Ace did not sleep.
He lay curled on the studio table, eyes half-lidded, but the city hummed beneath him like a second heartbeat.
Not frantic.
Not fractured.
Aware.
Pipkin had fallen asleep upright in a chair, spectacles crooked, ledger still open. The Guild official had left hours ago with a final, quiet: "We'll be in contact."
They would.
Of course they would.
The air felt different now.
Charged.
Listening back.
Ace pressed one paw lightly to the wood again.
The relic core answered—not with a surge, but with a steady warmth.
It remembered him.
A soft knock came at dawn.
Pipkin startled awake with a squeak.
Ace lifted his head.
This knock was measured.
Controlled.
When the door opened, Director Veyr stepped inside personally this time.
He wore no ceremonial cloak.
No entourage.
Just a long dark coat and calculating eyes.
Behind him, the morning city carried on—unaware of how close it had come to a foundational failure.
"I prefer to verify matters myself," Veyr said calmly.
Pipkin adjusted his glasses nervously. "Of course you do."
Veyr's gaze moved to Ace.
"You stabilized the substructure."
Ace met his eyes.
Veyr stepped forward slowly, glancing at the faint shimmer still lingering in the rafters.
"You didn't suppress it," he observed. "You reinforced it."
Ace flicked his tail once.
Veyr's expression sharpened.
"Show me."
Pipkin stiffened. "With respect, Director, he nearly collapsed—"
"I am aware of the risk."
The room went quiet.
Ace hopped down from the table and walked to the center of the floor again.
He hesitated only briefly.
Then placed his paw down.
He did not dive fully this time.
He extended just enough.
The air shifted.
A faint silver thread traced along the floorboards in response.
Veyr saw it.
More importantly—
He felt it.
The Director inhaled sharply.
"That resonance…" he murmured. "It's synchronized."
Ace withdrew.
Veyr straightened slowly.
"The core isn't destabilizing anymore," he said quietly. "It's… harmonizing."
Pipkin blinked. "That sounds dangerously optimistic."
Veyr ignored him.
He circled the room once, studying the faint thread patterns lining the walls.
"You're not merely repairing objects," he said at last. "You're recalibrating systems."
Ace tilted his head.
Veyr met his gaze directly.
"You've become part of the city's lattice."
The words settled heavily.
Pipkin's whiskers twitched. "That was precisely what we were trying to avoid."
A faint tremor rolled beneath the floor.
Not violent.
Just… present.
Veyr felt it too this time.
His jaw tightened.
"It's responding to you."
Ace looked down.
The core pulsed once—softly.
Not demanding.
Inviting.
Veyr stepped back.
"This changes your classification."
Pipkin groaned. "I knew I hated classifications."
"You are no longer a Strategic Asset," Veyr continued. "You are now Infrastructure Adjacent."
Pipkin blinked. "That sounds worse."
"It means," Veyr said calmly, "that if the lattice shifts again, it will shift toward him."
Silence.
Ace's chest felt heavy again—but not painfully so.
Connected.
Veyr turned toward the window.
"The relic beneath the city was never meant to endure this long," he said. "Its original binders are gone. Their records incomplete."
He glanced back.
"You, however, are here."
Ace understood the implication.
He wasn't being asked to fix a single fracture.
He was being positioned as a stabilizer.
Long-term.
Pipkin stepped forward. "He is not a replacement foundation stone."
"No," Veyr agreed.
"He's something else."
Another tremor.
Softer still.
The lampposts outside did not flicker this time.
They glowed steadily.
Veyr walked to the door.
"We will reinforce the outer pylons over the coming weeks," he said. "But understand this."
He paused at the threshold.
"If the core begins to fail beyond repair… you will be the only one capable of interfacing without shattering it."
The door closed behind him.
Silence lingered.
Pipkin slowly turned to Ace.
"I would like to formally request a quieter profession," he muttered.
Ace stepped to the window.
The city stretched wide beneath the rising sun.
Stone towers.
Market stalls.
Threaded enchantments humming faintly in every direction.
He could feel the lattice now—not every detail, but its rhythm.
A massive web of memory and intention holding everything upright.
And somewhere deep below—
The relic core pulsed again.
This time, its resonance shifted slightly.
Not toward fracture.
Toward him.
A question.
Ace pressed his paw gently to the glass.
The threads in the rafters brightened faintly in response.
He wasn't absorbing.
He wasn't replacing.
He was connecting.
Pipkin joined him at the window.
"Tell me something reassuring," he said softly.
Ace looked at him.
Then at the city.
The weight inside him was immense.
But steady.
He wasn't drowning in echoes.
He was learning to balance them.
Outside, the morning bells rang.
Clear.
Harmonized.
Below the stone and sigils, the ancient core rested.
Not alone anymore.
And for the first time—
Its pulse matched another's.