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Good.

By the time we reached the outer service district, daylight had shifted toward evening. We stayed beneath freight structures and maintenance overhangs—more exposed, more variables, but mobile. Talia checked her borrowed wrist display.

“How far?” she asked.

“Four districts.”

“To royal territory?”

“To the first perimeter where Anik’s security can theoretically be reached.”

“Theoretically.” She repeated the word flatly.

“Yes.”

“I hate that word now.”

“It remains useful.”

She sighed, and we moved on.

For several blocks neither of us spoke. Then Talia touched my arm—light, once—and I stopped. She was looking at the bandage near my ribs.

“You’re bleeding again.”

I looked down. Minor seepage. “Functional.”

Her stare hardened. “I regret ever letting you learn that word.”

“It was mine before you.”

“Sit.”

I almost objected. Did not. We stepped into the shadow of an inactive loading bay, and she opened the small medical kit. Her fingers were careful when she lifted the edge of the seal, and I watched her face while she worked—focused, serious, close. The urge to touch her was immediate. I did not. Trust did not rebuild because I wanted it faster.

“You tore it pulling that panel,” she said.

“Likely.”

“Hold this.” She placed my hand over the dressing, and our fingers brushed. Neither of us pulled away immediately. Then she did—not rejection, boundary—and I accepted it. She resealed the wound without another word.

“Done.”

“Thank you.”

She looked at me a long moment—not surprised, just watching.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

We continued. The final Ghost entry point lay beneath an abandoned transit platform on the edge of an old military zone, and I had used its counterpart once, years ago, in a different district. Same design. The protocol worked by recognizing an operative identity no civilian system acknowledged—dead credentials passing through forgotten infrastructure. Exactly the kind of route I would choose if I needed to reach central Zunator unseen. Exactly the kind of route the Veil expected me to choose.

That thought bothered me, so I had accounted for it: three false route queries, two dead relays, one decoy transit signature sent toward the western sector. No active access under my identifier. Nothing should have pointed here.

Talia crouched beside me behind a structural support. “That’s it?”

“Yes.”