Page 235 of Bride of the Forbidden Alien

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I set the water skin down and lean over the map.

“All right,” I say. “Show me where the City still thinks it is solid.”

Rosalind’s mouth almost smiles. Ila grins outright.

Adran watches from across the table, checked but not broken. Dangerous, but not dismissed. A man who will argue again.Maybe sometimes he’ll be right, and maybe that will be the worst part.

Fine.

Let the future have teeth. We have ours too.

Kavor’s thumb brushes my knuckle once. The bond answers, warm and steady.

Below us, far beneath stone, hunger, and all our fragile plans, something answers the signal in the dark.

Once.

A pause.

Again.

HFN

THE END

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