Morning arrived on schedule.
Light slipped through the window in the same thin blade it always did, catching on the edge of the sill and the dry leaves of the plant.
The city hummed itself awake with practiced economy. Nothing stuttered. Nothing apologized.
Mara stayed still, eyes open.
Sene groaned from the lower bunk and rolled onto her back, one arm flung dramatically over her face. "I hate mornings," she muttered, like it was a personal philosophy. "They're always too confident."
Mara huffed softly. "You didn't even hear it?"
"Hear what?" Sene said, already sitting up, hair a mess of knots and sleep. She squinted at Mara. "You look like you lost a fight."
"There was a lullaby," Mara said. She kept her voice careful, small. "Late. And someone knocked. Three times."
Sene blinked, slow and unbothered. "Lullabies?" She rubbed her eyes. "They don't play those that late anymore."
"They did."
"And a knock?"
"Yes."
Sene considered that for half a second, then shrugged and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
"You dream hard," she said gently. "You always have."
Mara watched her.
"You didn't hear anything?" Mara asked again.
"Just you breathing like you were about to run," Sene said. She tugged on a sock. "And some weird dreams. Nothing worth remembering."
That landed harder than Mara expected.
Sene reached for her boots, then paused when Mara's hand emerged from under the blanket. "You okay?" she asked, voice thick with leftover sleep.
Mara nodded. It was easier than explaining. "Did you feel… off? At all?"
Sene frowned, then shook her head. "No. Normal." She smiled, crooked and familiar. "If the city wanted us awake, it would've made more noise."
Mara let it go.
Sene's disbelief wasn't stubbornness. It was practical. You didn't survive here by arguing with things you couldn't prove.
They dressed quickly. Mara wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and let the keepsong rest tied unskilfully with a wire, as a pendant in her neck, pressed against her skin, hidden inside the fabric of her clothes.
It felt heavier than it had an hour earlier, warm in a way that made her fingers tingle. Outside, the lane smelled like frying oil and detergent. Carts scraped over stone. Vendors
lifted shutters with the same practiced gestures they'd used for years. Life resumed with a
politeness that felt deliberate.
They walked together toward the market.
"Traffic's blocked at the Meridian," Sene said, glancing at her handheld. "Maintenance."
"Was there a notice last night?" Mara asked.
Sene shrugged. "Probably. I tuned everything out."
"You tuned out a knock," Mara said, sharper than she meant to.
Sene glanced sideways at her. "You're stuck on this."
"There was someone at the door." Mara said.
"Or someone in the hall," Sene said. "Or someone checking a list. Or no one at all." She softened her tone. "You know how this place is. If it mattered, it would've escalated."
Mara didn't answer. If it mattered felt like a dangerous phrase.
At the first stall, the fruit seller squinted at Mara and smiled as if he'd been expecting her. "You're up early," he said, pressing a pear into her hand. "On the house."
"I didn't ask—"
"You always do," he said cheerfully.
Mara took it. Refusing felt like declaring a difference she didn't want noticed. The first bite tasted faintly metallic, sweet underneath. She chewed slowly and watched his hands. They gave nothing away.
Mara's scar prickled.
At noon she ducked into a narrow tea stall that smelled like ginger and old metal. The
proprietor poured water into a chipped mug and slid it across the counter without asking. "For you," he said. "Warm you up."
Mara folded her hands around the cup because manners were currency. "Did anyone post anything about last night?"
she asked, careful to keep her voice casual. He looked up, puzzled. "Post what? No. They don't do that." He smiled apologetically, as if she'd asked him for weather in winter.
"People are tired." She watched him for a beat.
A man at the corner table looked up from his paper and nodded toward the board as if acknowledging its presence. "Everything's fine," he said. Fine like a bandage stretched too tight.
The tea stall was narrow enough that Mara had to turn sideways to let people pass. Steam clung to the low ceiling, fogging the single light into a tired halo. The air smelled of ginger, metal, and old water that had been boiled too many times. She liked this place because it was loud in the right way.
Cups clinked. Kettles hissed. Conversations overlapped and cancelled each other out. Sound dissolved here. It made thinking easier. Mara took the chipped mug from the counter and wrapped her hands around it.
The heat steadied her. Across from her, an older man argued gently with the proprietor about sugar ratios, the kind of argument that had been happening here for years and would continue regardless of who was listening.
She lifted the mug. Halfway to her lips, she stopped.
The feeling came first—sharp, localized. Not fear. Not quite. The unmistakable sensation of attention landing and staying put. Mara did not look up.
She took a sip, too hot, and let the sting give her something to focus on. People brushed past her shoulder. Someone laughed. The city continued to be itself.
Still, the sensation remained. She shifted her weight slightly, angling her body so she could
see the stall's reflection in the polished steel of the kettle without turning her head.
A figure stood at the far end of the stall. Hood up. Face lost to shadow. Not ordering. Not drinking.
Just there, occupying space without claiming it. Mara told herself that meant nothing. People lingered. People waited. People were tired. She took another sip.
The keepsong warmed against her chest. Not hot. Not vibrating. Just… aware.
The figure did not move. She felt as though she had seen it before somewhere. Mara's gaze
flicked to the counter. The proprietor was speaking animatedly now, unaware.
The older man nodded, smiling. No one else seemed to notice the stillness at the stall's edge. She swallowed. Don't react, she told herself. Reaction was a kind of invitation. She adjusted
her grip on the mug, letting her fingers relax deliberately.
Her breath slowed. She focused on the mundane details—the chip in the rim, the faint ring left by countless other cups, the way the steam curled and vanished.
The sensation sharpened. It wasn't the feeling of being watched by eyes.
It was the feeling of being evaluated.
Mara felt suddenly, irrationally, like a shape being compared against a template. She risked a glance
The hooded figure's head tilted—just slightly. Not toward her face. Toward her chest. Mara's pulse jumped hard enough that she nearly sloshed tea over the rim. She lowered the mug carefully.
The keepsong pressed warm and insistent against her skin, as if responding to proximity. Her scar prickled, a fine electric itch that made her jaw tighten.
She shifted again, putting the counter between her and the figure.
The kettle's reflection wavered as someone bumped the stall.
When it steadied, the figure was closer.
Not by much. One step. Two, maybe. Still no face.
Mara's mind raced through possibilities she refused to finish.
Compliance officer? System proxy? Someone else entirely? The city had ways of wearing people like wind.
The proprietor called out a number. Someone cursed softly. A chair scraped. The figure stopped. Mara looked at the keepsong for a moment.
She finished her tea in three controlled swallows and set the mug down with care, as if any sudden noise might count against her.
Her movements were precise now, stripped of casualness.
She reached into her pocket and placed payment on the counter—exact change, no lingering.
As she called to Sene and turned to leave, the hooded figure spoke.
Not loudly. Not to her. "Careful," the voice said, low and almost kind. "Things echo in places like this."
The kettle behind her hissed. Mara did not respond.
She stepped into the flow of bodies outside the stall, letting the noise swallow her whole. She did not look back.
She walked until the warmth in her palm cooled to something manageable.
"Mara! wait! slow down, what happened?" exclaimed Sene as she struggled to keep up with mara's pace.
Only when she was a full block away did she realize her shoulders were locked so tight they ached. She loosened her grip.
Mara tried not to think of the hooded figure or the incident.
She tried hard to brush it off. Ignorance and keeping to herself was the way of survival mara had learnt living in the city though she felt as if the city would not want her to be any other way.
They passed the registry kiosk — a plain terminal where names were logged and forgotten in equal measure. Mara paused out of habit and typed her name.
The screen flickered.
Then settled.
BUILDINGCHECK—LASTNIGHT NO INCIDENT RECORDED
AUDIORECALIBRATIONCOMPLETE
Mara's mouth went dry.
She caught Sene's sleeve. "Look."
Sene leaned in, read it once, then shrugged. "Default notation," she said. "Everything's 'no incident' unless someone bleeds."
"But there was a knock."
Sene studied her more carefully this time. "Maybe it was protocol," she said slowly. "That happens."
The word sat between them, cool and sharp.
Mara let go of her sleeve. She broke off from Sene
"I'll meet you back at the room. I need some air."
She took the long way back.
Not because it was safer — because it gave her time to feel whether the city would follow.
It didn't.
Neon signs flickered awake. Someone argued about prices. A tram groaned past, late but forgiven. Everything behaved exactly as expected, which made the memory of the night feel like a private mistake.
When she reached the building, the corridor lights brightened automatically. No footsteps echoed behind her. No doors opened.
Inside, Sene hummed while folding laundry.
The melody drifted, casual, until it slid into a phrase that hadn't been in the public cycles the
night before. Sene stopped.
"…Was I humming?" she asked.
Mara's throat tightened. "Yeah."
Sene wrinkled her nose. "Weird. I don't even remember learning it."
"Maybe you heard it at the plaza," Mara said.
Sene shrugged and tied a knot in a shirt. "Maybe."
She hesitated, then glanced at Mara. "You've been acting strange lately."
Mara didn't answer.
She sat on the edge of her bunk and opened her hand.
The keepsong lay there, dull and unremarkable. No warmth. No vibration. If it hadn't spoken to her — if it hadn't pressed itself into her awareness like a held breath — she might have believed it was just metal.
She turned it once.
For a moment — only a moment — something aligned. Recognition.
Then it slipped away.
That night, there was no lullaby. There was no knock.
The city's hum returned to its familiar register, even and forgiving, seams pulled tight. The
city behaved as though nothing had asked to be remembered.
Mara lay awake anyway, listening to ordinary sounds: Sene's breathing, boots scraping upstairs, the distant clatter of a tram. Each noise felt deliberate now, weighted with the possibility of being chosen later.
She did not reach for the keepsong.
She let it rest where it was, between her and the city. And waited.