Morning came through Patricia Bloom's floor-to-ceiling windows like the city had been saving it just for him—gold and white, molten and generous, pouring in thick waves that turned the Hell River into a living mirror below.
The water caught the early sun and scattered it upward in slow, hypnotic ripples across the high ceiling, patterns that danced and shifted like breathing things, alive with quiet promise.
The blue LED strips along the walls had dimmed to faint, ghostly veins—barely there pulses in the corners where wall kissed ceiling, the apartment's heartbeat finally at rest after the long, fevered night.
Phei stirred.
He blinked once.
Twice.
