Kori didn't know what was in the pastes. She didn't know where the meat came from, or how Lay had her number, or what the warped reader was, or who was paying for the paint on the walls and the lanterns and the relay tower and all of it.
She was collecting a great many things she didn't know… And yet she walked through the colored tunnels with her hip loose, her hand quiet and a full stomach, past the painted walls and the hanging plants and the people running their small honest games and little shops, and found that the mood riding under all of it, stubborn and unfamiliar, was something close to content. She hadn't felt it in a while - she wasn't sure she trusted it, but it was there.
Then she felt the weight against her hip, the one Lay gave her to transport, and remembered her time in the Underworks wasn't quite done.
The package was a small brown parcel, wrapped in waxed paper and tied with cord, and it was heavier than its size should have been.
