Isaac huffed a quiet laugh before he could stop it.

  The sentence inside him flared again.

  I won’t fail her again.

  And this time it didn’t feel like a warning.

  It felt like a plan.

  One unfair advantage, tucked into a bag that only listened to him, and he was going to use it to get her back to her mom.

  Zoya’s smile held for one breath.

  Then her gaze slid to the cave mouth again.

  The fear came back, right on schedule.

  But she kept the chocolate close anyway.

  Not because it was food.

  Because it was a promise she could actually hold.

  Isaac finished the wrap.

  Leaned back.

  Let her breathe.

  Zoya flexed her wrapped hand once, testing it like a tool.

  Then she grabbed the stick again like she didn’t know what to do with empty hands.

  Isaac turned the fish skewer.

  The skin crisped.

  The smell changed, warmer.

  Real.

  Zoya’s throat moved.

  Hunger flashed across her face and she hated that it showed.

  Isaac didn’t make it a moment.

  He just held the skewer out.

  Zoya stared at it like it might be a trap.

  Then she took it.

  Fast.

  No ceremony.

  She bit.

  Chewed.

  Swallowed like she was refuelling something that had been running past empty.

  For three bites she didn’t speak.

  Then she did, because the silence was too big.

  “Brimwick’s going to think I’m dead,” Zoya said.

  The words were flat, but her eyes weren’t.

  “They’ll tell my mom it was clean.”

  “They’ll say the Due was paid.”

  Isaac stayed still.

  He let her talk.

  Zoya’s fingers tightened around the skewer.

  “My mom’s the best harvester on the rim,” she said.

  Pride flashed in it, stubborn, automatic.

  “She knows Breathlings the way other people know roads.”

  “She can read when they’re pretending to lag.”

  “She can read bait.”

  “She pulls people back before the hooks ever land.”

  Her voice thinned.

  “And Luke knows it.”

  Isaac’s brows lifted slightly.

  “Luke,” he said.

  Zoya’s mouth twisted.

  “Luke Hubris,” she said, like it was what the docks called him when his back was turned.

  She spat the last name like it tasted bad.

  “He’s the Bellwarden,” she said.

  Not a title, a weight.

  “His family’s been holding that bell rope forever.”

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  She stared into the fire.

  For a moment her eyes weren’t in the cave.

  They were up there, under rain and rope-bells and watching faces.

  “After the Draft,” she said softly, “I started noticing the pattern.”

  “How he uses the docks.”

  Isaac’s head tipped a fraction.

  “Draft?”

  Zoya exhaled through her nose, like the word itself irritated her.

  “The Triune,” she said.

  “They draft Breath users into their expeditions into the Core.”

  “Teams go down looking for artifacts.”

  “And in return,” she added, voice tight with the kind of acceptance that wasn’t agreement, “the Triune keep the wards running.”

  “They keep the protection up so Brimwick survives the Breathlings.”

  Zoya’s eyes stayed on the fire.

  “My dad went,” she said.

  Two words, and the cave felt smaller.

  “He’s somewhere down here,” she went on, like saying it plain could keep it from breaking.

  “Looking for something that changes a life.”

  “One pull that makes the whole family stop being… rim-poor.”

  “One artifact that turns the story.”

  Isaac didn’t move.

  He watched her eyes instead, the way they held steady by force.

  The question that mattered stayed in his throat.

  How long?

  Because if it had been years, it would live in her face already.

  Because either answer made the air heavier.

  She looked at him like she was daring him to call any of it fair.

  “You’ll see once we get to the top.”

  Her gaze dropped, counted without meaning to.

  “We’ve been down here four days.”

  “In six moons,” she said, and the number landed like a timer bite, “the Triune come again.”

  Isaac kept quiet.

  Zoya swallowed once, hard, and kept going.

  “He talks like he’s handing out warm bread,” she said.

  “And he does it where everyone can see.”

  “A dock-plank stage, bellhouse sightline, rain in his hair like it’s part of the show.”

  “He smiles like the world is a festival he’s hosting.”

  Her shoulders lifted in a small, bitter imitation.

  “And people lean toward it,” she said.

  “Like the cold goes away if they believe him hard enough.”

  Isaac’s jaw tightened.

  Zoya’s words came out in short pieces.

  “Hands on shoulders, like blessing,” she said, and her mouth curled like the word hurt.

  “A tug at a cloak, quick and public.”

  “A palm to a kid’s head, like he’s a favourite uncle.”

  “And he says things like… ‘Good people.’ Like we’re all safe because he’s speaking.”

  Disgust flashed across her face.

  “And then he looks at my mom.”

  Zoya’s hand lifted unconsciously, feeling the press of eyes.

  “He calls her brave.”

  “The rim’s pride.”

  Says her name like it belongs to him.

  Her mouth pulled back, not a smile.

  “And he uses it.”

  Zoya’s voice dropped.

  “He doesn’t punish you in public.”

  “He turns it into care.”

  “My mom’s tired,” she mimicked, flat and sweet.

  “Harvesters get frightened.”

  “Bravery has costs.”

  “And then he’ll offer help,” she said, and the word help came out like poison.

  Zoya’s fingers tightened on the stick.

  “My mom doesn’t clap for him,” she added.

  No smile.

  No bows.

  “Just harvests.”

  “Comes home with Breath dust in her hair and blood on her sleeves.”

  “And she still feeds kids first.”

  Her voice trembled once.

  She hated that it did.

  “That makes him angry,” Isaac said quietly.

  Zoya shook her head.

  “Not angry,” she corrected.

  “Disappointed.”

  The word was worse.

  Because it was a performance the crowd understood.

  “And now,” she said, voice going dangerously steady, “if I’m dead down here…”

  “Luke gets to use it.”

  “He’ll make it a story,” she said.

  “Me going in.”

  “You jumping after.”

  “He’ll tell Brimwick it proves the rim is blessed.”

  That the system works.

  That the bell is merciful.

  “And he’ll make my mom stand there while he says it.”

  Her eyes snapped to Isaac.

  Not pleading.

  A requirement.

  “We have to get back,” she said.

  “We have to get back, and you’re going to help me put a crack in Luke.”

  Isaac nodded once.

  No speech.

  Just a decision.

  “Then we get back,” he said.

  Zoya exhaled.

  It sounded like the first time she’d let air leave her lungs on purpose.

  Isaac looked at Zoya’s linehook.

  The shard-edge caught firelight and threw a sharp glint.

  “You swapped that blade down there,” he said, trying to fit the night into his head.

  Zoya shrugged like it didn’t count.

  “Had to.”

  “The old one was done.”

  She picked the linehook up, turned it once, checked the pin and mount in a single practiced glance, then set it back within reach like it was part of her body.

  “My mom always says,” she started, voice softening without permission.

  Then she caught it and hardened again.

  “Knots are promises.”

  “Don’t tie one you can’t keep.”

  Isaac nodded.

  No teasing.

  No joke.

  He filed it the way he filed footing and wind direction.

  A commit point.

  A compass.

  Zoya stared at the fire.

  For a second she looked like she might cry.

  Then she blinked and shut it like a door.

  She ate the rest of the fish in three bites.

  Fuel.

  Then she grabbed the stick again.

  Guard posture returning because she didn’t know how to be anything else.

  Isaac shifted carefully and the cracked wing plate ticked again.

  Zoya’s head snapped toward the sound.

  “How bad is it,” she asked.

  Real.

  Isaac flexed the wing a fraction.

  Pain flared at the exposed skin.

  A warning.

  But his body stayed with him.

  No sway.

  No lag.

  “It’s angry,” he said.

  “But I’m here.”

  Zoya watched him like she was measuring whether she had to be alone again.

  Her shoulders loosened when he didn’t fall.

  Just a little.

  Isaac stood.

  Slow.

  Tested his weight.

  Still steady.

  Zoya’s hands tightened on the stick.

  “Don’t go out there,” she said immediately.

  Not attitude.

  Fear in a hard voice.

  “If you leave and something happens and you don’t come back, I’m not staying here by myself.”

  Isaac looked over his shoulder.

  He didn’t soften his face into a smile.

  He softened his voice instead.

  “I’m not leaving.”

  He pointed toward the cave mouth.

  “I’m just listening.”

  Zoya exhaled.

  Permission, given grudgingly.

  Isaac moved to the edge where purple crystal met the darker throat of the exit.

  Fog clung outside.

  Low.

  Waiting.

  The air tasted colder out there.

  Wetter.

  Older.

  Isaac held still.

  He listened.

  Nothing.

  No roar.

  No thump.

  Just the seam draft behind him.

  Just the fire’s tiny pops.

  Just Tetley’s purr, soft and steady.

  Isaac’s shoulders eased by a fraction.

  Then Tetley stopped purring.

  Abrupt.

  Isaac turned.

  The ruin-cat had gone rigid, ears forward, every muscle pulled tight.

  At his throat, the little crystal inset clouded from faint to ink-dark.

  Tetley stared at the cave mouth.

  Not at the fog.

  At whatever sat behind it.

  Like he was listening to a key turn.

  Isaac felt it.

  Not as a noise, as a shift.

  The stone held his weight differently.

  The air had a new insistence, as if the cave itself had started paying attention.

  Zoya rose behind him.

  Stick in hand.

  Linehook in the other.

  New blade catching firelight.

  Questions stayed locked behind her teeth.

  No wasted breath.

  Her voice came low.

  “Isaac.”

  He lifted one wing a fraction, ready to shield.

  His eyes stayed on the dark mouth of the cave.

  Zoya’s voice came again, smaller this time.

  Not because she was weak.

  Because she was trying not to be.

  “I couldn’t lift,” she said.

  “So I pulled.”

  Outside, the fog drew a single thin line across the stone, slow as a finger.