewhere even I didn't know existed until last week."
Seraph stared at the jammer. "Where the hell did you get that?"
Kojo's grin was sharp, dangerous. "Let's just say the Cult of Silence isn't the only group interested in our boy here."
And in that moment, Reverb's scanner pinged. Loud. Sharp. Undeniable.
The Revelation
He looked at the readout. Then at Kojo. Then at Ilias.
"He's Tuned," Reverb said quietly. "High-level. Maybe even Divine-tier."
Kojo's grin didn't waver. "Took you long enough to notice."
Seraph's blade was out in a heartbeat, humming cold and sharp. "Start talking. Right now."
Kojo raised his hands again, still smiling. "Easy, soldier girl. I'm not your enemy."
"Then what are you?"
He looked at Ilias. Really looked at him. And his smile faded into something older, sadder, more honest.
"I'm someone who knows who you are," he said quietly. "And I'm here to help you ."