A weak laugh escaped her and turned into one last cough. “You are cruel in kind ways.”

Elias said, “I’m trying for efficient.”

She looked at him from under wet lashes, and some new measure entered the look. Not the loose curiosity she had shown him before. Not pity either. Recognition, perhaps. As if he had moved, by force of what he had done, from strange object to person.

“They did not know,” she said.

“No.” The word came out sharper than he intended. He glanced at the people on the paths, the bright calm of the park, the clean rails and planted stone. “They should have known enough to move.”

Lina pressed her forehead to his chest for a moment, gathering herself. “When there is a bad thing, most turn soft. It is easier.”

Elias asked, “Soft how?”

She did not answer at once. He felt her breathing slow. Somewhere above them a guide tone sounded, low and pleasant. Several people on the terrace changed direction together without seeming to notice.

“When someone does not fit,” she said at last, “or asks too long, or wakes wrong after the sleep rooms… they go below.”

Elias went still.

Elias said, “Who takes them?”

“Not take like hands.” She frowned, fighting for the shape of it. “Called. Guided. Doors open. People in dark clothes sometimes. Sometimes no one. Then after…” She tapped one finger against her temple. “After, the edges are gone.”

He kept his voice very quiet. “The edges of what?”