He listened despite himself. The channel narrowed under the crossing, and the water changed pitch as it struck old metal hidden below the flow. There it was: a high thin note under the rush, almost like breath through a pipe.

“You come back to this place often?” he asked.

She nodded. “When I want to feel small in a good way.”

Elias said, “And alone?”

“No.” She said it at once, and softer than before. “Not now.”

The words landed with more force than they should have. Trust here was so light it could be mistaken for habit, but she had chosen to stay with him after the tower, after the shaft, after every blunt demand he had aimed at her. He knew enough about damaged systems to see a narrow opening when it appeared.

So he ruined it.

“When someone is taken below,” he said, keeping his voice low, “who decides that? Is it the tower? Is there an intake point? Do they assess for labor, for behavior, for—”

Lina stopped walking.

People drifted around them in lazy curves, content to adjust rather than confront. A child paused to stare at Elias's rust-streaked clothes, then drifted after the others when a soft tone sounded overhead.

Lina folded her arms across herself. “I said not all the names stay.”

Elias said, “You know enough to fear it.”

Her gaze dropped to the stone underfoot. “Fear stays longer.”

He opened his mouth, closed it. The crossing was only a few steps ahead. Water hissed through the gap beneath it, bright as torn foil in the sun.

“All right,” he said, though the word scraped on the way out. “No more now.”